M. L. Rio is an author, but before she was an author she was an actor, and before she was an actor she was just a word nerd whose best friends were books. She holds an MA in Shakespeare Studies from King's College London and Shakespeare's Globe and a PhD in early modern English literature from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her first novel, <a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20054906W" target="_blank">***If we were Villains***</a>, was published in April 2017 by Flatiron Books and has since become an international bestseller.