Emma Orchard grew up in Salford and was given tickets to the adult library at the age of 11 because she’d read all the children’s books and the librarians were sick of her asking for more. She became obsessed with Georgette Heyer then and hasn’t stopped reading her novels since. She studied English Literature at the universities of Edinburgh and York, and her first job was at publisher Mills & Boon, where she met her husband in a classic enemies-to-lovers romance.

She went on to work behind the scenes in TV and publishing, helping others realise their dreams of publication, and started writing in her fifties. She has two grown-up children and lives in North London, where she’s usually to be found in a charity shop