Suzanne Holly Jones was educated at Huntingtower School, Mount Waverley, Victoria, and began a degree at the University of Melbourne. She worked with physically handicapped children in Melbourne and 'studied as an apprentice playwright' (Under Twenty-Five (1966): 194) before marrying and living for a time in England. She wrote her first novel, Harry's Child, when she was 19. Jones also also wrote screenplays and with Monique Schwartz she made a videorecording, Pauses (1980) on the lives of three Australian working women.

Jones trained as a primary teacher at Toorak State College (now Deakin University) in Victoria in the 1970s and went on to become a distinguished figure in the fields of maths and science education. Jones described herself as a 'discipline convert'. Christina Hill in her obituary for Jones comments that Jones 'always saw herself as a fiction writer, and retained a passionate interest in literature long after her career had taken her to a very different place ... [h]er love of films, serious art and literature were central to her personality, as were her deeply held social conscience and acute political insight.' (Christina Hill, 'Epiphany Diverted Writing Talent to the Wonders of Science', The Age (16 June 2009):17).

The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature comments that her novels are 'distinguished by a striking, impressionistic style...[and] explore elusive elements in human relationships'.