Graduate of Stirling University with History degree in 1978, followed by postgraduate M.Litt from Strathclyde with thesis published as ‘Deer Forests, Landlords and Crofters’ in 1982. This also led to featured pieces on the Scotsman – ‘The Park Deer Raid’ 1980; ‘The Great Highland Famine’ 1988; ‘Slave Labours’ in 1990, revealing the extent of Scottish involvement in slavery.

However my main interest lay in fiction with short stories included in the Harper Collins Scottish Short Stories collection in 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993. Two in ‘Northwords’ in 2011 and 2019 and one in ‘Splinters’ in 2011.

Most recent is ‘MICK’ in 2019, a novel about a cruelly fostered child in Scotland in the 1950’s

Mike Lewis, who writes 19-century historical fiction in the first person with the aim of putting the reader 'in the moment', has just published his new novel about the tragic first ascent of the Matterhorn in July 1865.
The Icarus Ascent: Ghosts of the Matterhorn is the 'inside story' of one of mountaineering's most notorious disasters which claimed the lives of four of Edward Whymper's men shortly after they had conquered 'The Impossible Mountain'.

Told in a timeline on the countdown to tragedy, the novel relates what happened from the differing perspectives of each of the seven-man party.

A lifelong newspaper and multi-media journalist, Mike hails from west Wales, where his family have farmed for generations.

Having joined his local newspaper straight from school, he proceeded to work on a number of national titles in London.

A lifelong rock and pop music fan, in the 1990s he co-authored biographies on Scott Walker and Syd Barrett, of Pink Floyd.

An amateur boxing coach, Mike later worked as The Sunday Telegraph boxing correspondent, covering the Beijing Olympic Games of 2008.

His debut novel ‘If God Will Spare My Life…’  - based on the true story of the Welsh farmer's son who fought at the Battle of the Little Bighorn - was published by Victorina Press in 2021.

His second novel, The Icarus Ascent: Ghosts of the Matterhorn (Next Chapter Publishing) re-imagines events surrounding the 1865 fall on the Matterhorn through the eyes of Whymper’s ill-fated party.

SHELLEY PUHAK is a former English professor who lives near Washington, D.C. Her second nonfiction book, The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster (Bloomsbury, 2026), is a work of true crime and feminist history about Elizabeth Bathory, the 16th century noblewoman alleged to be the world’s most prolific female serial killer.

Shelley’s nonfiction debut was The Dark Queens (Head of Zeus, 2022), the remarkable, little-known story of two trailblazing women, the rival Frankish queens Brunhild and Fredegund. The book was praised by The Times Literary Supplement for its “eventful plot, entertaining style and historical credibility” and excerpted in Smithsonian and TIME magazines.

 

C. A. Asbrey developed a deep interest in early forensics and detection methods working in the field. She has researched early detectives and the tools available to them for years before developing her characters. They are compelling versions of real people, all her crimes are based on fictionalized versions of real crimes, and the methods used to solve them were available to detectives at the time. She likes her mysteries twisty, complex, and intricate through a fog of history.

C. A. Asbrey has deeply researched  the detective techniques and forensics of the nineteenth century, and has used them to create a series of six books based on first female detectives to use them professionally – the Female Pinkertons (1856-1884). Her protagonist also has to contend with a clever and charismatic criminal who uses the the new science to commit crime, in the same way as she uses it to solve them.

She is a writer of mysteries and a fan of all things Victorian and obscure, topped off with interest in early forensics, science, music, jaywalking, ordering the best meal at the table in a restaurant and dropping out of society to do whatever she wants. She enjoys an eclectic mix of the old and new, foreign and obscure, funny and dramatic, so includes these elements in her writing.

She loves finding gadgets which were invented earlier than popular wisdom accepts, especially when they involve the spying and scientific techniques of the past. If you are looking for historically accurate mysteries laced with vivid  characterizations, romance, and compelling plots, these are the books for you.    

She lives in York, England, with her husband, two daft cats, and Malcolm the dog.

Anna Abney is among the last descendants of the Abney family, former residents of Measham Hall, a lost house of Derbyshire. The Measham Hall series is a fictionalised account of her ancestors’ lives.

After growing up in London, Anna lived in Ireland for thirteen years. She wrote her PhD on the seventeenth century writer, Margaret Cavendish, the first English woman to be published in her own name, under the supervision of Lisa Jardine at Queen Mary, University of London. She then taught in the English and Creative Writing department of the Open University for several years. She has two grown up children and now lives in rural Kent with her screenwriter husband and their border collie, dividing her time between the equally demanding pursuits of writing and gardening.

She also writes under the name Madeline Dewhurst and her novel Charity is published by Lightning Books.