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Reading Group

• Author biography
• Praise for Martina Cole’s bestsellers
• Interview with Martina Cole

Author biography

Martina Cole is the No. 1 bestselling author of sixteen hugely successful novels. The Business was the No. 1 bestselling hardback adult fiction title of 2008. The Take won the British Book Award for Crime Thriller of the Year in 2006 and has been a highly acclaimed adaptation for Sky One, with remarkable reviews. The Runaway is currently in production. The Know was selected by Richard & Judy as one of the Top Ten Best Reads of 2003 and total sales of Martina’s novels are now over ten million copies. Martina Cole has a son and daughter, and she lives in Kent.

Martina Cole is highly acclaimed for her hard-hitting, uncompromising and haunting writing, as well as for her incredible success.

Praise for Martina Cole’s bestsellers

‘A blinding good read’ - Ray Winstone
‘A gritty tale that will keep you hooked’ - Sun
‘Distinctive and powerfully written fiction’ - The Times
‘All the favourite hallmarks – gritty dialogue, shocking violence and a gripping storyline’ - Daily Express
‘Martina Cole pulls no punches, writes as she sees it, refuses to patronise or condescend to either her characters or fans’ - Independent on Sunday
‘Hard-hitting and uncompromising, this is quite literally The Business’ - News of the World

Interview with Martina Cole

When did you start writing?
I wrote my first book when I was twenty-one. It was Dangerous Lady and I kept it in a cupboard for ten years. I was about to throw it out when I started reading it through and thought, ‘Hang on, this isn’t bad.’ So I took a six-month sabbatical from the nursing home I was running and edited it, before phoning literary agent Darley Anderson, whose name I picked out from the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, to tell him what the book was about. He said, ‘Women don’t write books like that, but send it to me, I’m intrigued.’ I sent it to him on the Thursday and, on my life, he rang me on the Monday night and said, ‘Martina Cole? You are going to be a star.’ I thought it was a wind-up! But he auctioned the book and Headline paid £150,000 for two books – at the time the highest advance ever paid for an unknown author.

How important are books to you?
Very. I was a rebel when I was a kid and played truant from school all the time, but I always loved reading, and English was the one subject I liked. I joined the library on behalf of my mum and dad so I could get books out for them, then I’d go over to the park, where I’d smoke and read all day! I was expelled from a couple of schools, then, when I was fifteen, we agreed that I wouldn’t go to school and my parents wouldn’t try to make me. There was a real, strong work ethic in our family so when I left school I worked in clubs, pubs, waitressed, anything, until I ended up running a nursing home. It was my old English teacher, who I’m still in touch with, who encouraged me all those years ago and told me I could write.

Who are your favourite authors?
I’ve always read widely: classics to sagas and a lot of non-fiction. One of my favourite books which I first read when I was about eleven or twelve is Hatter’s Castle by A.J. Cronin – I now have a lovely leatherbound first edition of it. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene is another all-time favourite and I love nothing more than curling up with a Catherine Cookson or Maeve Binchy. I also read a lot of other crime writers: Val McDermid, Mandasue Heller, Walter Mosley. I love books by the American criminal psychologist Ann Rule, who discussed all serial killer Ted Bundy’s murders with him in her first book. Her comment was, ‘I just couldn’t believe he seemed so normal!’ That’s the key for a crime novelist: from seeming normality comes horror.

How much time do you have to read other books?
Not as much as I’d like, but I’ve always got several books on the go, a mixture of fiction and non-fiction – I particularly love history. Over the ast couple of years I’ve been doing more TV presenting and very often have reading to do for research or scripts to work on.

What do you enjoy most about being a writer?
I always wanted to be a writer, even when I was bunking off school! My nana used to say, ‘You’re never alone with a book,’ and it’s very true. I never thought I would be as successful as I have been, I just wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. Now I see it on the sides of buses everywhere – it’s freaky. But I still get that little buzz if I see anyone reading one of my books.

One of the things I enjoy most is getting out and about and meeting people at signing sessions and events; I have the most incredible, loyal, lovely readers and I’ll never forget the support they’ve shown me over the years.

How do you write?
There’s no rhyme or reason to the way I write. If I don’t feel like it, I go out. But I do work most nights and often through into the day. I take after my mum and average about four hours’ sleep a night. Normally I go to bed at about 4 a.m. If I’m not writing, I read, watch TV or catch up with friends who live abroad. I might even clean the fridge out at two in the morning. A couple of nights ago I worked twenty-three hours straight off and then went to bed at about nine at night. I’ve always been like that.

How long does it take you to write a novel?
About nine months from start to finish, including research and getting the basic storyline and characters established, but then I actually write the story very quickly usually, in about three months – but not quickly enough according to a lot of my readers!

Have you ever been shocked by what you’ve created?
Yes, sometimes I am shocked by what I’ve written. I do pick very strong subjects but they’re always topical and a reflection of what’s going on in real life.

In a way, I was shocked when I re-read The Ladykiller and one of the characters kills a little boy. At the time of writing it, I was so caught up in what I was doing, trying to make it believable, that I had a different perspective.