Leigh Fallon

In short

I was born in South Africa, raised in Dublin, Ireland and moved to Cork in my 20’s. While living in beautiful Kinsale, Co Cork I discovered a love of writing. I write mainly for the young adult market. My current book, The Carrier of the Mark, prompted me to abandon my ‘riveting’ career in corporate treasury and have been writing ever since. I have another three books in the Carrier series and a few other projects I'm working on. My family and I now share our time between Ireland and the US.

The Extended Edition

I was born in Durban, South Africa. My parents moved back to Ireland while I was still very young. I grew up in the Dublin Mountains, just outside of Dublin city. I went to a convent school, with nuns, uniforms, gabardines and gym slips, we’re talking the works!

After school, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, so I did a one year business course and got a good solid job in a bank while I was trying to figure out what direction I was going to take. Luckily, the bank was good to me. I made some great lifelong friends and moved around a bit getting loads of experience.

I then met the love of my life, a Navy man none-the-less and moved to Cork where he was based. I managed to worm my way into a treasury position in really good corporate multinational company and the world became my oyster. I did a diploma in accountancy and finance and for two years I travelled Europe working in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, England, Germany and Italy. It was an amazing experience. I met some wonderful people and had a chance to sample the culture and life of all those countries and their amazing residents.

After my second child was born, I decided to take a step back from the corporate world and travel, to a quieter more sedate life at home. Well at least I thought it would be quieter, but how wrong was I? It wasn’t long until I was gasping to get back to work and leave my adorable darlings in the safe hands of a childminder. But just as I was getting ready to take the corporate world by storm again, along came number three and four in one giant identical bundle. That put paid to any intentions I had of returning to work, but I think it was a blessing in disguise. It was the pure unrelenting torment of four children under the age of six that drove me to escapism, and that escapism manifested itself as writing. And for that, to my children, I will always be grateful.

My husband (no longer in Navy) was transferred with the company he was working for, to the US for a couple of years. So we have moved temporarily to Massachusetts, travelling back and forth between our homes here in the US and in Ireland. It’s a tough life, but sure somebody has to do it.