Wizards, magical evil, goddesses, a good measure of adventure, and other fantasy elements are the basis for several of Canadian author Tanya Huff's young adult novels. In addition to these more traditional fantasy novels, Huff is also the author of a series of books featuring a woman detective who has a vampire for a partner and a full caseload of supernatural crimes.

Huff was born in 1957 in Nova Scotia, but spent her childhood in Kingston, Ontario. She began writing at an early age, but forestalled college for a while to join the Canadian Naval Reserves, hoping to eventually serve as one of her country's first female cadets. She worked as a cook, in part because "they'd just opened [the Reserves] up to women and I figured it would be the first trade that would send women to sea," as she wrote in a biography that appeared on a...