Before becoming a writer, Justin worked in botanical horticulture and the gardens of historic buildings. He fell in love with fantastical fiction when he found a tattered copy of The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper discarded on a park bench.

He reads and writes escapist speculative and Gothic fiction that have strong emotional themes; books that champion the vulnerable or weak. He writes about good and evil, and the interesting grey area that lies between.

He is enchanted by the works of Edwardian ghost writers such as M. R. James, and E. F. Benson, as much as the Gothic works of Susan Hill, Laura Purcell, and Daphne du Maurier.