Lucinda Riley was born in 1965 in Ireland. After an early career as an actress in film, theatre, and television, Lucinda wrote her first novel at age twenty-four. Her books have been translated into forty languages and continue to strike an emotional chord with cultures all around the world. Her Seven Sisters series has become a global phenomenon and is currently in development for television. Lucinda's books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Italian Bancarella Prize, the Lovely Books Award in Germany and the Romantic Novel of the Year Award. In 2020, she received the Dutch Platinum Award for sales over 300,000 copies for a single novel in one year—a prize last won by J. K. Rowling. Though she brought up her four children mostly in Norfolk, England, she fulfilled her dream in 2015 of buying a remote farmhouse in West Cork, Ireland, which she always felt was her spiritual home. Lucinda died in 2021, surrounded by her family.

Harry Whittaker grew up in the 1990s and spent the first few years of his life on the rural coast of Ireland, with a poor TV signal (and certainly no iPad). It was therefore left to his mother, author Lucinda Riley, to entertain him, which she did through telling him stories. As a result, Harry has become a storyteller himself, as an award-winning radio presenter for the BBC and a member of one of the UK's most renowned improv troupes, who perform all over the UK.