Lynne Reid Banks was born in London, the daughter of a Scots doctor and an Irish actress.During the war she was evacuated to the Canadian Prairies and on her return to England she studied acting at R.A.D.A.. She worked for several years with various repertory companies all over the country and wrote a number of plays which were performed both on stage and television. She then took up journalism, becoming one of the first women reporters on British television, with the ITN. In 1961 she went to live in a kibbutz in Israel but returned to live in England. Her first novel, The L-shaped Room, was a bestseller which was later filmed; her other novels include An End To Running, Children At The Gate, The Backward Shadow and Two Is Lonely. She has also written a study of the Brontës called Dark Quartet, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, three novels for teenagers, One More River (Vallentine Mitchell), Sarah And After and My Darling Villain, both published by The Bodley Head and a number of successful children's books. She is married to sculptor Chaim Stephenson, and they have three sons.