She has published twenty-one novels for adults, including the bestsellers A Woman's Age and Bodily Harm.

Her novel Glory (2015) describes the First World War Gallipoli campaign through the eyes of the participants and their wives and girlfriends at home.

[2] Billington has also written and continues to write journalism for newspapers in both the UK and the US, including a three-year stint as columnist for The Sunday Telegraph.

In addition she is a trustee of the Catholic weekly, The Tablet, and of the Siobhan Dowd Trust, set up to encourage reading among disadvantaged children.

[4] Billington was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for her services to literature.