Isla Dewar was born in Edinburgh to Ian White, a tax inspector, and Marjory (née Roberts).

[1] She started her writing career working for teenage magazines including Jackie and Romeo.

She wrote about subjects that were thought to interest girls and she did some writing as an agony aunt.

Her second book, Women Talking Dirty, published a year later, attracted the interest of Elton John and David Furnish, who purchased the rights for Rocket Pictures.

She used a book by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's screenwriter William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade, to explain the details of scriptwriting.

[5] At the height of her career, Dewar published a book a year, and her work was translated into 17 languages.

She was inspired to write the story after seeing two smartly dressed women outside a supermarket laughing with each other.