Anne Fine is a distinguished writer for children of all ages. Her novel GOGGLE-EYES won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize as well as Britain's most coveted award for children's literature, the Carnegie Medal. She won the Carnegie Medal again for FLOUR BABIES, which also won the Whitbread Children's Books of the Year Award. Among her many other prizes are the Smarties Prize (BILL'S NEW FROCK); a second Whitbread Award (THE TULIP TOUCH) and many regional children's choice awards

In 1990 and again in 1993 she was voted Publishing News' Children's Author of the Year. In 1998, she was the UK nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, and in 2001 she became the second Children's Laureate. Adaptations of BILL'S NEW FROCK and GOGGLE-EYES have been screened by the BBC and Twentieth Century Fox filmed her novel MADAME DOUBTFIRE as MRS DOUBTFIRE.

In addition to writing for children, Anne Fine has published several highly acclaimed black comedies for adults. THE KILLJOY won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and both TAKING THE DEVIL'S ADVICE and TELLING LIDDY have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Anne Fine's work has been translated into over twenty-five languages. She has two grown up daughters and lives in County Durham.

When, like her cold and indifferent husband, Lois' old life vanishes into thin air, she can't help snatching at the opportunity to come alive. There's only one fly in the ointment: Janie Gay, the feckless and spiteful mother of her wayward son's child. But as Lois takes her second - and redeeming - chance at love, she finds herself on a collision course with a society that claims to support and protect. She lays her plans, and suddenly it seems that all those years of nurturing her own deep-frozen heart may not have been so wasted after all...In this, her seventh novel, Anne Fine offers a deeply chilling portrayal of what can happen when the remorseless convictions of society clash with the impulse of a determined mother.