Sonya Hartnett was born in Melbourne, the second of six children. Her first book, Trouble All the Way, was written when she was just thirteen and published two years later. Since then she has gone on to write numerous successful novels, including Thursday’s Child, winner of the 2002 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize; What the Birds See, which won the prestigious Age Book of the Year in Australia; Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf and Surrender, which was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book. The Ghost’s Child has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.