I was bought up in London of Irish parents and worked there for many years as a magazine journalist and editor. I returned to Ireland in 1991, and after ten years working in Dublin, finally got my dream of an old house by the sea in the far west county of Mayo. I live in a small fishing village called Killala, right next to my mother's hometown of Ballina - which I share with my husband, Niall, and our two gorgeous young sons Leo and Tom. I write most days in a small cottage in my mother's back garden, reading what I have written back to her before rushing back home to Killala to be here when Leo gets in from school.

The first Kate Kerrigan novel, Recipes for a Perfect Marriage was published in 2005 and the second The Miracle of Grace in 2007. Ellis Island, my latest offering, is the first of a trilogy.