Nicola Gifford was born in Cambridge to a British father and a German mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she was small, the family moved to the Rhine Gorge in Germany. For two years, she lived under the shadow of its medieval castles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The family had hardly returned to Cambridge when her German grandparents retired to the Hunsr\u00fcck, the forested region between the rivers Moselle, Nahe and Rhine, where witches still lurk and she spent most school holidays trying not to get caught by one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she began writing as a creative outlet in the mid-1990s \u2013 her studio flat being too small for painting projects, let alone swinging the proverbial cat \u2013 she found plenty of inspiration in her childhood connection with Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has grown into three novels\u2019 worth of material to date, with more brewing, and she is on the homestretch of getting them out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n