Elizabeth Hawksley was brought up in a Georgian manor house in Co. Durham, and spent most of her days writing poems and stories or reading her way through her grandfather’s 19th century library. After a hellish stint at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, she was sent to Paris to be ‘finished’ - but thankfully ended up at the Sorbonne.

After years of working in theatre, she turned back to writing novels, with part-time teaching to help pay the bills. Later, to stop herself worrying about her children’s A-levels, she did an MA in Victorian Studies at Birkbeck College.

Elizabeth is the author of a dozen historical novels, together with Getting the Point, a punctuation guide for adults co-authored with Jenny Haddon. She takes writers’ workshops and gives talk on various writerly things; is the UK Children’s Book Reviews editor for the Historical Novel Society; reviews for the Islington Archaeology & History Society Journal, and is a member of the Islington Writers for Children, and of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

Her abiding loves are travel and history - heaven is a pile of interesting books to read, a ruined Greek temple nearby, Mozart to listen to, and a meal with friends in the evening. Oh, and she wouldn’t mind if Rupert of the Rhine, John Donne or Lord Byron dropped round later – for conversation, naturally.