Martina Cole has achieved sales of over fourteen million in the UK alone and her tenth novel, The Know, spent seven weeks on The Sunday Times hardback best-sellers list.
12 Facts About Martina Cole
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2.
Eilidh Martina Cole was born 30 March 1959, in Essex, England, to Irish Catholic parents, and was the youngest of five children.
3.
Martina Cole's mother was a psychiatric nurse from Glasnevin, County Dublin and her father was a merchant seaman from Cork City.
4.
Martina Cole was expelled from her convent school aged 15 after allegedly being caught reading a Harold Robbins novel.
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Martina Cole married for the first time aged 16, but the marriage only lasted a year.
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Martina Cole received the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association in 2021.
7.
In 2008 Martina Cole presented a drama documentary series on ITV3 called Martina Cole's Lady Killers, which told the story of six of history's most notorious female serial killers, including Myra Hindley, Beverly Allitt and Rose West.
8.
Martina Cole explored the reasons why women kill, and why society is surprised when they do.
9.
Three of Martina Cole's novels have been adapted for the stage by the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London: Two Women in 2010; The Graft in 2011, and Martina Cole's first novel, Dangerous Lady in 2012.
10.
In 2011 Martina Cole founded her own record label, Hostage Music.
11.
Martina Cole remarried in the 1990s, but the marriage ended in divorce.
12.
Martina Cole is a patron of the single-parent charity Gingerbread, and a patron of Women's Aid.