Raised in Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom, Lindsay Jayne Ashford became the first woman to graduate from Queens' College, Cambridge, in its 550-year history. She earned a degree in criminology and was a reporter for the BBC before becoming a freelance journalist, writing for a number of national magazines and newspapers.

Lindsay began her career as a novelist with a contemporary crime series featuring forensic psychologist Megan Rhys. She moved into historical mystery with The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen, and her three most recent books, Whisper of the Moon Moth, The Color of Secrets, and The Woman on the Orient Express, blend fiction with real events of the early twentieth century.

She has four children and divides her time between a house overlooking the sea on the west coast of Wales and a small farmhouse in Spain's Sierra de Los Filabres. When she's not writing, she enjoys volunteering for Save the Children, kayaking, and walking her dogs, Milly and Pablo.