Eric Lee was born in New York City, lived most of his adult life on a kibbutz in Israel, and today lives in London. His most recent books are The August Uprising, 1924:
Sarah Hawkswood
Sarah Hawkswood read History at St Hugh’s College Oxford, taking Military History and Theory of War as her Special Subject, and has worked in a regimental museum, written educational material for Salisbury Cathedral, catalogued weapons from muskets to missiles, and undertaken research for the Royal Marines Museum. After ’time out’ as a full time mother, she returned to research that culminated in From Trench and Turret – Royal Marines Diaries 1914-1918 under her maiden name, S M Holloway, (Constable 2006). By this time she had begun to write historical fiction, in which creation of a ‘world’ is central, and which tries to stick as close as possible to accurate historical context. She admits that her Bradecote and Catchpoll series is a bit of a cheat, since active ‘investigating’ by Sheriff’s men is far more akin to police work than the twelfth century and ‘hue and cry’.
When not writing the Bradecote & Catchpoll series she writes ‘trad’ Regency novels, but these are biding their time until the genre is publishable again. She likes switching between the two worlds.
Kate Griffin
After studying English at university Kate’s first job was as an assistant to a London antiques dealer. She then trained to be a journalist and worked in local newspapers and magazines before moving into PR where she worked for a range of charities and not for profit organisations including The National Autistic Society and British Waterways.
Until recently she was communications manager for Britain’s most venerable heritage body, The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, fondly known as SPAB.
Her most recent book is Fyneshade was published in hardback 2023 by Viper. (Paperback out February 2024). A loving homage to the gothic (and in particular the sub-genre, ‘Governess Gothic’), it is a bridge between Jane Eyre and the Turn of the Screw.
Kate is currently working on two books with co-writer Marcia Hutchinson. The Blackbirds of St Giles is set in the little-known world of the black community in Georgian London and will be published early in 2025 by Simon and Schuster.
Her first book, Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders (winner of the 2012 Faber and Faber / Stylist Magazine crime fiction writing competition) was published in July 2013. The sequel, Kitty Peck and the Child of Ill Fortune, was published in July 2015, Kitty Peck and the Daughter of Sorrow, was published July 2017 and the concluding instalment, Kitty Peck and the Parliament of Shadows was published in 2019.
Under the name Cate Cain, she has also published two historical mystery books for children, The Jade Boy and The Moon Child (both published by Templar).
Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders was shortlisted for the CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger in 2014. The Jade Boy was shortlisted for The Booktrust’s ‘Book of the Year’ award for readers aged 9-13.
Kate lives in St Albans.
CC (Chris) Humphreys
Chris (C.C.) Humphreys was born in Toronto and grew up in the UK. He has acted all over the world and appeared on stages ranging from London’s West End to Hollywood’s Twentieth Century Fox. Favorite roles have included Hamlet, Caleb the Gladiator in NBC’s Biblical-Roman epic mini-series, ‘AD – Anno Domini’ and Jack Absolute in Sheridan’s ‘The Rivals’.
Chris has written nine historical novels. The first, ‘The French Executioner’ told the tale of the man who killed Anne Boleyn, was runner up for the CWA Steel Dagger for Thrillers 2002, and has been optioned for the screen. Its sequel was ‘Blood Ties’. Having played Jack Absolute, he stole the character and has written three books on this ‘007 of the 1770s’ – ‘Jack Absolute’, ‘The Blooding of Jack Absolute’ and ‘Absolute Honour’- short listed for the 2007 Evergreen Prize by the Ontario Library Association. His novel about the real Dracula, ‘Vlad, The Last Confession’ was a bestseller in Canada and his novel, ‘A Place Called Armageddon’ was recently published in Turkish.
In 2012 he wrote, ‘Shakespeare’s Rebel’- about Shakespeare’s fight arranger – and then adapted it into a play of the same title, which premiered at the Bard on the Beach Festival, Vancouver, Canada in July 2015.
All his novels have been published in the UK, Canada, the US and many have been translated in various languages including Russian, Italian, German, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Serbian, Turkish and Indonesian.
He has also written a trilogy for young adults ‘The Runestone Saga’ – Norse myth, runic magic, time travel and horror. The first book in the series is ‘The Fetch’, the sequel, ‘Vendetta’ and the conclusion is ‘Possession’. They are also published in Russia, Greece, Turkey and Indonesia. His latest Young Adult novel ‘The Hunt of the Unicorn’ was released by Knopf in North America and also published in Spain.
His new adult novel is ‘Plague’ published by Doubleday in Canada and Century in the UK in 2014. It is the winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel in Canada in 2015. ‘Fire’ will be published in 2016. Both are tales of religious fundamentalist serial killers set against the wild events of 1665 to 1666, London.
Chris lives on Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada, with his wife and young son.
Catherine Hokin
Catherine Hokin is a Glasgow-based author, writing fiction inspired by World War Two and the Cold War. She has had eleven books published by Bookouture and Grand Central Publishing in the USA since 2020, all of which are partly or wholly based in Berlin and are available as e-books, audiobooks and paperbacks.
The Fortunate Ones, is a story of love and survival set in Berlin and Buenos Aires. Felix and Hannah meet unexpectedly in a Berlin dance hall. They are instantly smitten and immediately separated. Felix goes searching for the beautiful girl in blue but ‘Hannah’ is not who she seems and, when they encounter each other again, it is in the most terrible of circumstances.
What Only We Know – traces the devastating impact of a family secret, with a timeline split between the 1930s/1940s and the 1970s to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Lost Mother moves from the German film industry under Goebbels to 1950s Hollywood and covers the rarely explored story of the rise of the German American Bund in America and the internment of American Germans.
The Secretary returns to a divided Berlin, contrasting the story of a grandmother who lives a double life working for the Nazis and using the knowledge she gains in Himmler’s office to rescue the Jewish Berliners at risk from them and a granddaughter who falls foul of the Stasi.
The Hanni Winter series which is set in Berlin and Eastern Europe between 1933 and 1963 and features a photographer and a detective solving crimes, including a number which relate to Hanni’s father. In order the series comprises The Commandant’s Daughter, The Pilot’s Girl, The Girl in the Photo and Her Last Promise.
The German Child is a dual timeline novel set in WW2 Poland and 1990s Washington which examines the true nature and the legacy of the Lebensborn programme, and the beginning of the hunt for ex-Nazis living hidden lives in the USA.
The Secret Hotel in Berlin This is also a dual timeline novel, which focuses on the fortunes of a grand hotel between the 1930s and 1990s, the secret acts of resistance carried out there in WW2 and a story which has been told so often, it becomes the truth.
The Train That Took You Away Set in Berlin during and after WW2, this is the story of a lost child , a hidden painting and two women from very different worlds trying to mend their broken hearts
Deborah Swift
Deborah Swift is the English author of eighteen historical novels, including Millennium Award winner Past Encounters, and The Lady’s Slipper, shortlisted for the Impress Prize.
Her most recent books are the Renaissance trilogy based around the life of the poisoner Giulia Tofana, The Poison Keeper and its sequels. Recently she has completed a secret agent series set in WW2, the first in the series being The Silk Code.
Deborah used to work as a set and costume designer for theatre and TV and enjoys the research aspect of creating historical fiction, something she loved doing as a scenographer. She likes to write about extraordinary characters set against the background of real historical events. Deborah lives in North Lancashire on the edge of the Lake District, an area made famous by the Romantic Poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge.
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Deborah is represented by Mark Gottlieb at Trident Media Group