Authors

‘Marcello’ was born in London, and has spent most of his life in the city. After leaving college he worked and travelled extensively around Europe, the Middle East and New Zealand before joining the Royal Navy. After four years' service Marcello returned to his home city where he started a career in human resources. Marcello writes regularly for the women's business networking site WeAreTheCity. I am Marcello, his first novel, is a contemporary tale of life in the capital

Paul Bajoria was born in 1964 and spent most of his childhood in the North East of England, where he still lives with his partner and two young children. After taking degrees in English at the universities of Oxford and Toronto, he joined the BBC as a reporter and presenter in local radio. He now writes and produces quiz shows including Counterpoint and Round Britain Quiz for Radio 4, as well as a variety of features and documentaries. The Printer’s Devil, his first novel and the first instalment of a trilogy, was published in 2004, followed by The God of Mischief and The City of Spirits.

The Hon. George Bamford is married and lives with his wife and 3 children in London. Educated at Ampleforth he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Photography in New York and is currently CEO of Bamford Watch Department.

Lucy Easton is co-founder of the Red Cat Media online publishing company. She began as a writer and editor of The Labrador Site, where she became increasingly passionate about genetic health and conformational problems in our modern pedigree breeds. A Psychology graduate, Lucy has written numerous articles on pet care and health, and is known for her compassionate and science based approach. Her other passions include teaching historical European martial arts, and designing crochet patterns. Lucy spends most of her days surrounded by rabbits and guinea pigs in her Surrey home, which she also shares with her husband, daughter, and Oscar the cat. Photo credit: Cédric Hauteville

Bestselling Danish novelist Elsebeth Egholm was a student of music as a performer at The Royal Academy of Music and at the Department of Musicology at the University of Aarhus. She also attened the Danish School of Journalism and spent some years working for a daily newspaper. By 1992 she was living with future husband, the late British author Philip Nicholson (aka A.J. Quinnell), on the Maltese island of Gozo, working as a freelance writer. Elsebeth began making a name for herself as the author of a string of well crafted short stories published in women's magazines in Denmark and other Nordic countries. Her first novel The Free Women's Club was published in 1999 to unanimous acclaim. With her following novels Scirocco (2000) and Opium (2001) she moved into the darker corners of family and marriage, and combined a fullgrown plot with an engaging dose of international suspense. In 2002, she introduced full time journalist and part time sleuth Dicte Svendsen in Hidden Errors. By the second and third book in the series, Own Risk (2004) and Personal Damage (2005), both author and heroine were well known and highly treasured in Elsebeth's homeland, with Personal Damage optioned to be a movie. Next of Kin was published in 2006, dramatically outselling the previous novels. Currently Elsebeth divides her time between living in Aarhus, Denmark and the Maltese island of Gozo.

Ginny Elliot MBE was born and raised in Malta and is now one of the world's most well-known and accomplished horse riders. She competed as Ginny Leng, achieving the title of World Champion twice, European Champion three times on three consecutive occasions and she is the winner of four Olympic medals. Today Ginny remains an avid supporter and contributor to the sport of eventing. Having been the Team trainer for the British Three Day Event Team, she is now the High Performance Manager of the Irish Eventing Team. She has made a number of television and radio appearances including A Question of Sport and Desert Island Discs and has presented several television and radio programmes including Country File and Heart of the Country. Ginny is involved with a number of charities, including Riding for the Disabled, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, Horse Trials Support Group and Spinal Research. She was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in 1993. Ginny has written a number of books about her career and her horses, as well as three pony books.

Janet Gleeson has a BA Hons in English and Art History from Nottingham University and an MA in Comparative History of Early Modern European Societies from Birkbeck College, London University. Before embarking on her writing career Janet worked for Sotheby’s, at Bonhams as a cataloguer and valuer of old master paintings and at Reed Books as an editor responsible for many of the Miller’s Antique Collecting Guides. She was antiques correspondent for House and Garden magazine for seven years and has written for many other magazines and newspapers including the Times, Daily Mail, The Literary Review, New Statesman, Apollo, The Antique Collector and Portcullis, the magazine of the House of Commons. Janet's novel The Arcanum was serialized on Radio 4 as Book of the Week, and reached No 1 in the Sunday Times Non Fiction Bestsellers list. The Moneymaker was serialized for Radio Scotland, and was recently included in Radio Four Book of the Week’s compilation on the financial crisis by Evan Davis (Making Money).

Cathy started writing in 1987 and has had over 65 books published so far. She made her name writing for the teenage market where her books were translated into 35 languages. More recently, she has begun to write women’s fiction and her first novel, The Kicking the Bucket List was published by Harper Fiction in March 2017. Her second title, Dancing Over the Hill was published by Harper Fiction on the 25th January 2018 and Blast from the Past will follow on 21st February 2019. In her spare time, Cathy loves nothing more than gardening or a long walk and pub lunch in the countryside with friends. When it’s raining, she’s happy at home reading or watching box sets like True Detective, Orange is the New Black or House of Cards. Cathy lives in Bath with her husband and three cats.

