Catherine Jinks was born in Brisbane in 1963 and grew up in Sydney and Papua New Guinea. She became a writer because she loves reading, and also loves history, films, TV and gossip. She has a BA (Hons) in medieval history and gets her ideas from everywhere, particularly good science fiction films. Catherine writes whenever she gets a moment and could write for eight hours straight if she had the chance. She lives in the Blue Mountains in NSW and is married with one daughter. The author of many award-winning, popular books for children and adults, her most recent books for children include Evil Genius and the much-awaited Pagan's Daughter.