I live in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, with my husband and my daughter, Catrin, when she is not away at university. I was born and brought up in Solihull. After school I went to Warwick University where I took a degree in History and Politics. I then became a teacher and taught History, then English in comprehensive schools. It was during this time that I began to write.

I started as a direct response to the pupils I was teaching. They liked exciting stories, thrillers and chillers, but most of the books like this were American. They wanted the action to be set in Britain, involving ordinary kids like them. At around the same time, someone told me a true story, which fitted the bill exactly, so I thought I'd try turning it into a thriller for teenagers. This became my first novel. I began writing it in 1989 and it was finally published in 1993. I have written many more books since then.

The kind of book I decide to write will depend on the initial idea. Sometimes this might be things that interest me suddenly connecting together, or it could be something that has been in my mind for a long time that suddenly comes to the surface. This happened with Witch Child.