Janice Elliott was born in Derby, England, and was educated at Oxford. She has written over twenty novels for adults and four for children, and has contributed stories to many anthologies and magazines. She is also well known as a critic, spending seventeen years as a regular book reviewer for the Sunday Telegraph, and as a journalist on the editorial staff of House and Garden, House Beautiful, Harper’s Bazaar, and the Sunday Times. Her most famous work is probably the novel Secret Places which earned her the Southern Arts Award for Literature in 1981, was adapted to film in 1984, and re-released by Twentieth Century—Fox/TLC Films in 1985. She is admired for her talent at creating mood and atmosphere, and her crisp but revealing dialogue. Her other novels include the post-World War II trilogy A State of Peace, Private Life, and Heaven on Earth; Summer People, a futuristic work of social criticism; and the impressionistic Magic.