Rachel Bard had written eight nonfiction books from cookbooks to travel guides to histories when she began her series of historical novels about medieval queens. Her first, Queen Without a Country, was about Berengaria, wife of King Richard the Lionheart. In Isabella, she examines the life of Isabella of Angoulme, who succeeded Berengaria on the English throne. Her next, A Reed in the Wind, stars Joanna, Queen of Sicily, sister of Richard. Research for her novels has taken the author to England, France, Cyprus, Sicily, Spain the whole panorama of medieval Europe.
Her careers include advertising, journalism education and travel writing. She currently lives on Vashon Island, near Seattle.