Matthew Plampin is the author of five historical novels: The Street Philosopher (2009), The Devil’s Acre (2010), Illumination (2013), Will and Tom (2015) and Mrs Whistler (2018), which was shortlisted for the 2019 HWA Gold Crown. His sixth, These Wicked Devices, will be published by the Borough Press on 3rd July 2025.

Martine’s debut, An Appetite for Violets, takes sharp-witted cook Biddy Leigh on a murderous trip to Italy. Fay Weldon described its mix of crime, gastronomy and history, as a new genre, the ‘culinary gothic’. It was a Booklist top ten crime fiction debut of the year. The Penny Heart (A Taste for Nightshade in the US) is a Sunday Times Best Summer Read that draws on cooking, trickery and revenge. The stars, riddles and murder align in The Almanack, a historical mystery featuring fifty authentic riddles. In its sequel, The Prophet, destiny and murder weave an intricate web around Tabitha’s new life.

Drawing on her experience in psychometric testing in the NHS, she has now created a chilling new crime series comprising Sharp Scratch and Isolation Ward, both set in northern England in the 1980s.

Married with one son, Martine lives in Cheshire, England, having lived for some years in New Zealand where she had a Creative Arts Scholarship. She was also Writer in Residence at Hosking Houses Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon and Hawkwood College, Stroud.

Her short story, ‘A Mouthful of Restaurant’, appears in the 2017 Crime Writers Association Anthology, ‘The Mystery Tour’.

Martine was longlisted for the Mogford Prize for Food and Drink Writing in 2020.

Marie Macpherson holds a PhD in Russian Literature from Strathclyde University. She spent a year in the former Soviet Union to research her thesis on the 19th century Russian writer, Mikhail Lermontov, said to be descended from the Scottish bard and seer, Thomas the Rhymer. Returning to Scotland, she held posts at the universities of Strathclyde and Edinburgh teaching languages and literature. Now retired from academic life, she has time to pursue her interest in writing historical fiction set in Scotland. She won the Martha Hamilton Prize for Creative Writing at Edinburgh University in 1994 and in 2011 was named ‘Writer of the Year’ by Tyne and Esk writers.

Maria McCann was born in Liverpool and currently lives in Somerset. She is the author of As Meat Loves Salt (Fourth Estate, 2011) an Economist Book of the Year,  The Wilding (Faber, 2010) which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and a Richard and Judy book club choice and  Ace, King, Knave (Faber, 2013).
She has contributed to various anthologies, most recently to Why Willows Weep (October 2011) and Beacons (March 2013)
Maria holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Glamorgan. For a decade she designed and delivered Creative Writing courses at Strode College before becoming a Fiction Mentor for the Arvon Foundation.
Maria has served as a judge at the Wells and Frome literary festivals and is a reader for the Annette Green Literary Consultancy.  She is also a qualified writing coach.  From September 2015 she will be Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of the West of England.

Margaret Skea is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. Growing up in ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, much of her writing is concerned with living within conflict, and the pressures that places on families, relationships and on personal integrity.

Her Scottish trilogy, centred on the most notorious feud in Ayrshire’s history is a sweeping tale of compassion and cruelty, treachery and sacrifice; set against the backdrop of feuding clans, the French Wars of Religion and the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1597.

The first volume, Turn of the Tide, took the Beryl Bainbridge Award for Best First Time Author; the second A House Divided, was longlisted for the international Historical Novel Society New Novel Award 2016. The third By Sword and Storm, was released in July 2018.

Her most recent awards are for Katharina: Deliverance, a fictionalised biography based on the life of the reformer Martin Luther’s wife, which placed 2nd in the international Historical Novel Society New Novel Award 2018 and the sequel, Katharina Fortitude, which was shortlisted for the BookBrunch Award 2020.

She is passionate about providing an authentic ‘you are there’ experience for readers and relishes the challenge of bringing to life significant, but shadowy historical figures.

An Hawthornden Fellow and award winning short story writer – recent credits include: Neil Gunn, Winchester Short Story, Historical Novel Society Short Story, Mslexia, Fish Short Story and Fish One Page Prize.  Her short stories have been published in a range of magazines and anthologies in Britain and the USA.

 

Margaret Leroy is the author of eight novels.  Her first novel, Trust, was televised as Loving You by Granada TV, starring Niamh Cusack and Douglas Henshall.  The Perfect Mother was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year,  and The Drowning Girl was on the Oprah Summer Reading List. The Soldier’s Wife (first published as The Collaborator) was her first historical novel: it is set in Guernsey during the Occupation of World War II, and was a GoodReads Historical Fiction finalist and a New York Times bestseller. The English Girl, set in 1930’s Vienna, was published in 2014, and A Brief Affair, set in London during the Blitz, was published in February 2016. She is married with two daughters, and lives in Walton-on-Thames.