Just a quick post for all you Martina Cole fans. If you are in any of the locations, below, this month you may be able to get a signed copy of her new book The Family from the lady herself.

WH Smith – Liverpool Street, Broadgate Station – 19th October 2010

WH Smith – Bluewater – 28th October 2010

WH Smith – Bexleyheath – 13th October 2010

Pre order now!

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Martina Cole failed to take the ITV Bestseller Dagger Award last night, 21st October 2009, at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.

American author Harlan Coben took the award for favourite crime author beating popular authors Dick Francis, Alexander McCall Smith, Nicci French and, of course, Martina Cole. The Dagger Award winner was selected by the British public after an online poll which lasted six weeks. The Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards 2009 event will be televised on ITV3 on Tuesday, 27th October at 9pm.

Harlan Coben currently has 16 bestsellers under his belt and 47 millions books in print worldwide. His latest novels Long Lost and Hold Tight both debuted at number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list and lists around the world. Harlan already has another book in the pipeline, Caught, which will be available in early spring 2010.

Harlan, who had travelled to the Awards ceremony from his home in New Jersey with his 10-year-old son, said:

“It’s a real thrill. The only time I’d have expected to be on a list with those four names is in a restaurant, so it’s just sort of stunning … Maybe there’s a little more love for me in the UK [than there is in the US].”

I have been a fan of Harlan Coben for sometime and if you have not seen the French language film Tell No One from the book of the same name I urge you to read the book then watch the film, both are very entertaining.

So bad luck Martina but I’m sure the imminent release of your latest novel Hard Girls will more than make up for missing out on the award. Better luck next year!

There is more information and pictures from the event on the The Daily Mail, The Evening Standard and The Guardian, enjoy.

Other winners:

The best crime novel of the year went to William Brodrick who won the CWA Gold Dagger 2009, sponsored by BooksDirect, for A Whispered Name (Little, Brown).

The year’s best thriller was The Last Child by John Hart (John Murray), which won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2009, sponsored by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd.

Johan Theorin’s Echoes From The Dead (Doubleday) won the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2009, sponsored by Louise Penny and Michael Whitehead, as a first book by a previously unpublished writer, awarded in memory of CWA founder John Creasey.

Colin Dexter, Lynda La Plante, Ian Rankin and Val McDermid collected trophies to commemorate their inaguration into the Hall of Fame.

HBO’s “The Wire” picked up two gongs, as best drama and its star Dominic West as the best actor. Juliet Stevenson won the best actress dagger.

Martina Cole has her novel The Business shortlisted for this years Specsavers ITV3 Crime Thriller Bestseller Dagger 2009.

If you are a Martina Cole fan then head over to ITV.com and cast your vote!

Specsavers, Cactus TV and ITV3 in partnership with the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) will join forces to celebrate the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards 2009 which will take place on Wednesday, 21st October 2009 at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel. The event will be televised and shown on ITV3 later in October.

The partnership is a 3 year deal between the four parties. The initiative has the support of leading publishers and highstreet retailers and will have posters and stickered books in shops and supermarkets and coverage in the press, reinforcing the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards as a major industry event.

Martina Cole was recently interviewed by The Mirror newspaper about her climb to the top of the crime fiction bestsellers list. it makes for an interesting read.

Martina Cole turned 50 earlier this year and celebrated by staying at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Apparently Martina Cole has a passion for designer handbags and diamond jewellery and treated herself! Having amassed a personal fortune of £20 million from her novels, TV dramatisations and associated work I am sure Martina can well afford the odd little luxury here and there and reviewing her earlier life I think she deserves it.

Martina Cole started her early adult life in poverty, sleeping on the floor of her unfurnished council flat and working several jobs to support her young child. Martina Cole mentions that she used to take money form her son.

“He had this clock where he hid all his birthday or pocket money and I can’t tell you how many times I robbed that clock. I felt so bad about it but I was struggling. They were terrible times.”

At the young age of 21 Martina Cole lost both her parents. It is bad enough to lose one parent but both within a year must be a terrible blow. For years, she didn’t do anything with her writing but just before her 30th birthday she bought an electric typewriter and decided to “give it a year” and see if her hobby could be turned into a full time profession. An early manuscript, Dangerous Lady, was finished and sent to a publisher and the rest, as they say, is history!

Well done Martina Cole, you deserve your just rewards and your fan base grows week by week.

More information about Martina Cole can be found on dangerouslady.co.uk in the article About Martina Cole.

The full article from The Mirror can be found here

Want to know about Martina Cole? We present our snapshot of Martina Cole, her background, novels and achievements.

In an easy to read, bullet point format find our guide to Martina Cole below.

 

 

Martina Cole:

• was born and brought up in Aveley, Essex
• is the youngest of five children
• comes from a large Irish Catholic family
• her mother, a psychiatric nurse, was from Dublin
• her father, a merchant seaman, was from Cork
• attended a convent school (and hated it!)
• at the age of 14 dated a bank robber
• was expelled from school at 15 for reading Harold Robbins’s The Carpetbaggers
• got married at 16
• got divorced at 17
• was pregnant at 18 with her first child, Christopher
• was a pea picker for her first job
• often had upto 3 jobs to make ends meet
• would write to entertain herself
• used to write mini books for her neighbour
• never submitted her work to publishers initially as she lacked self confidence
• married in her early twenties
• decided to try writing full-time in her thirties
• gave up her job as a secretary and decided she would “give it a year”
• sent off a manuscript, Dangerous Lady to an agent she picked from the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook
• had been working on the Dangerous Lady manuscript years previously
• submitted the manuscript on a Friday and had “the call” on the Monday!
• sold her first two books, via her agent Darley Anderson, for a then record £150,000
• has worked with agent Darley Anderson for 20 years
• was signed by publishers Hodder Headline, who were a new start-up at the time
• regulary sells in excess of 300,000 hardbacks on initial release of a new title
• had a bestseller hardback in 2005 with The Take
• won the Best Crime Thriller at the British Book Awards with The Take
• has had Dangerous Lady, The Jump, and The Take adapted into television dramas
• has achieved worldwide sales of over 8 million books
• has had 3 paperbacks go straight to top spot on The Sunday Times fiction bestseller list
• has presented on TV with shows such as Martina Cole’s Ladykillers
• now lives in Kent to be close to family
• has a new novel Hard Girls out on October 15th 2009

Anything to add? Post a comment, below, or start a post in the forum. We would love to hear from other Martina Cole fans out there!

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We thought it would be interesting to Martina Cole fans, such as yourself, to include some of the video interviews found around the web. This one is Martina Cole discussing the launch, of what was, here debut American novel Close

From the text describing the interview:

The #1 bestselling novelist in the UK now makes her U.S. debut with a hardhitting story that combines the brutality and deep family ties of The Sopranos with an unparalleled look at the underbelly of London’s gang land.

Enjoy …

Click here to view the embedded video.

Feel free to add a comment below on the interview.

The Guardian / Observer newspaper recently interviewed Martina Cole, May 2009, ahead of Sky1 broadcasting the new 4 part dramatisation of her novel The Take to be aired later in the year.

It is a cracking interview and gives us an insight into Martina Cole and her home life. Well worth a read during a lunchtime or coffee break. You can find the article here.

The Guardian had previously reported, back in April 2008, that Sky1 had, in fact, commissioned two adaptations from the Martina Cole novels. The first adaptation will be The Take and the second will be The Graft. So the fans among us have a real treat in store! It is great seeing characters come to life on the screen and, for me anyway, means a re-read of the novel in question after watching the film version.