Therese is the New York Times, IndieBound, USA Today and international bestselling author of multiple novels including It All Comes Down to This, A Good Neighborhood, A Well Behaved Woman, and Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, which was adapted for television starring Christina Ricci. 

Her books have been among NPR’s Best Books of the year; finalist for the Goodreads Choice Award and the Southern Book Prize for fiction; have been Library Reads, Book of the Month, Barnes & Noble Book Club, and Amazon Editor's Pick selections; are frequently called “bookclub gold,” and are sold in translation worldwide.

Her next novel, the historical odyssey Perilous Beautiful World, is scheduled for release from Crown Fiction on Jan. 12, 2027.

Some "Therese Trivia" includes the fact that she was among the first girls in the U.S. to play Little League baseball; she once held school records for chin-ups and the 440m run; she was the first girl to be a drummer in her high school's marching band; for a time she supported herself and her two young sons by selling used cars at CarMax; she published her first novel at age 40 (the UK edition of a now-out-of-print book called Souvenir); she got her first tattoo at age 42; and she and her novel Z have been Jeopardy! clues four times–so far!

Therese was born in western Illinois and lived there until moving with her then-husband to Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Other places she's made her home include northern Minnesota and central Wisconsin, before she finally settled in North Carolina in 1995.

As a single parent in her 30s, Therese pursued a BA in sociology/cultural anthropology, graduating summa cum laude from North Carolina State University with a 4.0 GPA, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She then pursued an MFA in creative writing, also from NCSU. There she met her current, final, and best husband, award-winning author John Kessel.