Vanessa Tait grew up in Gloucestershire. She studied at the University of Manchester and completed a master’s degree in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College.

She has worked as a freelance journalist, on and off, for the last 15 years, writing articles for The Times, The Daily Mail, The London Paper and many others. Her youth was largely misspent. Other jobs have included dog-walker, barista, dancer in a bikini, tiler, and most recently, home-educating mother of three.

Vanessa is the great-granddaughter of Alice Liddell, the little girl who inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The Pharmacist’s Wife is her second novel and follows The Looking Glass House, which drew on family treasures and stories of the “original” Alice.