Desmond began his career as a journalist living in Cyprus but has spent most of it working in banking & finance, including an extended period living in the Persian Gulf. Why the switch? “It was a wonderful life at the time,” he says, “but after a while I grew restless and wanted to try my hand at something else.” His interest in the wider Middle East was sparked initially when he read Arabic & Persian at St Peter’s College, Oxford.

In the time of the Mulberry is his debut novel, set among the bucolic villages of Mount Lebanon and their surrounding cities. His vivid accounts of the landscape derive from the various hiking expeditions he has made over the years and a fascination with discovering its remote corners firsthand.

In the just-published sequel (In the Time of Confusion), he follows his heroine Rose to Louisiana, first to New Orleans and then Lake Charles down by the Texas border. Why Lake Charles? “Because I came across taped interviews with a handful of Syrian migrants. Some had arrived there before the First World War and their stories inspired me,” he says.

Victoria Blake is the author of eight books. TITIAN’S BOATMAN is set partly in Renaissance Venice and partly in 21st century London and New York. Before turning to historical fiction she was a crime writer and four books figuring Sam Falconer, a PI operating between Oxford and SW London, were published by Orion.

She has also written two true crime books for The National Archives – one about Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain and one on Florence Maybrick, who was convicted of poisoning her husband with arsenic in Liverpool in the 1890s.

Her book FAR AWAY based on her father’s memoirs of being a POW in Italy, during the Second World War was shortlisted for the HNS Indie Award 2016.

She was brought up in Oxford in Queen’s College where her father, the historian Robert Blake was the Provost. She read history at LMH in Oxford and has subsequently worked in law, bookselling and publishing. She  lives in SW London.

Melanie Backe-Hansen is an independent historian, writer, and speaker, specialising in the social history of houses across the United Kingdom. The main focus of Melanie’s work involves original research for homeowners and corporate clients to provide bespoke house history books and research reports. Melanie was research consultant for television series A House Through Time (BBC Two) and co-authored the book of the same name with historian David Olusoga. She was series historical consultant and on-screen expert for Phil Spencer’s History of Britain in 100 Homes (More4) and contributing expert for BBC Radio 4 series, A Home of Our Own. She is also the author of House Histories: The Secrets Behind Your Front Door, Historic Streets and Squares: The Secrets on Your Doorstep, and Doors of London with photographer Cath Harries.

Melanie regularly contributes to national media, including The Times, The Telegraph, and The Daily Mail, as well as several history and lifestyle magazines, and appears regularly on television, radio and online media. She is also a regular speaker at events and festivals, as well as universities and history groups. Melanie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Member of the Royal Historical Society, and Associate Staff Member at the University of Dundee.

Rachel Hore worked in London publishing for many years before moving with her family to Norwich, Norfolk, where she taught publishing and creative writing at the University of East Anglia before becoming a full-time writer.  She is married to the writer D.J. Taylor and they have three grown-up sons.

Her latest novel is A BEAUTIFUL SPY, based on the life of Olga Gray, which was published in hardback in February 2021 by Simon & Schuster.  Her previous novels are THE DREAM HOUSE, THE MEMORY GARDEN, THE GLASS PAINTER’S DAUGHTER, which was shortlisted for the RNA Romance Novel of the Year 2010, A PLACE OF SECRETS, which was picked by Richard and Judy for their book club, A GATHERING STORM, which was shortlisted for the RONA Historical Novel of the Year 2012, THE SILENT TIDE, A WEEK IN PARIS, THE HOUSE ON BELLEVUE GARDENS, LAST LETTER HOME, which was a Richard and Judy book club selection, and THE LOVE CHILD.