Helen Dickson lives in South Yorkshire with her retired farm manager husband. On leaving school she entered the nursing profession, which she left to bring up a young family. Having moved out of the chaotic farmhouse, she has more time to indulge in her favourite pastimes. She enjoys being outdoors, travelling, reading and music. An incurable romantic, she writes for pleasure. It was a love of history that drove her to writing historical romantic fiction. Joanna Maitland started writing for her two children when they were small, and progressed to writing adult fiction, mainly historical. She finds the research absorbing and has become a part-time history student at the local university. Her short stories have been published under various pseudonyms in literary and women's magazines. In her spare time Joanna enjoys reading, music, gardening, needlework, and walking, especially in countryside that reminds her of her native Scotland.