I lived in South Africa until the age of fifteen. I had a very sheltered upbringing in a small town called Port Elizabeth where nothing much seemed to happen. I remember the legions of wild tortoises that used to appear in our gardens and on our streets and when I was not studying spent most of my time in the garden with my brothers playing and looking for creatures under the rocks in our garden. I began writing stories at the age of five. After studying English, I went on to qualify as a lawyer. I hated it and knew from the first day that I would rather be writing. I now live in London with my husband and three children. My first two books are based in South Africa. Blue Sky Freedom is not really autobiographical but the setting and plot does draw heavily on what I remember from my childhood and learned afterwards about the apartheid system. The Red Dress which is set in the 1940's draws on my mother's warm, protected but claustrophobic childhood.