Both British and American reviewers have praised novelist Janice Elliott's control of events, use of dialogue, descriptive prose, and imagery as being "outstanding in her generation." In addition, she has been called "one of the best novelists writing in England at the moment (and no sexual qualification is needed)." Having served as a book reviewer for nearly eighteen years, she has apparently learned what pleases and what does not, and she has used this knowledge to her advantage in her fiction. In 1982, with fifteen novels and two children's books to her credit, she still reviews fiction for the Sunday Telegraph every three weeks.

Janice Elliott was born in Derbyshire in 1931 to Douglas John and Dorothy Wilson Elliott. Her father was an advertising executive. She has written and read nonstop from the age of five, although nothing of her early work survives. Her recent novel, Secret Places (1981), draws heavily...