I write what I like to call Vintage Mysteries, since they're set in the nineteen-thirties, forties and fifties. They're stories of love and marriage, families and friendship, in which the loyalties, feuds, secrets and betrayals of the past cast long shadows into the present. I'm fascinated by characters who are quirky, mysterious, funny, unexpected and interesting and I want readers to share, as I do, in their joys and sorrows. With dramatic and glamorous settings from icy lakes to Italian villas, from wintry Budapest to fashionable France, from Cornwall to the Lake District, the landscapes are as powerful as the stories are complex. The tense realities of life mingle with supernatural elements : ghosts, prophetic dreams and voices from the past, but fun and humour also dance in and out of the light and darkness of the stories. My aim is to enthral, delight and amuse readers as they are transported to a different era. A review posted by a reader said my books take you out of the daily world and make the impossible seem possible--that's just what I want to do. I also write as Elizabeth Aston, and if you enjoyed VILLA IN ITALY, you might also enjoy VOLCANIC AIRS, which is set on an idyllic Sicilian island. It's one of the books in my Mountjoy series, so please visit my other author page and check out those books. A few biographical details: I was born in Chile, have lived in India and Italy and now live in Oxford, where I went to university--and where I've recently taken up bell-ringing.