Alison is a historian with a passionate interest in the lives of ordinary people, especially the forgotten stories she finds in the newspaper archive. She worked in educational publishing and the charity sector before returning to full time study to complete an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. She went on to gain a PhD in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes, and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Alison lives in Oxford, where she volunteers for the Home Library service and is a trustee of Asylum Welcome, a local charity that supports refugees and asylum seekers. She has always loved to travel and began her working life as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language. She was lucky enough to be living in the New Hebrides when they gained their independence and became the Pacific nation of Vanuatu. These days she’s travelling less, but keeps busy researching and writing, as well as looking after her large garden and helping take care of her granddaughter.

After reading History at Oxford University, Tracy Cook produced and directed documentary series for the BBC. She moved into freelance journalism and PR when she had her two children. But her lifelong dream was always to write. After graduating from the Faber Academy Writing A Novel Course, she was longlisted for the Bridport Novel Prize in 2021. Wings Over Valletta will be her first published novel. She lives in Surrey with her husband.

I’m the author of the historical crime novel The Mystery At Rake Hall; C.S.Lewis Investigates, which was published in hardback by Swift Press on 24 April 2025; the hardback edition was published on 1 January this year (2026). The Times and The Telegraph both included it in their 2025 round-ups of the Best Crime Fiction of the year. A second C.S.Lewis Investigates novel, The Gargoyles Mystery, will be published in 2027. I’m also a published non-fiction author. My background is in journalism, starting out in the pop-music press and moving on to Fleet Street in 1979. For the Daily Express, I’ve worked as a sub-editor, a television and theatre critic, a feature writer and an interviewer before going freelance in 1998, since when my work has been published in nearly every English newspaper and many magazines. I was shortlisted for Writer of the Year in the 2018 PPA Independent Publisher Awards.

As both a historian and writer, Stephen M. Carter focuses on the life and times of the Duke of Monmouth (1630-1699). Stephen is more historical detective than a traditional historian. By working only with primary sources, he peels back the layers of time, removing the myths and blowing away the fog of academia to create a forensic timeline of the subject. This attention to detail delivers the gritty truth regardless of how far it takes the reader from the well-trodden path, which takes the reader out of their historical comfort zone. Whilst Stephen’s latest work, due to be published in October 2026, explores the life and loves of Monmouth’s mother, Lucy Walter. Born in England, today Stephen lives as an exile in Normandy, France, and can be followed on most platforms as @Warwalks.

Phillip Kerrigan is an Australian author of Irish descent and he lives in Lake Macquarie, Australia. Phillips’ background is in senior management of a cosmetics company and later proprietor of his own Apple computer business and Small to Medium Business Consultancy. His company won three Reseller awards with Apple in Australia and attended a number of Apple Inc conferences and many Mac World Expos in San Francisco. He sold his Reseller business to a US based Catalogue reseller. He then moved into consultancy work assisting small to medium businesses to utilise personal computers effectively in their business operations. Now retired Phillip’s writing is a late life pastime which he enjoys and is researching a sequel to his latest novel. He has written three other novels, two of which are available on Amazon. He is married, has two adult sons and two gorgeous granddaughters. He is extensively travelled, plays golf, reads mostly nonfiction, enjoys mild exercise and the occasional punt on horse racing and enjoys sport generally.

Dr Alison Weir is the top-selling female historian (and the fifth-bestselling historian overall) in the United Kingdom, and has sold over 3 million books worldwide and done more than 1100 events. She has published twenty-two history books, her most recent being Queens at War, the fourth volume of her England’s Medieval Queens quartet. Alison has also published seventeen historical novels, including the Six Tudor Queens series about the wives of Henry VIII, which was launched in 2016 to great critical acclaim; each of the six books was a Sunday Times top-ten besteseller. Alison’s latest novel is The Boleyn Secret (May 2026). She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an honorary life patron of Historic Royal Palaces. In 2023, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Bishop Grosseteste University at Lincoln.