Hoyt was born on November 18, 1962 in the village of Granja, Aguas Santas, Maia near Porto, Portugal, a major port city on the Atlantic coast. Educated in both Portugal and the US, she graduated from University of Porto, with a Master's equivalent in Modern Languages and Literature with a major in English and a minor in German. She also speaks Swedish, Italian and French, with varying degrees of fluency. Married in 1985 to Dan Hoyt (a science fiction author and mathematician [1], she has two teenaged sons. She became a United States citizen in 1988 in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is a member of Mensa, SFWA, MWA, and RWA. She was the first female member of the Associação Atlética de Aguas Santas (the sports club in Aguas Santas Maia).
A noted author, Hoyt writes fiction in various genres. Most notably, the first book in her Shakespearean fantasy series [2] Ill Met by Moonlight [3], was a finalist for the 2002 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award [4] (which was instead won by Lois McMaster Bujold).
Her Musketeer's series [5] includes Death of a Musketeer [6], a Mystery Book Club selection and The Musketeer's Seamstress [7] as well as The Musketeer's Apprentice [8] and the soon to be published A Death in Gascony from Berkley Prime Crime.
Her favourite genre, however, remains science fiction and fantasy, and Hoyt is a prolific writer with dozens of short stories published to her credit. [9] Her shifter series [10] include Draw One in the Dark and Gentleman Takes a Chance an urban fantasy adventure [11], from Baen Books.
The British Empire Series [12], soon to be published by Bantam, takes place in a parallel world, where history from Charlemagne to Queen Victoria parallels ours but is actuated through the workings of magic and not by science and technology. The series consists of three books: Heart Of Light, which takes place in Victorian Africa; Soul of Fire, which unfolds in India; and Heart And Soul, which enmeshes itself in the chaos of 19th century China. Against this background, the books display the full panoply of human heroism and villainy and the workings of three grand romances.
Under the house name Laurien Gardner, she has written Plain Jane for Jove Books Historical Fiction. In collaboration with Eric Flint, she is working on a novel set in the popular 1632 universe (the working title is By Any Other Name). She also edited the anthology Something Magic This Way Comes, featuring such SF writers as Esther Friesner, Harry Turtledove, Irene Radford, Dave Freer, and others, from DAW Books.
She currently lives in Colorado. When she isn't busy with her writing, she may be found on Baen's Bar in Sarah's Diner, where she gently encourages fine food, conversation and nurtures fledgling authors.
More recently, she was featured on a podcast, The Future And You [13]. Produced by Stephen Euin Cobb, the show featured Sarah de Almeida Hoyt, David Drake, Alan Dean Foster, Dr Travis Taylor, and Stephen L Antczak.
