Zoë Sharp was born in Nottinghamshire, but spent most of her formative years living on a catamaran on the northwest coast of England. After a promising start at a private girls' school, she opted out of mainstream education at the age of twelve in favour of correspondence courses at home.

Zoë went through a variety of jobs in her teenage years, from yacht delivery crew to van driver, horse riding instructor to pensions and mortgage advisor, including a tough six months selling advertising for a local newspaper. In 1988, on the strength of one accepted article, she gave up her regular job to become a freelance photo-journalist, and has been making a living writing and photographing ever since, mainly for the motoring press.

Zoë wrote her first novel when she was fifteen, but her professional writing career took off in 2001 with the publication of the first Charlie Fox book − Killer Instinct. This was followed by Riot Act (2002) and Hard Knocks(2003). Charlie Fox next found herself in Florida in the breakneck thriller First Drop, first published in the UK (2004) and by her American publishers, St Martin's Press, in September 2005.

Zoë did an extensive signing tour to promote First Drop and it immediately achieved bestseller status with the Independent Mystery Booksellers' Association and was nominated for a Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel. This was followed in the UK by the fifth in the series, Road Kill (October 2005), and then Second Shot, which was published simultaneously in the UK by Allison & Busby and in the US by St Martin's, along with the mass market paperback of First Drop. The next Charlie Fox book, Third Strike, will be out in summer 2008.

Zoë lives in the English Lake District, and is married. Her hobbies are sailing, fast cars (and faster motorbikes), target shooting, travel, films, music, and reading just about anything she can get her hands on. She and her husband, Andy, who is a non-fiction author, have recently self-built their own house.