About Karina

“I always wanted to be a story-teller, from a very early age, not just a writer.”

“With a family like mine, there's no shortage of inspiration; wharfies, trucking, bookmakers and political players,” Karina says, “add divided families and secret children to the mix and, well, there's a lot of experience and emotion to draw from.”

During business hours Karina was, until recently, a finance journalist uncovering almost every major financial event, fallout and scandal since the 1987 global share market crash. She has a passion for consumer rights and social justice and is a strong financial rights advocate.

Although she is recently a fiction novelist, Karina has had more than 3 million words published in articles for newspapers, magazines and news websites around the world – equivalent to more than 30 novels! She has also written three non-fiction books.

Karina's debut novel Where the Truth Lies was shortlisted for:
2021 The Davitt Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction
2021 The Davitt Award for Best Adult Crime Fiction
2021 The Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel
2020 The Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Fiction
2017 The Victorian Premiers Literary Award (unpublished manuscript)

Karina's second novel and international debut Against Their Will is to be released in the US and Canada in May 2026.

Karina is of Maori heritage (Ngai Tahu) and says she was "lucky" to grow up in Aotearoa New Zealand – aka Middle Earth! Although she dropped out of high school early, she later studied for a business degree and journalism at New Zealand's Massey University.

Karina is chairman of the Australian Crime Writers Association and for many years was a convenor for Sisters in Crime. She is a current judge for several international literary awards.

Her journalism career also included being a former Books Editor for Australia's largest daily newspaper, The Herald Sun, and she is a keen ongoing book reviewer. Karina is an associate editor and co-host of the 13,000+ Global Girls Online Book Club which regularly interviews authors from around the world.

Karina splits her time between the bustling inner-city suburb of St Kilda in Melbourne and Apollo Bay, a small seaside town along Australia's wild Great Ocean Road. After 11 years as a surf lifesaver Karina has now hung up her lifesaving membership.

She is writing her next novel.