Adrian Vincent worked in Fleet Street for twenty-seven years, becoming managing editor of IPC’s educational magazines. He is the author of many books on art and antiques, novels and true crime.

Alan Williams was a journalist and foreign correspondent, reporting from notable hotspots worldwide including Hungary in 1956, Algeria, Vietnam and Northern Ireland. In 1962 he started writing thrillers which brought him the accolade "the natural heir to Ian Fleming" but it was his well-researched spy stories such as The Beria Papers and Gentleman Traitor (which featured real life traitor Kim Philby) which brought him international success. Alan sadly passed away in 2020.

From tales spun for her teddies when she was a child (usually about mermaids) to film scripts, plays and novels, Alexandra Walsh has always been a storyteller. Words are her world. For over 25 years, she has been a journalist writing for a wide range of publications including national newspapers and glossy magazines. She spent some years working in the British film industry, as well as in television and radio: researching, advising, occasionally presenting and always writing. Books dominate Alexandra’s life. She reads endlessly and tends to become a bit panicky if her next three books are not lined up and waiting. Characters, places, imagery all stay with her and even now she finds it difficult to pass an old wardrobe without checking it for a door to Narnia. As for her magical letter when she was 11, she can only assume her cat caught the owl! Alexandra’s other passion is history, particularly the untold tales of women. Whether they were queens or paupers, their voices resonate with their stories, not only about their own lives but about ours, too. The women of the Tudor court have inspired her novels. Researching and writing The Marquess House Trilogy (Book One: The Catherine Howard Conspiracy) has brought together her love of history, mysteries and story telling.

Get in touch

You can contact Alexandra Walsh on Twitter or check out her website.  

Alice Chetwynd Ley was born on 12 October 1913 in Halifax, Yorkshire, the first child of a journalist, Fred Humphrey and his wife, Alice Mary (née Chetwynd): she was given the name and surname of her mother in addition to her father’s surname. Her father left home to serve overseas as an officer in the First World War in Palestine, Egypt and France, but returned to take up again his chosen profession of journalism. The family moved around the country as the father took jobs on different regional newspapers, and Alice’s early schooling took place in Selkirk and Sheffield, but when they settled in Birmingham she went to King Edward VI Grammar School for Girls in Edgbaston. In 1959 Alice enrolled part-time for an extra-mural Diploma in Sociology of the University of London, for which she studied at the relatively local Harrow College. This course included work on the eighteenth century, and in October of the same year she published her first novel, The Jewelled Snuff Box with the London-based publisher, Robert Hale. Apart from historical research conducted through the local library and via the printed word, Alice also did a great deal of field research into locations, taking short holidays in likely settings, and exploring many aspects of the Napoleonic period, from old inns to smugglers’ coves. She was well-informed on costume and ‘manners’ generally, and would become indignant when costume dramas on television ‘got it wrong’. Most of her novels go back from the Regency (strictly speaking, 1811-20) and the overlapping Napoleonic period into the later part of the eighteenth century, and she created one family whose fortunes she followed in a short series (the Eversley saga). Alice passed away in 2004.

Alis Hawkins grew up on a dairy farm in Cardiganshire. Her inner introvert thought it would be a good idea to become a shepherd and, frankly, if she had, she might have been published sooner. As it was, three years reading English at Corpus Christi College, Oxford revealed an extrovert streak and a social conscience which saw her train as a Speech and Language Therapist. She has spent the subsequent three decades variously bringing up two sons, working with children and young people on the autism spectrum and writing fiction, non-fiction and plays. She writes the kind of books she likes to read: character-driven historical crime and mystery fiction with what might be called literary production values. Having lived in various English cathedral cities, Alis now lives with her partner in the Forest of Dean. Interestingly, their first contact with their now-home was a research trip for The Black and The White into the techniques of medieval charcoal making. What Alis had assumed would be an interesting hour or two turned into a fascinating weekend and, having relocated to the Forest, she and her partner are now regular volunteers at the Dean Heritage Centre’s annual charcoal ‘earth burn’ in May.

