Barbara Comyns was born in England in 1909 and raised in a Warwickshire country house. She and her siblings were brought up by governesses, and allowed to run wild. In her teens she attended art school in London. She wrote eleven books including Sisters by a River, Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, The Vet’s Daughter and A Touch of Mistletoe. To support her family she did a variety of jobs over her life including dealing in antiques and vintage cars, renovating apartments, and breeding poodles. She was an accomplished painter, and exhibited with the London Group. She died in 1992.