Helen Dunmore already had a distinguished reputation as a poet before she began writing novels in the 1990s. Since then she has reached a much larger, and diverse, audience with a series of children's fictions and adult novels, several of which have won major awards. Her distinctive style and thrilling narratives have earned her a secure place as one of the most accomplished contemporary British writers.

Dunmore was born 12 December 1952 in Beverley, Yorkshire, the second of four children. Her father, a manager for an industrial firm, was frequently transferred, and the family often relocated. As a child, Dunmore was fascinated by poetry, and by the time she was seven or eight years old she was already on her way to becoming a poet, learning poems by heart at school and practicing writing sonnets at home on scraps of card. From an early age she aspired to be a...