Jean Brooks was educated in the south of England and worked as a writer in the WRNs during World War II. In 1948 she married an electronic engineer and in 1957, with their son, emigrated to Canada. After three years in Ontario and Quebec the family moved to Australia.
They lived in South Australia for twenty-three years, eight of which were spent in Woomera. During this time Brooks was forbidden (for security reasons) to write about life at Woomera - a rocket testing site. Instead she wrote two novels about the nearby opal fields and published them in England. One of these, The Opal Witch, was originally written as a television play and was bought by the ABC in 1962. Filming was never completed due to the technical difficulty of filming a dust storm at that time. The Opal Witch was adapted as a radio play, and later (1967) produced on stage at the Killara Hall in Woomera.
After the publication of her two early novels Brooks had a period of ill-health during which time she was unable to write, or to complete the study she had begun at the University of Adelaide. She continued in poor health until she and her husband moved to Queensland in 1988.
After retiring from her work as a private English tutor, Brooks continued to be active in the writing world, belonging to the Queensland Writers' Centre and co-ordinating a novels-in-progress group. With the lifting of the 30-year security ban, Brooks embarked on writing a trilogy set in Woomera, but died before the completion of the third book.
