Sarah K. Marr wrote her atmospheric historical novel All The Perverse Angels (Unbound, 2018) after studying law, anthropology and theoretical physics at the Universities of Oxford, Manchester and London, respectively. She currently lives in London, where she spends too much time in art galleries and buys too many second-hand books. Her debut novel tells the story of Anna, an art curator, who leaves a psychiatric hospital and finds herself in an English village, sharing a rented cottage with her partner. Seeking refuge from the aftermath of past infidelities, she constructs a personal reality from the brushstrokes and histories of her favourite artworks. A chance discovery in the cottage’s attic leads Anna on a journey back to the late nineteenth century and the complicated relationships of two young women studying at Oxford University.

Liza worked as a journalist for The New York Times from 2001-2011. Her first novel, Tigers in Red Weather, sold in a two book deal to Picador in an eight publisher auction, and was pre-empted by Little, Brown in the US. Published in 2012, Tigers in Red Weather entered the Sunday Times Bestsellers list, won the British National Book Award and the Elle Grand Prix for Fiction, and was described by the Independent as a ‘wonderfully clever, chilling summer read’.

Liza’s second novel, Villa America, was published in 2015 by Picador to stellar reviews. Her latest book, This is Gonna End in Tears, was published by John Murray Press in July 2022. ‘This evocative literary saga, steeped in the sounds, scents and cinematic hits of the early 1980s, has a seductive pull’ – The Sunday Times.

Simon Lelic is the author of the psychological suspense novel, The House (Penguin, 2017), a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice, as well as Rupture (Picador, 2010) which was the winner of a Betty Trask Award and shortlisted for the John Creasy New Blood Dagger and Galaxy Book Awards. His The Child Who (Picador, 2012) was also longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. The Liar’s Room was published by Penguin in August 2018, and all three books in his children’s series The Haven were published by Hodder.

The first in a brand new ‘hugely gripping’, ‘heart-stopping’ crime series, The Search Party, was published by Viking in August 2020 and went straight into the Kindle Top Ten. Its sequel, The Hiding Place, was published in May 2022 (Penguin).

Photo courtesy of Image: Justine Stoddart

Tim Leach is a novelist, specialising in historical fiction. His first novel, The Last King of Lydia, was published in 2013 by Atlantic and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize that year. He is also the author of The King and the Slave (Atlantic Book, 2014) and The Smile of the Wolf (Head of Zeus, 2018).

Tim is a graduate of the Warwick Writing Programme, where he now teaches as an Assistant Professor. The Iron Way (Head of Zeus, 2022) is the second instalment in his breathtaking new Sarmatian Trilogy: a gripping historical adventure set in the second century AD and based on legends of King Arthur. The latest in his Sarmatian Trilogy is The Hollow Throne, which was published in August 2023 (Bloomsbury).

Photo courtesy of Emma Leach