I was born in Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders and history has always been in my blood. I left school when I was 15 to join the local paper because I liked writing and in those days universities were only for other people.

Reporter, sub-editor, chief sub and night editor, I eventually spent nine heady years as assistant editor of The Scotsman, before digging an escape tunnel on the train with my laptop, which is probably my greatest and (come to think of it) most unlikely achievement. I’m the published author of 21 novels (I also write as James Douglas), including the acclaimed nine-book Valerius series, and The Warsaw Quartet, which follows the fortunes of Polish detective Jan Kalisz as he balances working for the Nazis and the Resistance during the brutal occupation of the city.

David Gilman was raised in Liverpool and  educated in Wales. By the time he was 16 he was driving  a battered 1946 Ford, ferrying construction workers in the African bush. A variety of jobs followed in different countries: fire and rescue, forestry work, JCB driver, window dresser and professional photographer in an advertising agency.  He served in the Parachute Regiment’s Reconnaissance Platoon and then worked in publishing. In 1986 he turned to full-time writing. He has written many radio and television scripts including several years of ‘A Touch of Frost’.  In 2007 his  ‘Danger Zone’ trilogy for YA was sold in 15 countries. The first in the series – The Devil’s Breath was long listed for the CILIP Carnegie Medal  and won the French Prix Polar Jeunesse. He also writes for younger children . ‘Master of War’ is the first in a series of HF for adults that follows the fortunes of Thomas Blackstone during the 100 Years’ War.

When not travelling, he lives in Devonshire.

Clare Mulley, FRHistS, is an award-winning author and broadcaster, primarily focused on female experience during the Second World War.

Books include AGENT ZO, telling the hidden story of Elżbieta Zawacka, the only woman to parachute from Britain to enemy occupied-Poland during the Second World War, which was shortlisted for The Women’s Prize for Non Fiction, and awarded Silver in the Military History Matters prize. THE WOMEN WHO FLEW FOR HITLER, the remarkable story of Nazi Germany’s only two female test pilots, one of whom tried to save Hitler’s life while the other tried to kill him, was longlisted for the HWA nonfiction prize. The story of Britain’s first female special agent of the Second World War, Churchill’s ‘favourite spy’, Polish born Krystyna Skarbek aka Christine Granville, is told in THE SPY WHO LOVED, which led to Clare receiving the Polish national cultural honour, the Bene Merito. THE LIBRARY BOOK tells the sometimes scandalous story of an independent library with a remarkable collection. Clare’s first book, THE WOMAN WHO SAVED THE CHILDREN, tells the inspiring story of Eglantyne Jebb, controversial founder of Save the Children, and won the Daily Mail Biographers Club Prize.

Clare writes and reviews for journals including the Spectator, TLS and BBC History Magazine, and has judged both the HWA nonfiction prize and the Slightly Foxed Biographers Club prize. Popular on pods such as History Hit, BBC History and We Have Ways, and radio including Women’s Hour, The Today Programme and Great Lives, she also is a TV regular, contributing to the BBC’s Second World War commemorations, Rise of the Nazis series, Newsnight and The One Show, as well as many series for Channel 5, Channel 4, the History Channel, and Sky.

Clare lives in Essex with the sculptor Ian Wolter, too many books, and a hairy grey lurcher who needs more baths. www.claremulley.com

I was born in Oxford and grew up in the neighbouring countryside, where a great deal of action took place during the English Civil War, and I visited many of the famous battlefields, all of which made a profound impression on me.  My father was from Spain, so my protagonist Laurence Beaumont and I share a common heritage. In my teens, I wrote a novel set during the Civil War period and I still have those pages preserved, in tiny handwriting, perhaps inspired by the Brontë children’s tales of Angria. 
I moved to Canada in the mid-seventies and ended up pursuing an academic career, with a brief break spent working in the world of high fashion retail and designing clothes.  While I was finishing a doctoral thesis and later lecturing in political theory, ideas formed in my head for a more adult story about the English Civil War than my first effort.  Although eventually I decided not to pursue teaching, themes that interested me from my studies found their way into The Best of Men and The Licence of War.
I feel at very home in both Canada and England: for nearly thirty years I’ve been coming to London frequently, so I know the city quite well and am very much ‘repatriated’ in my land of birth.  Now I spend about one month a year in Senegal, the homeland of my partner, and was inspired to create the character of Khadija, the seer in The Best of Men, through my contact with Senegalese mystical and religious practices and the Peul people who live near the coast where we have a small property.
I’m already working on the third volume of Laurence Beaumont’s adventures, as yet untitled, which take him back to Spain on a deeply personal quest and return him to England, where his faltering allegiance to the Royalist cause will endure its greatest test…

Catherine Hanley (who also writes as CB Hanley and JF Andrews) was born in Australia; since moving to the UK she has lived in many corners of it, and is currently based in rural Somerset with her husband and three children. Her love of medieval studies led to a PhD in twelfth- and thirteenth-century warfare, and a number of academic publications; she now splits her time between writing popular non-fiction history and historical fiction.

Carol McGrath is the author of The Daughters of Hastings Trilogy. The first in the series, The Handfasted Wife, was published by Accent Press in 2013. The Swan-Daughter, the second will be published on September 18^th as an e publication followed by general paperback distribution early in December. The Betrothed Sister will be published in 2015.

Carol McGrath has a degree in English and Russian Studies from Queens University Belfast with History as subsidiary. She specialized in Medieval History. She taught History and English for many years in an Oxfordshire Comprehensive. She also was History Head of Department at one point in her career before becoming part-time. Carol has an MA in Creative Writing from QUB and an Mphil from Royal Holloway, University of London. Carol McGrath lives in Oxfordshire and is currently published by Accent Press.