A reader’s guide to Martina Cole
Martina Cole was born in Essex, England, to Irish Catholic parents, and was the youngest of five children. She was expelled from her convent school at 15 after allegedly being caught reading a Harold Robbins novel. She married for the first time aged 16, but the marriage only lasted a year. She had her first child, Christopher, at the age of 18. Her parents both died when she was in her early 20s.
Prior to her literary success, Cole had a variety of jobs, including working as a cleaner, a wine waitress, an agency nurse and a supermarket shelf-stacker. Cole's breakthrough came in 1991, when her manuscript for Dangerous Lady was accepted and sold for a record £150,000. The book was published the following year. Her novels often deal with the seedy underworld of London, England and feature a female protagonist. Her novels are chock-full of grisly murders, violent robberies, and even prison breaks. Each act is very detailed and realistic. Several of her novels have been adapted to film, television and stage.
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