Leah Mercer was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the east coast of Canada. By the age of thirteen, she'd finished her first novel and received very encouraging rejections from publishers. Leah put writing on hold to focus on athletics, achieving provincial records and becoming a Canadian university champion in the 4 × 400-metre relay. After getting her BA, she turned to writing again, earning a masters in journalism. A few years later she left Canada and settled in London, where she now lives with her husband and their young son. Leah also writes under the name Talli Roland, and her books have been shortlisted at the UK's Festival of Romance.