Alice Allan grew up in rural Devon then English at Cambridge University. She worked as an actress and a corporate trainer in London and Tokyo, then as a lactation consultant in public hospitals in Addis Ababa, where she taught about breastfeeding, skin-to-skin and kangaroo care for premature babies. She has contributed articles on mothering and breastfeeding to various publications including Breastfeeding Today, Midwives and The Mother Magazine. She currently lives in Tashkent, Uzbekistan with her diplomat husband, two daughters and a large Ethiopian street dog called Frank. Open My Eyes is her first novel.