Gill grew up in Warwickshire until the age of seven, when her family decamped to a derelict railway station in mid-Wales. By the age of eighteen, her only aim in life was to escape the Welsh hills, which were very pretty but sadly didn’t do much. So she left, and began the hunt for a career.

After an enlightening gap year, she ducked out of a law degree and studied French and Philosophy at University College, Oxford. Then she tried mental health work, environmental work, life in a VW van in the Outer Hebrides, busking, turning pigsties into craft workshops and working on an antiques stall... all fun, but none of them quite right.

Meanwhile she discovered writing and completed a first novel, which no one wanted to publish. But it did help her get a job as writer/editor at Usborne Publishing in 1994. This introduced her to the world of children’s writing and she hasn’t looked back.

Gill went freelance in 2000. It has involved all sorts of writing – commissioned fiction, non-fiction, film reviews and even a software manual. But gradually, she is developing her own work. A year in Egypt resulted in both Love in Luxor and a novel set in ancient Egypt, Orphan of the Sun (Bloomsbury, 2006).

Gill lives in London but loves to escape to exotic destinations (and sometimes those pretty Welsh hills).