Titia Sutherland was brought up in the country and spent much of her adult life in London. She had a patchy education at various day-schools, and English was the only subject in which she received a good grounding. As a child she started many novels which were never completed, and she and her brother wrote and acted in their own plays. In her late teens she spent two years at the Webber-Douglas School of Drama and a short period in repertory before marrying a journalist. The birth of a baby put an end to acting. Following a divorce, she had a series of jobs which included working as a part-time reader for a publishing firm, and designing for an advertising agency. She started to write when her four children were more or less adult and following the death of her second husband. Her novels, The Fifth Summer, Out of the Shadows, Accomplice of Love, Running Away, A Friend of the Family and An Accidental Life, are all published by Black Swan.