She was born in Orford, Suffolk and named Margaret Joan Hemingway; but when she was three years old her family moved to New Zealand, where she spent her childhood.
Returning to England in her teens, she read French and English at Edinburgh University and graduated MA in 1967.
Victoria Glendinning wrote of her second novel, Stop House Blues (1988), that "it has a classic quality which will ensure its survival".
Eyes, her final novel (1993), is also her most experimental, combining four stories of murder into a single span and reaching a chilling conclusion.
Upon its release, critics commented particularly on her descriptive powers, with the Daily Telegraph insisting that "Landscape is her forte.