Dianne Yarwood grew up in Newcastle and worked in accounting and corporate advisory in Sydney and London. She also nurtured a love for cooking and reading. At the age of forty, with three young children, she became very ill and her life was saved by an emergency doctor. This brush with mortality gave her the courage to do what she's always wanted to do - write. Her first novel, The Wakes, was an Australian bestseller. Dianne lives in Sydney with her husband.