Carol Hughes grew up in a seaside town in the north of England where her family ran a small hotel. At college she studied Fine Art, but spent most of her time writing extremely bad poetry in her sketchbooks instead of sketching. After graduating she worked in an unemployment office, a biscuit factory, an architectural antique emporium and several animation studios in London, including Animation City where she met her lovely husband, John. In 1991 they moved to California, where, because she had no work permit, Carol started writing every day. Her first book "Toots and the Upside Down House" was published in 1996 by Bloomsbury UK. Lots of other books followed. She now lives in London with her still lovely husband, their delightful daughters and their two almost adorable dogs.

General Sir Mike Jackson was born in 1944, and was educated at Stamford School, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Birmingham University. Commissioned from Sandhurst into the Intelligence Corps in December 1963, he studied for an in-service degree in Russian Studies from 1964 to 1967. After graduating, he spent 2 years on secondment to the Parachute Regiment and subsequently transferred from the Intelligence Corps in 1970. During the early 70s he served in Northern Ireland, and with the TA in Scotland. He attended the Staff College in 1976, after which he spent 2 years as the Brigade Major of the Berlin Infantry Brigade. He then commanded a parachute company for 2 years, once more in Northern Ireland. After a 6 month course at the National Defence College at Latimer in 1981, he joined the Directing Staff at the Staff College. His two and a half year tour at Camberley included a 10 week attachment to the Ministry of Defence during the Falklands conflict. He commanded 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment from March 1984 to September 1986. Throughout his period of command, the Battalion was part of the NATO’s Allied Command Europe Mobile Force, a role which included 3 winters spent in Norway on arctic training. For just over 2 years, until the end of 1988, he was the Senior Directing Staff (Army) at the Joint Service Defence College, Greenwich. Following the Higher Command and Staff Course at Camberley in early 1989, he then spent 6 months on a Service Fellowship at Cambridge writing a paper on the future of the British Army. He moved back to Northern Ireland in late 1989 to command 39 Infantry Brigade for two and a half years. 1992 and 1993 were spent in the Ministry of Defence as Director General Personnel Services (Army). He commanded the 3rd (United Kingdom) Division from March 1994 to July 1996; the last 6 months of his period were spent in Bosnia commanding IFOR’s Multinational Division South West. He assumed the appointment of Commander ACE Rapid Reaction Corps in the rank of Lieutenant General in February 1997, following a brief assignment as Director General Development and Doctrine. He deployed with ARRC HQ as Commander Kosavo Force to Macedonia in March 1999 and subsequently commanded Kosovo Force in Pristina from June to October 1999. He then became Commander in Chief Land Command on 1 March 2000. He assumed the appointment of Chief of the General Staff on 31 January 2003. General Sir Mike Jackson was awarded the MBE in 1979, the CBE in 1992 the CB in 1996, the KCB in 1998, the DSO in 1999, the ADC Gen in 2001 and the GCB 2004. He is married to Sarah, and has 2 sons and a daughter and four grandchildren. His interests include music, reading, travel, skiing and tennis.

Pip Vaughan-Hughes was born in London in 1964 and grew up in Devon. Pip also writes under the name Philip Kazan. He studied Medieval History at London University. Having been warned by his family that he should on no account ever become a freelance writer, he worked in the publishing industry in London and New York, dabbled in landscape gardening and journalism and co-owned a restaurant in Vermont, before he decided that the best advice is the advice that you ignore, and turned to writing full time. Pip is the author of Relics, Vault of Bones, Painted in Blood, and The Fools’ Crusade (the Petroc of Auneford quartet) and Appetite. His latest novel, The Painter of Souls is a speculative look at the early career of Fra Filippo Lippi, an extraordinary journey of passion, art and intrigue, taking us to a time and place in Italy's history where desire reigns and salvation is found in the strangest of places. Pip now lives on the edge of Dartmoor with his wife, three children and a very large black cat.

Erin Kinsley is a full-time writer. She grew up in Yorkshire and currently lives in East Anglia.

Alastair MacNeill was born in Scotland in 1960 but was brought up in South Africa from the age of six. He eventually returned to live in the UK in 1985 and remained for twenty years but has now moved back to live in South Africa. Alastair's  most recent novels, published by Victor Gollancz/Orion are The Devil’s Door, Moonblood, Double Blind, Damage Control and Counterplot.

Pippa Mattinson is the founder of the UK’s national gundog graded training scheme, and a director of the Gundog Trust. She has an honours degree in zoology and a special interest in canine behaviour. Pippa has over thirty years’ experience of training dogs and is the author of Total Recall and the Gundog Club's popular graded training books. Total Recall, published in Sept 2012, is a complete and force-free recall training programme for puppies and adult dogs. The Happy Puppy Handbook, published by Ebury Press, was published in April 2014 and is packed with everything you need to know as a puppy owner. The Labrador Handbook: the definitive guide to training and caring for your labrador followed in October 2015. This book provides an in-depth guide to raising your labrador, making for a contented owner and a happy dog. Pippa is a keen supporter of modern science based dog training methods and is passionate about helping people to enjoy their dogs.

