Laura Kinsale grew up in a small country town, surrounded by the influence of her family's women: her mother, her grandmother and some maiden aunts. During her childhood she dreamed to be a painter, own a twenty-thousand acre horse ranch in Arizona or the first woman president. But, she became interested into geology because near her grandmother's house, there was a road-cut, that it showed the layers of limestone clearly, and there were fossils in it.

Laura obtained a Master of Science in Geology from the University of Texas at Austin. She worked as petroleum geologist, a career which consisted of getting out of bed in the middle of the night and driving hundreds of miles alone across west Texas to sit at drilling rigs, wear a hard hat, and attempt to boss around oil-covered males considerably larger than herself. While working, also spending a great deal of time sitting rigs and living in horrid little motel courts in small towns, and she started reading a lot. It was pure escapism for her. She didn't really consider writting as a serious career until she figured out her first plot, at thirty-five years after six six years as a geologist.

Laura Kinsale became a winner and multiple nominee for the Best Book of the Year award given by the Romance Writers of America. Her heroes are full of flaws or with physical problems, and her heroines also are imperfect. She says: "It's well known that I think making the heroine too perfect is a great way to create a character readers will hate!". She spend long periods of time, attempting to figure out What-Happens-Next, and she confesses that her husband, David, greatly assists her in figuring out how to end a scene. She says: "Really, his name should go also on the cover too, but he refuses. I wonder why?". From 1985 to 1994, she wrote one book a year, but she decided she needed more time to write her books.

Laura divides her time between Santa Fe and Dallas.