Julia Golding attended Cambridge University then joined the UK Foreign Office and served in Poland. She exchanged diplomacy for academia and got her Ph.D. in the literature of the English Romantic Period at Oxford. She then joined Oxfam as a lobbyist on conflict issues, campaigning at the UN and with governments to lessen the impact of conflict on civilians living in war zones. Married with three children, she now lives in Oxford. Her next book in the continuing adventures of Cat Royal is Cat Among the Pigeons, available now from Roaring Brook Press.