I was born in Düsseldorf in 1969 and grew up there, but I always wanted to go out into the wide world.
I travelled regularly to Paris when I was sixteen, and as soon as I was of age I moved to London and worked there for five years (as a chambermaid) in a luxury hotel on Piccadilly.
I have been writing for as long as I can remember and whenever I found time.

Actually, I only returned to Germany from London to study history, because I wanted to try my hand at the genre of the historical novel, but knew that I would first have to acquire the necessary tools.

My attachment to London has remained, however, and England will always be the preferred setting for my novels. I grew up there, so to speak, and learned to live independently.

So it is not surprising that I focused my studies on English history. In 2003, I completed my master‘s degree in history, English studies and art history. Finally, as a student assistant and later as a research assistant at the Institute for the History of Medicine at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, I discovered how exciting this sub-field of history can be for non-medics as well.

I am a member of the authors‘ group of German-language crime literature - the Syndikat -, the Historical Novel Society and the Catholic Record Society.


After the series of historical crime novels featuring the Jesuit priest Jeremy Blackshaw and the historical novels "Das Jungfrauenspiel" and "Die Kurtisane des Teufels", which were published by Knaur under my name Sandra Lessmann between 2005 and 2017, my novel "Die Champagner Fürstin" has been published by Goldmann under the pseudonym Annette Fabiani in June 2022.


At www.sandra-lessmann.de you will find information about the Jeremy Blackshaw crime series and other historical novels.