Dinah Jefferies was born in Malaysia and moved to England at the age of nine. Her idyllic childhood always held a special place in her imagination, and when she began writing novels in her sixties, she was able to return there - first in her fiction and then on annual research trips for each new novel. Dinah Jefferies is the author of five novels, The Separation, The Tea Planter’s Wife - a No.1 Sunday Times bestseller, The Silk Merchant’s Daughter, Before the Rains and The Sapphire Widow. She lives in Gloucestershire.