Martina Cole is the No. 1 bestselling author of eighteen hugely successful novels. Her most recent novel, The Faithless, was a No. 1 bestseller. The Family went straight to No. 1 on the Sunday Times hardback bestseller list and was the bestselling hardback adult fiction title of 2010 as well as being a No. 1 bestseller in paperback. It is currently being adapted for television following the huge success of The Take and The Runaway on Sky One. Two Women and The Graft have been adapted for the stage; both were highly acclaimed when performed at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, which will also stage Dangerous Lady later this year – celebrating twenty years since Martina’s debut novel was published.

Martina Cole is a phenomenon. Her hard-hitting, uncompromising and haunting writing makes for an incredible read, and sales of her books now stand at over ten million copies. She is the person who dares to tell it like it really is.

Also By

By Martina Cole and available from Headline

Dangerous Lady

The Ladykiller

Goodnight Lady

The Jump

The Runaway

Two Women

Broken

Faceless

Maura’s Game

The Know

The Graft

The Take

Close

Faces

The Business

Hard Girls

The Family

The Faithless

The Life

Foreword

After books, my big love is music. As I’m writing of a night time, I listen to the sounds of the eras I am writing about. It’s a perfect way to get into the characters’ minds and, as everyone knows, a certain record can transport you back to a particular moment in time. If I hear ‘Mama Weer All Crazee Now’ by Slade, I can remember with stunning clarity one of my oldest friends, Graham Petherick, air-guitaring to it as a crowd of us watched his silhouette through his bathroom window! When I listen to ‘Woke Up This Morning’ by Alabama 3, I can see my daughter Freddie Mary and my grandson Lewis, both four years old at the time, singing along to it as we travelled down to my caravan in Eastbourne. Wonderful memories, captured in time by music. Music can do that to you, bring back a memory and make you smile even on your saddest of days. After I buried my mum, I played Bowie, and even in my grief I had to smile as I remembered her asking me to turn up ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide’ on my record player; she loved that song, she loved Bowie. She died in the early eighties, eight months after my father’s death, and I still miss them both very much.