Barbara Delinsky was born and raised in suburban Boston. "My mother's death, when I was eight, was the defining event of a childhood that was otherwise ordinary. I took piano lessons and flute lessons. I took ballroom dancing lessons. I went to summer camp through my fifteenth year, then spent my sixteenth summer learning to drive." After graduating from Newton High School, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology at Tufts University and a Master of Arts degree in Sociology at Boston College. "I wish I could say that I had a career in mind, but women were barely thinking about careers back then. The motivation behind my M.A. was to get a better job with better pay. My husband was just starting law school. We needed the money."

A master of emotional intensity, she touches the minds and hearts of her readers with intricately woven stories of domestic drama and relationships. "Readers identify with my characters. They know them. They are them. I am an everyday woman writing about everyday people facing not-so-everyday challenges." Her books are highly emotional, character-driven studies of marriage, parenthood, sibling rivalry, and friendship. They regularly appear on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today Bestseller Lists. Her newest hardcover, THE SUMMER I DARED, is a May,2004 Scribner release.