Elena Wilkes grew up in Walsall in the West Midlands and then worked for eighteen years in H.M Prison Service. The people she met there provided the basis for all her novels. Many of the prisoners there came across as very ordinary people who had committed the most appalling crimes but would, one day, walk straight back on the streets. She won first prize on the Curtis Brown 'Beginning to Write Your Novel' course, before penning this, her first novel. Her second novel, Keep My Secrets, is due to be published in October.