Mary-Jane Riley spent many years as a BBC journalist, presenting magazine programmes on BBC radio in the Eastern Counties and has covered some of the major crime stories of the past twenty years. She has carried out hundreds of interviews and her talks with Ruth Rendell and PD James encouraged her to begin writing crime fiction. Mary-Jane has combined her writing career with working for the Royal Literary Fund (RLF). As a Fellow of the charity she has supported students at Cambridge University, helping them to put their sometimes complex ideas and theories into clear, accessible writing. During her Fellowship, Mary-Jane contributed to a number of RLF podcasts and website articles. After publishing four crime novels, Mary-Jane is now writing a series set in post Second World War Europe with a covert operative for GCHQ as the heroine. She is married and has three grown-up children and a golden retriever. She lives in rural Suffolk.

Joanne Clague writes historical saga set in Victorian Sheffield. The Ragged Valley, the first in a series published by Canelo, is out on June 2 2022 in paperback and ebook.

Nikki worked for many years as a financial journalist. She now writes fiction from a small village near Amersham. Her first novel, On Wilder Seas, was shortlisted for the Historical Novel Society’s New Novel Award and selected for the Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation’s #AdventureSociety book club. Her second novel, Lilith, inspired by the myth of Adam’s first wife in the Garden of Eden, was published in October 2023.