Michelle Paver was born in central Africa but went to England as a child. After earning a degree in biochemistry from Oxford University, she became a partner in a London law firm but eventually gave that up to write full-time.

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series came from Michelle's lifelong passion for animals, anthropology, and the distant past—as well as an encounter with a large bear in a remote valley in Southern California. To research the books, Michelle has traveled to Finland, Greenland, Sweden, Norway, Arctic Canada, and the Carpathian Mountains. She has slept on reindeer skins, swum with wild killer whales, and gotten nose-to-nose with polar bears—and, of course, wolves. The first five books have been made into widely acclaimed audiobooks, read by Ian McKellen.