Her family has long-standing connections to the West Country, but moved to the London area when she was a small child.
She was educated at Walthamstow Hall School in Sevenoaks and at the University of York, from which she has a doctorate in History.
[citation needed] Porter moved back to England, and has worked as a journalist and been a senior adviser on international public relations to a major telecommunications company.
[3] Her third book, Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots, was published by Macmillan in 2013.
[11] The author’s fifth book, Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II, was published in the UK on 16 April 2020.