Barbara Taylor Bradford was born in Leeds, and by the age of twenty was an editor and columnist on Fleet Street. Her first novel, A Woman of Substance, became an enduring bestseller and was followed by twenty-one others, including the bestselling Harte series. In 2006 The Ravenscar Dynasty began an epic new family series around Ravenscar and the house of Deravenel. Barbara's books have sold more than eighty-one million copies worldwide in more than ninety countries and forty languages, and ten mini-series and television movies have been made of her books. In 2007 Barbara was appointed an OBE by the Queen for her services to literature. She lives in New York City with her husband, television producer Robert Bradford. This is her twenty-third novel.