Lyn Gardner was born in London. A theatre critic on The Guardian, she goes to the theatre five or six nights a week, which should leave no time for writing books at all. In fact she is quite surprised to have written a novel, as she never believed the cliche that everyone has one book in them. Prior to joining The Guardian she was a tea lady, a waitress, sold (or failed to sell) advertising space for a magazine called Sludge, wrote for The Independent and helped found the London listings magazine, City Limits, the largest publishing co-op in Europe.
She and her two daughters have one venerable goldfish (there were two, but one came to a tragic end) and a horse-who is the most demanding, temperamental and expensive member of the family.