Press & Media
Everything you need to write about Blake Gunnels, feature his books, or prepare for an interview, event, book club, or bookstore appearance.
Downloadable Assets
Author Bios
Short Bio
Blake Gunnels is a practicing landscape architect and writer whose work is shaped by a lifetime of returning to the shores of Saint Simons Island, Georgia. His debut novel, By the Light of the Bluff, won the 2025 International Firebird Book Award for Southern Fiction. His Cape Fear Thriller Series introduces harbormaster Nora Banks in the waterways of coastal North Carolina. Blake lives in Casselberry, Florida.
Long Bio
Blake Gunnels is a practicing landscape architect and writer whose work is shaped by a lifetime of returning to the shores of Saint Simons Island, Georgia. He designs coastal and resort properties across Florida by profession - and writes fiction in the found moments of his life.
His debut novel, By the Light of the Bluff, was inspired by nearly twenty years of summer visits to Saint Simons Island with his family - climbing the lighthouse, kayaking the marsh creeks, walking beneath the ancient oaks. It won the 2025 International Firebird Book Award for Southern Fiction.
His Cape Fear Thriller Series introduces harbormaster Nora Banks in the waterways of coastal North Carolina, beginning with What the Tide Took.
Blake believes that the places we return to again and again are trying to tell us something. His fiction is an attempt to listen.
He lives in Casselberry, Florida.
Books
By the Light of the Bluff
Southern Historical Fiction | BluffLight Series Book 1
Winner - 2025 International Firebird Book Award for Southern Fiction
Saint Simons Island, 1873. A young widow arrives on Georgia's Golden Isles fleeing a violent past, hoping she's come far enough away to be safe. She finds refuge tending a lighthouse rising over the bluff - and discovers purpose, community, and the quiet strength it takes to build a life in a place that finally feels like home.
What the Tide Took
Coastal Thriller | Cape Fear Thriller Series Book 1
Nora Banks has been harbormaster at Southport Marina for twelve years. She knows these waters, these boats, and the people who work them. But when her cousin Mary surfaces with questions about an accident that killed three people years ago - and then disappears - Nora starts pulling at threads that someone powerful wants left alone.
Speaking Topics
- Turning a Lifelong Passion into a Published Book
- Writing Coastal Fiction and Creating a Sense of Place
- Saint Simons Island, Lighthouses, and the Stories of the Southern Coast
- From Landscape Architecture to Award-Winning Fiction
- Creating Fiction Rooted in Real Places
- Building Memorable Settings Readers Never Forget
Available for select book clubs, libraries, reader groups, author events, and speaking engagements as scheduling permits. Blake can also speak specifically about By the Light of the Bluff, What the Tide Took, the BluffLight world, or the Cape Fear Thriller Series.
Contact
For interviews, review copies, speaking inquiries, event bookings, and wholesale orders:
Email: blake@blufflight.com
Website: blakegunnels.com
Facebook: facebook.com/BlakeGunnelsAuthor
Instagram: @tbgunn