Jamila Gavin was born in Mussoorie, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. With an Indian father and an English mother, she inherited two rich cultures which ran side by side throughout her life, and which always made her feel she belonged to both countries.

The family finally settled in England where Jamila completed her schooling, was a music student, worked for the BBC and became a mother of two children. It was then that she began writing children’s books, and felt a need to reflect the multi-cultural world in which she and her children now lived.

Since her first book THE MAGIC ORANGE TREE was published in 1979 she has been writing steadily, producing collections of short stories, and several junior and teenage novels covering whole age range from six to sixteen. These include GRANDPA CHATTERJI, which was short-listed for the Smarties Award and was dramatised for television on Channel 4 Schools, and THE SURYA TRILOGY of which the first, THE WHEEL OF SURYA, was runner up for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award in 1992 and the other two were subsequently short-listed.

CORAM BOY, a novel for young adults set in 18th century England, was published in 2000 and was awarded the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year.

She also enjoys an association with the Polka Children’s Theatre in Wimbledon, for who she adapted her own book, MONKEY IN THE STARS as a play which was performed in October 20000. She has now written a second play for them, which is an adaptation of the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling.

Jamila has lived in Gloucestershire for over 25 years. She is a regular visitor to the schools and libraries all over the country.

From the dark of the Bulgarian underworld to the grandeur of central London, what you don’t know can’t harm you. Or so Nettie believes.

Nettie lives a privileged life in a mansion and she is adored by her parents. But her world shatters when her beloved tutor, Miss Kovachev, mysteriously disappears from the Round Tower. Does the ghost in the shadows of Nettie’s house have something to do with it? Will spooky Great Aunt Laetitia help her piece together the fragments? And why won’t her parents tell her anything?

Everyone has a facade. Everyone has a secret.