About the Author: Dr. BRANDY SCHILLACE (skil-AH-chay) PhD is a historian, novelist, and television show host. Formerly an editor for two journals, Brandy works as a freelance journalist as well as a writer of nonfiction and fiction. Brandy has written about death and dying, Cold War medicine, bioethics, and organ transplant and the history of accidents. Her most recent book, THE INTERMEDIARIES, tells the forgotten, daring history of trans activists, gender affirming surgeries, and the fight for LGBTQ rights in the shadow of the Third Reich. In fiction, Brandy is author of THE FRAMED WOMEN OF ARDEMORE HOUSE, and THE DEAD COME TO STAY, the first two novels in a mystery series featuring a neurodivergent protagonist. Brandy has bylines at WSJ, Scientific American, Globe and Mail, HuffPo, WIRED, and UNDARK. She is host of Unsolved Mysteries of Medicine (2025) and the popular YouTube livestream, Peculiar Book Club, featuring bestselling authors of unusual nonfiction, from Lindsey Fitzharris and Mary Roach to Ed Yong and Deborah Blum. She has appeared on Mysteries at the Museum with Don Wildman, The Unbelievable with Dan Akroyd, Secrets Declassified with David Duchovny, and Histories Greatest Mysteries with Laurence Fishburne. Brandy gives regular keynotes and participates in other speaking events, and is a tireless advocate for social justice, disability and LGBTQ representation.

About The Intermediaries: An expert in medical history, Brandy Schillace tells the story of the Institute through the eyes of Dora Richter, an Institute patient whom we follow in her quest to transition and live as a woman. While the colorful but ultimately tragic arc of Weimar Berlin is well documented, The Intermediaries is the first book to assert the inseparable, interdependent relationship of sex science to both the queer rights movement and the permissive Weimar culture, tracking how political factions perverted that same science to suit their own ends. This riveting book brings together forgotten scientific and surgical discoveries (including previously untranslated archival material from Berlin) with the politics and social history that galvanized the first stirrings of the trans rights movement. Through its unforgettable characters and immersive, urgent storytelling, The Intermediaries charts the relationships between nascent sexual science, queer civil rights, and the fight against fascism. It tells riveting stories of LGBTQ pioneers—a surprising, long-suppressed history—and offers a cautionary tale in the face of today’s oppressive anti-trans legislation.

About The Framed Women of Ardemore House: Jo Jones has always had a little trouble fitting in. As a neurodivergent, hyperlexic book editor and divorced New Yorker transplanted into the English countryside, Jo doesn’t know what stands out more: her Americanisms or her autism. And that was before the body on the carpet… After losing her job, her mother, and her marriage all in one year, Jo couldn’t be happier to take possession of a possibly haunted family estate in North Yorkshire. But when the moody town groundskeeper is murdered on her property, Jo finds herself in potential danger—and as a potential suspect. At the same time, a mystifying family portrait vanishes from a secret room in the manor, bearing a strange connection to both the dead body and Jo’s mysterious family history. With the aid of a Welsh antiques dealer, the morose local detective, and the Irish innkeeper’s wife, Jo embarks on a mission to clear herself of blame and find the missing painting, unearthing a slew of secrets about the town—and herself—along the way. And she’ll have to do it all before the killer strikes again…