Holland was born near Oxford and brought up in the village of Broadchalke near Salisbury, England. He obtained a double First in English at Queens' College, Cambridge, and afterwards studied shortly for a PhD at Oxford, taking Byron as his subject, before interrupting his postgraduate studies and moving to London.

He has adapted the works of Herodotus, Homer, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio 4. His novels, including Attis and Deliver Us From Evil, mostly have a supernatural and horror element as well as being set in the past. He is also the author of three highly praised works of history, Rubicon, Persian Fire and Millennium.

He is the Chair of the Society of Authors.

He lives in London with his wife and two daughters.

Series

• The Vampyre: Being the True Pilgrimage of George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron (1995), ISBN 0-316-91227-1 (published in the U.S. as Lord of the Dead)
• Supping with Panthers (1996), ISBN 0-316-87622-4 (published in the U.S. as Slave of My Thirst)

Novels

• Attis (1995), ISBN 0-7490-0213-1
• The Vampyre: Being the True Pilgrimage of George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron (1995), ISBN 0-7515-1361-X
• Deliver Us from Evil (1997), ISBN 0-316-88248-8
• The Sleeper in the Sands (1998), ISBN 0-316-64480-3
• The Bonehunter (2001), ISBN 0-316-64819-1

Short fiction

• The Poison in the Blood (2006), ISBN 0-349-11964-3

Plays

• The Importance of Being Frank (first professional performance 1991, text published 1997), ISBN 0-9530587-1-9

Non-fiction

• The Last Years of the Roman Republic (2003), ISBN 0-316-86130-8
• Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West (2005), ISBN 0-316-72664-8
• Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom (2008), ISBN 978-0-316-73245-1
• "The Persian Way of War", essay in Lapham's Quarterly, Winter 2008.
• The Shadow of the Sword: Global Empire and the Rise of a New Religion (2011), ISBN 1408700077