Vanessa Croft is an Aotearoa New Zealand historical novelist with a passion for bringing the past to life. Born in Australia, she spent her childhood in Nigeria and Papua New Guinea, where her civil engineer father’s work fostered a lifelong love of travel, history and the natural world. With a background in humanities and research, she is an avid armchair historian whose novels explore the landscapes, people and untold stories of nineteenth-century Aotearoa.
Her debut novel, Where in All the World, was a Historical Novel Society Editor’s Choice, and is a finalist in the 2026 Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Awards. It has recently been acquired by Regal House Publishing for publication throughout the English-speaking world (excluding Australia and New Zealand).
Vanessa lives on a colonial-era farm in New Zealand’s spectacular South Island with her adventurer husband, two teenagers, five hens and far too many books.
