Alison Roberts

Alison was born in Dunedin, New Zealand. Her father's medical career took her overseas at the age of five, and she started her schooling in London before moving to Washington, D.C. Eventually the family, including three brothers, returned to Dunedin, where Alison finished her schooling and then trained as a primary school teacher.

A teaching position in the north island township of Napier led to a whirlwind romance and marriage to Mark, a young doctor who is now a professor. Mark's career meant a move to Christchurch, where a teaching position was unavailable, so Alison worked part-time as a cardiology research technician in a hospital and indulged academic interests by taking university courses in early European history and in philosophy.

Two years in Glasgow, Scotland, followed and provided the perfect opportunity to write her first novel — a medical thriller with a good dash of romance. Their return to New Zealand began a new chapter in Alison's life, with creative efforts channeled into entertaining a baby daughter, renovating a very old farmhouse, creating an enormous garden, and caring for the menagerie of donkeys, sheep, hens, dogs, and cats, which Alison happily collected.

Alison currently resides in central Christchurch, just over the road from the often breathtakingly beautiful Hagley Park. Her writing companion is an Irish wolfhound called Rya who allows only a solid morning's work before insisting that Alison gets some fresh air and exercise in the park.

Apart from home, family, and writing, Alison's passion is her involvement with the ambulance service. She has her writing to thank for this addition to her life, having fallen in love with the job while researching a book. The perfect antidote to the solitary hours of writing, she is now avidly continuing her training as an ambulance officer and spends as much time as possible on active duty.