Kevin Sands is an award-winning children's writer from Ontario. His literary career began in 2015 with the publication of The Blackthorn Key, a middle grade fantasy novel about the adventures of an orphaned apothecary's apprentice. The book received the John Spray Mystery Award and was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Best YA Crime Novel Award. He's continued the bestselling Blackthorn Key series with Mark of the Plague, The Assassin's Curse and Call of the Wraith.