For her bestselling novels The Girl in Steel - Capped Boots and The Girl in the Hard Hat, Loretta Hill drew upon her own outback engineering experiences of larrikins, red dust and steel - capped boots. Her new novel, The Girl in the Yellow Vest, will publish in January 2014.

She is also the author of the ebook novella One Little White Lie, which was a no.1 bestseller on iTunes. Loretta always wanted to be a writer. As a kid she filled pages of exercise books with stories to amuse her friends. Her father, who never wasted his time on fiction, didn't see much worth in this pass time and pushed her to pursue a 'sensible' career.

Fortunately, she had inherited some of his talent for numbers and decided to give it a go. She graduated from the University of Western Australia as structural engineer and took her first job with a major West Australian engineering company. A few years later she met a lawyer at a Black Friday party hosted by a friend. She was dressed as the devil and he just came as himself. They are now happily married and living in Perth with their two young sons and infant daughter.

Despite her career in engineering, her interest in law and her journey into motherhood, Loretta continued to write. Not because she had a lot of time but because it was and always had been an addiction she couldn't ignore.