Pauline Sara Jo Moyes, known professionally as Jojo Moyes, was born on 4 August 1969 in Maidstone, Kent, England, UK, but grew up in London. She was the only child of Elizabeth J. McKee and James C. Moyes. Moyes studied at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Bedford New College, London University. She lives on a farmhouse in Great Sampford, Essex with her husband, journalist Charles Arthur, and their three children.

After a varied career including stints as a minicab controller, typer of braille statements for blind people for NatWest, and brochure writer for Club 18-30, she pursued a degree at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, London University. In 1992, she won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to attend the postgraduate newspaper journalism course at City University. Apart from 1994, when she worked in Hong Kong for the Sunday Morning Post, she worked at The Independent for ten years, including stints as Assistant News Editor and Arts and Media Correspondent.

Jojo Moyes has been a full-time novelist since 2002, when her first book, Sheltering Rain, was published. She is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and screenwriter, and one of only a few authors to have twice won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Her works have been translated into twenty-eight languages and have sold over 40 million copies worldwide.