Greetings! Until now, I have been a crime writer, writing books about a hardboiled lawyer from Gibraltar called Spike Sanguinetti. But now I have ‘pivoted’, as they say these days, to historical fiction, and under the name TL Mogford have written a novel called ‘The Planthunter’, set in the febrile world of Victorian plant-hunting. Do check it out if you have a moment!
Ellen Alpsten
Ellen Alpsten was born and raised in the Kenyan highlands, before attending L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. Whilst studying for her Msc in PPE she won the Grande École short story competition with her novella Meeting Mr. Gandhi and was encouraged to continue writing.
Upon graduating, she worked as a producer and presenter for Bloomberg TV in London: knowing no-one and working gruesome night shifts on breakfast TV, she started to write in earnest, every day, after work and a nap. Tsarina, the first and only account of the incredible rise of Catherine I of Russia from serf to Empress, is her debut novel.
Today, Ellen works as an author and as a journalist for international publications such as Vogue, Standpoint and CN Traveller. She lives in London with her husband, three children and a chubby, moody fox-red Labrador.
Clare Marchant
Growing up in Surrey, Clare always dreamed of being a writer. Instead she followed a career in IT, before moving to Norfolk for a quieter life. Now writing full time, she lives with her husband and the youngest of her six children. Weekends are spent researching for her historical dual timeline books amongst the local castles and monastic ruins, or visiting the nearby coast.
Carolyn O’Brien
Carolyn O’Brien was born in Manchester. She studied English at Cambridge University before qualifying as a solicitor. She now works part-time as a consultant lawyer as well as writing historical fiction. Her writing has a strong sense of the north-west of England and its radical past, as illustrated by her first novel, THE SONG OF PETERLOO which was published to coincide with the bicentenary of the Peterloo Massacre. Her second novel is ROSE & RENZO, to be published in May 2026, a 1930s love story set in the ‘Little Italy’ district of Manchester against the backdrop of rising fascism.
Carolyn lives near Manchester with her family.
Beth Underdown
Beth Underdown was born in Rochdale in 1987. She studied at the University of York and then the University of Manchester, where she is now a Lecturer in Creative Writing.
The Witchfinder’s Sister is her debut novel, and is based on the life of the 1640s witch finder Matthew Hopkins.
She first came across him while reading a book about seventeenth-century midwifery. As you do.
Anna Mazzola
Anna is the award-winning and bestselling author of five Gothic historical novels. Her debut novel, The Unseeing, won an Edgar Allan Poe award. Her third novel, The Clockwork Girl, set in 18th century Paris, was shortlisted for two CWA daggers and a Fingerprint Award and was nominated for the Dublin Literary award. Her fourth novel, The House of Whispers, a ghost story set in Fascist Italy, is a Sunday Times historical fiction book of the year for 2023. Her next novel, The Book of Secrets, will be published in March 2024 and is based on a real prosecution in Rome in the 17th century. Her first modern thriller will be published in 2024 under the name Anna Sharpe.
She is also a human rights and criminal justice solicitor and provides training to other advocates. She lives in Camberwell, South London, with one husband, two children, a cat and a snake.
Find Anna online at:
https://www.facebook.com/AnnaMazzolaWriter/
https://www.instagram.com/annamazzolawriter/