Jennifer Ridyard

Jennifer Ridyard is a South African-born journalist and author who co-writes the Chronicles of the Invaders young-adult science-fiction trilogy with novelist John Connolly, her husband. Set on an Earth conquered decades earlier by the Illyri, a technologically superior alien species ruling the planet through a mix of military occupation and uneasy cooperation with human collaborators, the series follows Syl Hellais, the Illyri governor's daughter, who grows up believing her people's rule is basically benign until direct contact with the human resistance forces her to reconsider everything she has been taught. Before turning to fiction, Ridyard worked as a journalist, and that background informs the series' interest in propaganda, occupation, and the way official narratives shape what a population believes about its own history — themes that sit alongside the trilogy's more conventional YA elements of forbidden romance and coming-of-age rebellion. Chronicles of the Invaders represents a genre departure for her co-author Connolly, better known for adult crime and supernatural fiction, and the collaboration lets Ridyard's interest in occupation and resistance narratives shape a series aimed at a younger readership than most of Connolly's other work.