Kate (CM) Lance grew up on Lake Macquarie, NSW, Australia. Her background is in science and technology, but in 2000 she ran across the story of the charmed life of an old Broome pearling lugger, Redbill, and discovered the joys of archival research and writing. Her first book, Redbill: From Pearls to Peace, won the Western Australian Premier's Book Award for Non-Fiction, and her second book, Alan Villiers: Voyager of the Winds, won the Mountbatten Maritime Award. Her novel, The Turning Tide, was published in 2014 by Allen & Unwin under the name CM Lance. Other novels include Silver Highways, Atomic Sea, Testing the Limits and Embers at Midnight. She lives in South Gippsland, Victoria, Australia.