Amaryllis Fox was born in New York City to an English actress and an American economist. Due to her father’s work, she spent her childhood in different parts of the world, including South East Asia, Europe, Africa, and the former Soviet Union. As a teenager, Fox traveled to the Thai-Burmese border and worked as a volunteer in a refugee camp. While there, she decided to postpone her college education and worked with the Burmese democracy movement, where a BBC interview with an activist landed her in prison at age 18.
In 1999, Fox enrolled at Oxford to pursue international law. and graduated with an honors degree, and did a graduate program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service for international security where she generated an algorithm to predict terrorist activity. She was asked by the university’s CIA officer in residence to share her algorithm, and started working as a CIA political and terrorism analyst for SE Asia. Fox then moved into the operational training program and worked as a Clandestine Service officer overseas until 2009. After her government service ended, Fox started an e-commerce firm called Mulu. The company supported at-risk communities all over the world. In December 2015, she quit her job and began writing full-time. Currently, she lives in San Francisco with her daughter.