Author: Clare Benedict
Alternate names: Benita Brown; Clare Benedict
Bio: Benita Brown was born and brought up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England where she now continues living. Her mother, was an English, who was the youngest of thirteen children, and her father, a Indian, who on 1930's came to Newcastle to study medicine and fell in love with the place, the people, and her mother. She went to drama school in London where she met her husband who, also from Newcastle, was working for the BBC. After marrying and having four children she became a full time writer; writing for radio, and then girls' and teenage story papers such as Mandy, Judy, Jackie and Blue Jeans.

When her first romance, written under the pseudonym Clare Benedict, was published in 1991, she joined the Romantic Novelists' Association. After six more romances she changed genre and now writes sagas under her own name, Benita Brown. First novels under this name are set in Victorian/Edwardian Tyneside. One of these, Fortune’s Daughter, was long-listed for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award.  In her more recent books she has moved forward to the mid-twentieth century and although not all the action is set in Tyneside the area still has a strong influence.