Dr Gillian Polack is a writer, editor, historian and teacher, with doctor–ates in both history and creative writing. Several of her books have been short-listed for awards. She is a member of Book View Café and also blogs for the History Girls and for Medievalists.net. In her copious spare time she practises sarcasm, cooking, reading and narrative analysis.

From her very first novel readers told her that her fiction reflected her life, when it really didn’t. To make up for this, she generally includes at least one real episode in each of her novels. She vows to stop doing this after The Year of Fruit Cake.