Lisa Jane Smith is an American author living in California. Her books are young-adult literature and combine a myriad of genres including horror, science fiction/fantasy and romance.

She has written three trilogies, two series and two companion novels. Her books are characteristically populated with unusually beautiful people, human and supernatural; most of them young, or at least appear youthful. There is usually a dark/light, good/evil conflict, revolving around a central, ambiguous character who, while trying to seduce the heroine to the darkness, ends up, in some cases, being himself reborn into the light and thus becoming a hero. Sometimes this scenario is flipped, or otherwise, it is a variation upon the theme. In the Night World series, the dark/light conflict is institutionalized into a reality-altering conspiracy. The dark/light tension is further played out in romantic soulmate scenarios. She will be coming out with a new book in April 2011 that will be called Strange Fate.

Beginning in 1998, Ms. Smith went on a nearly 10-year hiatus from writing, returning in 2008 with a new website and a series of new short stories. The Vampire Diaries were reissued starting in 2007, and The Secret Circle trilogy and Night World series novels in 2008/2009. The Night of the Solstice and Heart of Valor were also reissued in 2008. The first installment of her new Vampire Diaries trilogy, entitled The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall, was published on February 10, 2009. The most recent book in the trilogy, Shadow Souls, was published on March 15, 2010. The book, Midnight, will be released March 15, 2011.