D.V. Bishop writes the award-winning Cesare Aldo historical thrillers set in Renaissance Florence.

The first, City of Vengeance (2021), won the Pitch Perfect competition at Bloody Scotland, and the NZ Booklovers Award for Best Adult Novel. The second in the series, The Darkest Sin (2022), won the Crime Writers’ Association Historical Dagger. The third Cesare Aldo novel, Ritual of Fire (2023), was longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize. The fourth book in the series, A Divine Fury (2024), was published by Pan Macmillan in hardback, audiobook and ebook in June 2024. Work is well underway on books five and six in the Cesare Aldo series.

Katherine Mezzacappa is Irish but now lives in Carrara in Italy, between the Apuan Alps and the Tyrrhenian Sea. As Katie Hutton, she has published The Gypsy Bride, The Gypsy’s Daughter, Annie of Ainsworth’s Mill and The Maid of Lindal Hall with Bonnier Zaffre. Writing as Katherine Mezzacappa, her Renaissance #MeToo (based on historical events), The Maiden of Florence, was published by Fairlight in April 2024 and in Italian translation by Piemme. The Maiden of Florence was shortlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award in2025. Also writing as Katherine Mezzacappa, The Ballad of Mary Kearney, set in 18c Ireland was published by Histria (January 2025) followed by Lucie Dumas with Stairwell (2026).

Katherine’s historical short fiction has been published by Aspects of History, Forever Endeavour, Erotic Review Magazine, The Copperfield Review, Turnpike Magazine, Asymmetry Magazine, Yours, My Weekly, the Henshaw Press and others.

Katherine is a member of The Irish Writers Centre, The Irish Writers Union (where she is a committee member), The Historical Novel Society (for which she reviews, and for which she is one of the organisers of the 2026 European Conference, in Maynooth, Co Kildare) and the Romantic Novelists Association. Katherine also works as a manuscript assessor for The Literary Consultancy and the RNA New Writers Scheme. She has a first degree in History of Art (UEA), an M.Litt. in English Literature (Durham) and a Masters in Creative Writing (Canterbury Christ Church). Katherine works as a manuscript assessor at The Literary Consultancy (London) and for the Romantic Novelists’ Association. She is also a reader for a number of literary prizes.

The Irish Writers Centre awarded Katherine a residency at Cill Rialaig, Co. Kerry in October 2019, to work on The Maiden of Florence. In 2022 Katherine had another residency, from the Danish Centre for Writers and Translators, at Hald Hovedgård, Viborg, to work Lucie Dumas. She has also been awarded a residency by the Latvian Writers House, Ventspils, in May 2026.

 

Vanessa de Haan is a writer, as well as a freelance journalist, editor and proofreader. In 2005 she left an in-house job at The Spectator magazine in London and moved to Devon to concentrate on her own writing. She took the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and was a columnist on the Western Morning News for almost three years (writing under the name Zoë Kenyon).

 

Her first novel – The Restless Sea – is about the Merchant and Royal Navies during the Arctic convoys of the second world war, and was inspired by family history, as well as a love for the West Highlands of Scotland and the sea. It was published by HarperCollins in 2018.

 

Vanessa’s second novel is set in Devon, where she still lives, now with a husband, three children and various animals.

Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. With a doctorate in medieval history from Oxford, she is a former Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her first popular history book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013, and was shortlisted for the Longman/History Today Prize, It was also a Book of the Year for The Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Daily Mail and Herald Scotland. Mary Beard called it ‘microhistory at its absolute best’ while Dan Jones considered it ‘glorious’. Its highly-acclaimed sequel, Mr Barry’s War, about the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in the nineteenth century, was a Book of the Year in 2016 for The Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was described by Lucy Worsley as ‘a real jewel, finely wrought and beautiful’.

She has appeared at various literary festivals, including Hay and Cheltenham; has broadcast on BBC Radio 4 (The Westminster Hour, The Archive Hour, Analysis), LBC and various international radio stations; has appeared on TV including for BBC Parliament, BBC 2’s Timewatch and for the Discovery Channel; and has written  opinion pieces for The Guardian and The Literary Review , and bookreviewed for The Spectator.

Caroline teaches Public History to postgraduates at the Centre for Archives and Information Studies at the University of Dundee, and on using archives for creative non-fiction at Cambridge University’s Institute of Continuing Education.  In 2017 she was a Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library.  She is also an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society.

Her third book, National Treasures. How the Nation’s Art was Saved in World War II was published by John Murray in November 2021.