Once told by poet Ted Hughes her writing was ‘dangerous’, it took Emma Carroll twenty years of English teaching and a life-changing cancer diagnosis to feel brave enough to give her dream of being an author a try.

Nowadays, she’s a bestselling author and the ‘Queen of Historical Fiction’ (BookTrust). She has been nominated for and the winner of numerous national, regional and schools awards – including the Books Are My Bag Readers’ Award, Branford Boase, CILIP Carnegie Medal, Young Quills, Teach Primary and the Waterstones Book Prize. Emma is one of very few authors to have been Waterstones Book of the Month twice.

Emma’s home is in the Somerset hills with her husband and two terriers. She still can’t believe her luck that she gets to write dangerous books for a living.