Hilde Bakering was born and raised in the north of the Netherlands. After living in several countries (France, Greece, Switzerland, Spain and the USA), she settled in Nottingham, UK in 2008. She lives with her husband and their four cats on the outskirts of Nottingham, only just inside the city limits with a family of owls in the old oak tree in the back garden.

By day, Hilde is a service desk analyst for a large company that has retail outlets in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK. She has worked in the IT industry since 2008, she worked for many international companies and joined her current employer in July 2022. She previously worked in the tourism industry for big tour operators and EuroDisney (now Disneyland Paris). The two industries are a world apart, but have a lot of things that overlap too. In both she had to use her customer service and language skills.

Hilde speaks Dutch, English, German and French quite fluently, basic Spanish and she can manage a bit of Japanese and Greek; she's not able to have a full conversation in those two languages but she's working on it!

Her hobbies include: travelling, photography, drawing, writing, web design, listening to music, reading, (binge) watching TV series and films, and researching her family's history. Her favourite genres are thrillers, fantasy and historical fiction, both on paper and on screen. On screen, she also enjoys sci-fi, but not so much in print. She collects semi-precious gemstones, kokeshi dolls, anything to do with Studio Ghibli films, owls and books.

Hilde is an Anglo- and a Japanophile, she has been to Japan only twice, but is determined to visit again someday!

Hilde is the creator of the Read Between the Lines Reading Challenge, that can be found here: https://readbetweenthelines.uk!