Maggie Hope was born in County Durham, during the Depression of the 1930s. She is the daughter of a coal miner and knows first-hand the hardships suffered by miners and their families during that time. Along with her three sisters, she was raised in a ' two-up-two-down' miner's cottage with no inside toilet. Growing up, Maggie never dreamed she could earn a living from her writing. Instead she left school at sixteen and became a nurse, collecting stories from colleagues who had served during the war. Maggie gave up nursing when she married her husband and started a family. It wasn't until she was in her 50s though that she finally began her writing career. She is now the Sunday Times bestselling author of fifteen novels.