Barbara Cleverly was born in the north of England and is a graduate of Durham University. A former teacher, she has spent her working life in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk; she now lives in Cambridge. She has one son and five stepchildren. She is the author of nine books, including The Last Kashmiri Rose, Strange Images of Death, The Blood Royal, and Not My Blood. Her Joe Sandilands series, set against the background of the Indian Empire, was inspired by the contents of a battered old tin trunk that she found in her attic.