The Woman in Black Paperback - 1998

Writer, journalist and novelist Susan Elizabeth Hill was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1942. For part of her education she attended a grammar school in Coventry before studying English at King’s College, University London. By then, she had written her first novel, The Enclosure (1961), in the evenings and at weekends, and it was accepted by a publisher while she was in the 6th Form, and published just as she arrived at King's.

On gaining her degree in 1963, Susan became book review editor for the Coventry Evening Telegraph. After five years in this post she turned to writing full-time.

Gentlemen and Ladies was published in 1968 and this was followed in quick succession by A Change For the Better, I’m the King of the Castle, The Albatross, Strange Meeting, The Bird of Night, A Bit of Singing and Dancing and In the Springtime of the Year all written and published between 1968 and 1974.

Susan married in 1975 and moved to Stratford upon Avon. Her daughter, Jessica, was born in 1977, followed by a premature daughter Imogen in 1984 who died 5 weeks later. After a period of grieving her creative output continued, particularly in non-fiction and plays for radio. She began writing novels again in the early 1980's, with the successful The Woman in Black (1983), a ghost story, which has achieved great success on the stage, then went on to publish Air and Angels (1991), The Mist in the Mirror (1992), Mrs de Winter (1993) and The Service of Cloud (1997).

Susan now lives in a farmhouse set in 50 acres of the North Cotswold countryside.