Clare grew up in Constable Country not far from East Trimley where Kate Summers and Detective Vicky Allard solve their local mysteries and where The Bellamy Bird is set. Clare lived for many years on a street in Manhattan just like the street where Bella and Felix live although she was never chased through Central Park at night by a couple of failed fashion-world gangsters. Clare now lives on a high cliff next to a lighthouse in Australia where she plots and writes with her faithful chocolate labrador by her side.