Jill MacLean's five novels for middle-graders and young adults won several awards and received numerous nominations, four of them international.Wanting a new challenge - and an adult audience - she delved into her abiding fascination with medieval England. She was born in Berkshire, the setting for The Arrows of Mercy, and revisiting it, in reality in the 21st century and in imagination in the 14th, has given her much pleasure. An avid gardener, reader and canoeist, she lives in Nova Scotia near her family.