New Zealand-born Kirsten Ellis is an author and journalist who began her writing career aged 18 as a reporter on Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, for which she also reported from India. She worked in Mexico as an economics reporter for World Eye Reports, and has also lived and worked in Cyprus, New York, and London.

She has written seven travel books, including The Traveller’s Cuba Companion, short-listed as Best Travel Guidebook in The Observer/Travelex Awards Star of the Morning, The Extraordinary Life of Lady Hester Stanhope was her first biography, which presented a significantly new appraisal of Lady Hester, based on previously ignored sources. Researching this book took her back to Cyprus, Turkey, Israel, Syria and Lebanon from the south of England where she now lives with her husband and young son.

She is working on her first novel, as well as a second biography.

Agent: Bill Hamilton, A.M. Heath & Co. Author’s Agents.