Cindy Jefferies was born in Cirencester. She always wanted to be a writer, but went through a variety of jobs first including teaching, working in a china shop, a pub, and as a DJ, selling junk antiques, making Venetian masks, and running an employment agency. She started a bookselling business, but got fed up of selling other people's books and finally wrote what became her first published book, Sebastian's Quest. She co-authored the Stadium School miniseries for A&C Black with her son, Seb Goffe.