Hilary Benford was born and raised in England. She has a degree in French literature from King’s College, London, and also studied in Cambridge, Paris and Strasbourg. At various times, she lived and worked in France, including a year in Rodez where she taught English in a lycée. She also taught French in England, and later in California.
In 1980 she co-authored Timescape with her brother-in-law, Gregory Benford. She has written a two-book series of historical novels about Joanna Plantagenet, Sister of the Lionheart and Joanna Crusader.
She has a life-long interest in history, especially medieval English history. She also loves to travel and has visited all the sites mentioned in the Joanna novels, from Fontevrault and Winchester to Palermo, Limassol, and Acre.
She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, a physicist.
