Hazel Holt is a graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge. Her long association with Barbara Pym led to her becoming Pym's literary executor and her biography of Pym, A Lot to Ask, met with wide critical acclaim. A former television reviewer, editor and feature writer, she now lives in Somerset, on the edge of Exmoor, with her retired husband and their Siamese cat, Flip. Her son is writer Tom Holt.