Sunday Times bestselling author Freda Lightfoot hails from Oswaldtwistle, a small mill town in Lancashire. Her mother comes from generations of weavers, and her father was a shoe repairer; she still remembers the first pair of clogs he made for her. After several years of teaching, Freda opened a bookshop in Kendal, Cumbria. And while living in the rural Lakeland Fells, rearing sheep and hens and making jam, Freda turned to writing. She wrote over fifty articles and short stories for magazines such as My Weekly and Woman’s Realm, before finding her vocation as a novelist. She has since written over forty-five novels, mostly historical fiction and family sagas. She now lives in Spain with her own olive grove, and divides her time between sunny winters and the summer rains of Britain.