Rachael Johns, an English teacher by trade and a mum 24/7, is the bestselling ABIA-winning author of The Patterson Girls and a number of other romance and women's fiction books including The Art of Keeping Secrets and The Greatest Gift. She is currently Australia's leading writer of contemporary relationship stories around women's issues, a genre she has coined 'life-lit'. Rachael lives in the Perth hills with her hyperactive husband, three mostly-gorgeous heroes-in-training and a very badly behaved dog. She rarely sleeps and never irons.

Shirley Wine is from a family of seven where oral storytelling was encouraged, a throwback to her family's Irish roots. Born into a farming family, Shirley has lived and worked on the land alongside her husband for many years, and a love of the land runs as deep as the blood in her veins so writing rural romance was a natural progression for this author. Shirley is no stranger to devastating personal tragedy, and these experiences are reflected in her often gritty stories about triumph over adversity.

For many years, Shirley was a freelance writer with a regular 'Country Comment' column in a New Zealand national daily newspaper, and she has worked on local and regional newspapers. A long-time member of Romance Writers of New Zealand, Shirley is now retired and lives with her husband in a quiet rural Waikato town with one spoiled cat and two equally spoiled dogs.