C J Parsons was born in Britain and grew up in Canada. She graduated from Montreal's McGill University with a degree in psychology and went on to earn a graduate degree in journalism.

She worked as a newspaper reporter at Canada's Globe and Mail before moving to Hong Kong, where she became a columnist at The South China Morning Post.

She also spent two years covering crime, seeing first-hand the disturbing forces that drive people to kill, something that has informed her writing to this day.

After returning to Britain, she moved into television news, working as a broadcast journalist for both the BBC and CNN International. CJ is now a senior producer at CGTN. She lives in north London with her twelve-year-old daughter.