Bruce McCabe was born in 1969 and lived in Kenya, Fiji and Japan before settling in Australia. He graduated in science from the University of Sydney and worked for a variety of tech firms before making his name as an expert on human factors in technology adoption and innovation. He has authored more than three hundred essays, speculative pieces and magazine & journal articles, holds a PhD in computer science, and for several years wrote a provocative weekly column for The Australian, the country's national broadsheet newspaper. He travels widely as a public speaker and advisor to businesses, governments and science labs, writes constantly, and lives in Sydney with his wife, two children and a Staffordshire bull terrier named Suzi. Skinjob is his first novel.

Madeleine McCann was abducted in Praia da Luz, Portugal on Thursday, 3 May 2007.  Kate and Gerry McCann established ‘Madeleine’s fund:  Leaving No Stone Unturned’ in response to the many generous donations that started to flood in from the general public who were wanting to help the search for their daughter in some way. As there had been no police force in the world actively looking for Madeleine since July 2008, the fund enabled a small team of committed and experienced people to investigate Madeleine’s disappearance.  It continues to support the search and also runs awareness campaigns in several countries, to ensure the public know that Madeleine is still missing, and to encourage them to remain vigilant. Once Madeleine is found, the fund will be used to assist searches for other missing children worldwide. Kate McCann's personal account of the disappearance and continuing search for her daughter is Madeleine: Our Daughter's Disappearance and the Continuing Search for Her.

Haydn Middleton, born in 1955 was educated at Reading Grammar School then studied Modern History at New College, Oxford. After spells as an advertising executive, teacher and editor at Oxford University Press, he has been a freelance writer for over two decades.  He has also lectured on creative writing in the USA and Australia, and on mythical history for Oxford University’s Dept for Continuing Education.  He lives in Oxford with his son, his daughter, his partner and her four daughters.

Ros Pearl was born in Gloucestershire and lives with her husband in Ireland. She has three children and ten grandchildren. Educated at Heathfield, Ascot and École de Commerce, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, she has had published numerous magazine articles predominantly about sporting heroes.

Shiromi Pinto's first novel, Trussed (Serpent’s Tail, 2006), was reviewed as ‘audacious’ (Independent), ‘brilliant’ (Diva) and ‘fast, blackly funny and so cool that it hurts’ (Times). She has written a number of commissioned short stories and travel memoirs, including: Cycling, The Flash (Social Disease, 2007); Scissors, paper, stone, BBC Radio 4 (broadcast October 2006); Tiger, tiger, burning bright, Quartet: Four literary walks through the V&A (Zembla/Victoria & Albert Museum, January 2006); South Beach, opendemocracy.net (spring 2003); and Kolambe, Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad (Autumn 2001). Her first short story, Bulat Kisses, appears in Notes Across the Aisle (Thistledown Press, Canada) and was awarded second prize in the publisher's 1995 short story competition. She is currently working on her second novel and is a senior editor at Amnesty International's International Secretariat. She lives in northwest London with her husband and four-year-old daughter. Photo Shiromi Pinto © Eva Blue

A. J. Quinnell was raised in East Africa. At the age of twenty he went to the Far East and became a trader, travelling extensively throughout Asia. In 1979 he moved to Malta where he lived until he died in 2005. His widow is the well-known Danish author Elsebeth Egholm. Quinnell’s books have been sold in 150 countries, and in 2004 Man on Fire was adapted for film by Universal Studios, starring Denzel Washington and the young Dakota Fanning.

Robert Mawson also writes under the pen name Robert Radcliffe. He was born and educated in London where he worked at various jobs until talking his way into an editorial job on a yachting magazine. From there he worked in journalism, advertising and PR “gradually learning the ropes while trying to write my own stuff at home.” In the 1980s he took up flying then spent ten years as a commercial pilot, working all over the world, while still working on writing projects in his own time. In 1991 Robert returned to England to form his own Suffolk-based PR consultancy, and work on book-writing projects. His first novel, A Ship Called Hope, was published under the Mawson name in 1994. In 1997 he sold his house and business and moved to a borrowed cottage in France to try and write full time. The result was The Lazarus Child, a book that sold more than a million copies worldwide and been translated into over twenty languages. In 2004 it was made into a movie starring Andy Garcia and Angela Bassett. Success enabled Robert to become a full-time writer. In 2002 he published Under An English Heaven, under the pen-name Robert Radcliffe. It is about an American bomber base in Suffolk during World War II. Under An English Heaven was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller and has sold more than 150,000 copies to date. This was followed up by Upon Dark Waters in 2004, Across The Blood-Red Skies in 2009 and Dambuster, in 2011. Robert Mawson photo © Jerry Bauer