Elaine Marie Alphin is the award-winning author of more than thirty books for children and young adults. Although she specializes in fiction, she has published many non-fiction titles, including biographies of Davy Crockett, Louis Pasteur, Dwight Eisenhower, and John Paul Jones, which she co-wrote with her husband Arthur Alphin (as part of Lerner Publishing's History Maker Biographies series).

She is noted for writing historical fiction and psychological thrillers. Several of her novels have been deemed controversial, as they have dealt with topics such as serial killers, child abuse, homosexuality, murder, and suicide. At the same time those titles have proven extremely popular with both critics and young readers.