Biography of Paula Hawking

Paula Hawkins is a British author. Originally from Zimbabwe, where her father was a economics professor and journalist, she moved to London at age 17 and there studied economics, philosophy, and and politics and University of Oxford. After working as a business and economics journalist herself for 15 years, Hawkins began to publish romantic fiction in 2009 under the pen name "Amy Silver." Her first four novels did not gain widespread notoriety, but her fifth, The Girl on the Train, which takes on the darker subject matter of domestic violence and alcohol abuse, debuted at #1 on the New York Times Fiction Bestsellers of 2015.