Melissa Benn is a writer, journalist and campaigner, and a member of one of Britain's best known political families. She has written one previous novel, Public Lives (1995), which reviewers praised for its ' acute intelligence' and 'incredible subtlety'. Benn writes regularly for the Guardian and other national publications, and her non-fiction includes Madonna and Child: Towards a New Politics of Motherhood (1998.) She lives in north-west London with her husband and two daughters.