Natalie Gregory, like her protagonist, had a Thai mother. It was the accidental disposal of Natalie's mother's recipes, shortly after her mother passed away, which eventually inspired the novel's inciting incident. With a BA in English and History and an MSc in International Politics, Natalie has made a career out of writing for others, including as a speechwriter, but her passion has always been fiction. Her short story, 'A Bowl of Soup', was published in Together in the UK's anthology, Hear our Stories by Victorina Press in August 2023. This story also won the Creative Writing NZ flash fiction competition and was shortlisted for the Exeter Short Story Prize. Natalie lives in Buckinghamshire.