AUTHORS: N-Z
Andie Newton
Andie Newton is an American writer living in Washington State with her husband and two boys. She writes female-driven WWII historical fiction and middle grade ghost stories.
She has a Bachelor’s degree in History from Washington State University and a Master in Teaching. She would love to say she spends her free time gardening and cooking, but she’s killed everything she’s ever planted and set off more fire alarms than she cares to admit. Andie does, however, love spending time with her family, ultra trail running, travelling the world, and drinking copious amounts of coffee.
Tony O'Reilly
Tony O’Reilly runs a small graphic design company. He lives and works in the seaside town of Dalkey, Co. Dublin. His hobbies include swimming, eating and people watching, which makes him a bit of a goldfish if you think about it.
This year he came 2nd overall in the Yeovil Short Story awards. He was shortlisted for the William Trevor Short Story Competition and the George Bermingham short story competition. One of his first short stories won the Emerging Writer competition in The Sunday Tribune Hennessy Literary Awards. His first book, Sentinel, came first in the Discovered Authors competition for the Republic of Ireland and 2nd overall in the UK and Ireland.
These days he is working on a novel, The Monto, a thriller set in Dublin in the days following the 1916 Easter Rising.
Bella Osborne
Bella Osborne’s stories are about friendship, love and coping with what life throws at you. She has written eight romantic comedies and in 2022 her rom com The Promise of Summer won the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Jane-Wenham Jones Award for Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year. Her tenth novel, and second bookclub title, The Girls, will be out April 2022.
Bella lives in The Midlands, UK with her husband, daughter and a cat who thinks she’s a dog. When not writing Bella is usually eating custard creams and planning holidays.
Evan Ostryzniuk
Evan Ostryzniuk is the author of a historical fiction series, featuring wannabe knight Geoffrey Hotspur, published by Endeavour Media.
Evan grew up in Canada and attended Cambridge University, where he earned a PhD in History. He currently works for the BBC. Evan is working on a new series of historical detective novels set during the early years of the Spanish Inquisition, following special papal investigator Serafino Tucci di Salerno.
Samantha Pennington
Originally from Northamptonshire, Samantha now lives in North Essex with her family. An aspiring author from a young age, she only recently stopped procrastinating and is writing in earnest her debut novel, a romcom. When not reading or writing, she can be found making excuses not to run, sipping gin with the girls and planning city breaks.
J. T. Ridge
J. T. Ridge is a fantasy author whose work is heavily influenced by his interest in world religions and cultures.
He teaches philosophy and religious studies in Oxfordshire, and enjoys writing and travelling when time allows.
Alex Shaw
Alex Shaw is a member of the International Thriller Writers organisation and the Crime Writers Association. His bestselling Aidan Snow SAS thrillers Cold Blood, Cold Black and Cold East are published by HarperCollins UK (HQ Digital) in English and Luzifer Verlag in German. His latest novel Traitors came out July 2021. Alex has also written numerous short stories and novellas.
Alex and his family are currently expats dividing their time between homes in Ukraine, England and Qatar.
Maggie Sullivan
Manchester-born global bestselling author Maggie Sullivan writes Coronation Street prequels following the early lives of the much-loved Corrie characters, as well as sagas set in Lancashire during the Second World War.
Maggie also writes non fiction, romantic fiction, historical fiction and heartwarming short stories. She loves to travel and is an avid reader, never going without her Kindle. She is a long standing member of Romantic Novelists’ Association. After living abroad for several years, she settled in London where she still lives.
Rhiannon Jenkins Tsang
Rhiannon was born and grew up in Yorkshire, read Oriental Studies (Chinese) at Oxford, and is a non-practising lawyer. Her work focuses on historical and cultural fault lines, and contains strong international themes.
The Last Vicereine was published by Penguin Random House in 2017 and she is the 2018 winner of the Nottingham Writers’ Studio Writer of the Year award.
Helen Watts
Helen Watts writes historical fiction for children. Her debut novel One Day in Oradour (Bloomsbury, 2014) was nominated for the 2014 CILIP Carnegie Medal for an Outstanding Book for Children.
Helen regularly runs creative writing workshops in schools and libraries. When she is not working, she loves walking in the Vale of Evesham, where she now lives.
Kerry Watts
Kerry Watts is the author of crime thrillers which often have mental health issues at the heart of the story. This comes from her experience of working with people with mental health problems in acute and community settings. When she’s not writing she devours true crime books and TV shows which has given her an unsettling amount of knowledge on serial killers and their lives.
She is the author of the Detective Jessie Blake series, set in Perthshire, published by Bookouture.
@kezzawattsbooks
Simon Whaley
Simon Whaley is a writer, author and photographer. He is the bestselling author of One Hundred Ways For A Dog To Train Its Human. Foraging for Murder, a cosy mystery, is out now.
In addition to writing several books, Simon regularly has articles and short stories printed in various publications.
Daisy White
Daisy White/D.E. White is a full time writer of psychological thrillers, cosy crime and crime thrillers, including the bestselling Detective Dove Milson series for Joffe Books. She lives on the south coast of the UK with her family and flock of rescue chickens, but dreams of one day moving somewhere warmer…preferably with palm trees!
Kathryn Whitfield
Kathryn loved reading from the moment she got a library card and soon began to fill notebooks with stories of her own. A career in Audiology took over, until she began scribbling down words during newborn naps on her maternity leave. She lives in Staffordshire with her husband and two young children and is working on her debut novel.
Emma-Claire Wilson
Born in Scotland, Emma travelled the world as the child of military parents. Finally she settled in Southern Spain with her husband, daughters, and rescue dog, Pip. Emma works as a journalist for English language magazines and newspapers in Spain and in 2015 launched The Glass House Online Magazine. When not writing emotional book club fiction, you can find her by the sea dreaming up new stories, or wrapped in a blanket with a book in her hand.
Janet Woods
Janet Woods was a popular author of historical women’s fiction. Born and raised in Dorset, she emigrated to Western Australia. Janet was the author of Daughter of Darkness, which won the mainstream section of Romantic Novel of the Year in Australia in 2002.
Janet was a life member of The Society of Women Writers, Western Australia and was nominated for the ‘Alice’, an award in recognition of outstanding achievement. She was published by Robert Hale, Simon & Schuster, and Severn House.
Mark Woolhouse
Mark Woolhouse OBE is a Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, a post he has held for over twenty years. Well-known and respected in his field, he has received numerous awards and has been introduced on the Today Programme as “one of Britain’s most senior scientists”. Since January 2020 he has been heavily involved with the UK’s response to COVID-19. He is a member of two high-level government advisory bodies: SPI-M for the UK (a subcommittee of SAGE) and the C19 Advisory Group for the Scottish Government. His scientific memoir, The Year The World Went Mad, was published in February 2022.