Joan Lingard

Lingard was born in Edinburgh, Scotland,) but spent many years living in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

[2] She is known for the young adults aimed Kevin and Sadie series, which have sold over one million copies and had been translated into several languages as of 2010.

Her first children's novel was The Twelfth Day of July (the first of the five Kevin and Sadie books) in 1970.

Lingard's writing has been called "alive"[4] and "intelligent, warm",[5] "Solid and interesting.

Until her death, she lived in Edinburgh with architect Martin Birkhans (married 1972), her Latvian-Canadian husband.