Sing It to Her Bones, Marcia Talley's debut Hannah Ives novel, won the Malice Domestic Grant in 1998 and was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel in 1999. The second book in the series, Unbreathed Memories, was published in 2000. The Mystery Guild included both of them as alternates. She's also the editor of Naked Came the Phoenix, a collaborative serial novel in which she collaborated with twelve bestselling female authors to write a tongue-in-cheek mystery set in an exclusive health resort. Her short stories have been published in journals and anthologies.

Talley and her husband, Barry, a professor at the US Naval Academy, live in Annapolis, Maryland. She enjoys traveling and sailing when she is not writing.