Ask Jan Andrews why she is a writer and a storyteller, she will tell you it is because she believes stories, told and written, support us through all our living by giving us things to keep alive in our hearts. Readers and listeners must agree. Her books have been shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, the Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award and the Red Cedar Book Award, and are included in the International Youth Library. Her storytelling is known across the land. Her picture book, Very Last First Time, has become a classic. Folktale collections such as Rude Stories and When Apples Grew Noses and White Horses Flew: Tales of Ti-Jean have garnered rave reviews.

An avid outdoor person, Jan brought all her experience of the joys and struggles of being in cold, wet, windy places to her creation of Winter of Peril. She grew to love her heroine, Sophie, partly because Sophie shares in Jan's English heritage, but mostly because Sophie finds ways to ever increase her courage, determination and consideration for those around.