Get in touch with Alis

You can contact Alis through her author website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.    

Austin Hernon lives in Nottinghamshire with wife Mandy. Born in the middle of World War II and spending lots of nights in an air raid shelter, it was no surprise to find him following a military career when he survived. Twenty six years, mostly in the REME where he was a mechanic specialising in underwater recovery. A world-wide traveller and someone who has spent many years living abroad he is unwilling to give up that habit now that he is retired and travels widely. First gaining a degree in Social Sciences before he took up the challenge and has so far produced four historical fiction novels with another in progress.

Get in touch with Austin

Take a look at his website: www.history-reimagined.co.uk And find out more about his books on his Facebook pages: Lincoln 1217 History Reimagined Robert – The Wayward Prince Battle 1066

Born St Vincent, West Indies in 1897 CE “Peter” Lucas Phillips was educated at St Lawrence College and King’s College London.During World War 1 he served with the Royal Artillery in France and Flanders. He was promoted to Major before he was 21 and was awarded MC and Croix De Guerre. During World War 2 he served with Montgomery in the Western Desert, and in Italy. He was promoted to Brigadier and awarded an OBE and bar for his He wrote several war books including Cockleshell Heroes, Escape of the Amethyst, Alamein, The Greatest Raid of All and Springboard to Victory. He was a passionate gardener and has also written books on gardening including the much acclaimed The Small Garden and Roses for the Small Garden. He met his wife Barbara at a dance in 1921, they married in 1924 and subsequently had 4 daughters. He died in 1984.

Cathy Wallace is an author, journalist and hopeless romantic who wrote her first book at the tender age of six. Entitled Tarka the Otter, it was a shameless rip-off of the Henry Williamson classic of the same name, and the manuscript was lost after she sent it to her pen-pal and never heard a jot from her since. Fortunately reception to her writing became more favourable and she spent ten years working for a range of newspapers and magazines covering everything from general elections and celebrity scandals to cats stuck up trees and village fetes. She has been freelance since 2011 and written for The Telegraph, Red Online, Total Women’s Cycling and other lifestyle and cycling publications and websites. She is the author of three non-fiction books and her debut and thankfully non-plagiarised novel Summer at Hollyhock House will be published by Sapere Books this year. Cathy lives on the leafy London/Surrey border with her two children and a dog with only two facial expressions, hungry and guilty. Her hobbies include mountain biking, photography, wandering around outside getting lost, fantasising about getting her garden under control, reading, looking at pretty things on Instagram and drinking tea.

Get in contact with Cathy

You can find her on Instagram at CathyWallace_ on Twitter @CathyWallace_ or visit her website.

Sir Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) was a photographer of considerable distinction, who photographed most of the interesting figures of the twentieth century, from the Queen and Queen Mother, the Windsors, stars such as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, to figures of the 1960s such as Rudolph Nureyev, the Rolling Stones and Twiggy. He was also a noted war photographer and took many fashion photographs for Condé Nast. He was also a man of considerable style, an arbiter of taste, designer of sets and costume for opera, ballet and theatre, an inveterate traveller, and throughout this long career, he was a diarist from 1922 until 1974 (and even a little later). During his lifetime he published six volumes – The Wandering Years – 1961 The Years Between – 1965 The Happy Years - 1972 The Strenuous Years – 1973 The Restless Years - 1976 The Parting Years - 1978 A composite volume, Self Portrait with Friends, edited by Richard Buckle, was published in 1979. Later there were two further volumes, The Unexpurgated Beaton (2002), and Beaton in the Sixties (2003), both edited by Hugo Vickers. Cecil Beaton won three Oscars for his work on the films, Gigi and My Fair Lady. He was awarded a CBE in 1957, and knighted for his service to the arts in 1972.

Charlie Garratt was born in Manchester and moved to Coventry, Warwickshire at the age of 18 where he trained as a telecommunications engineer. Increasing involvement in his local community led to a change of career and over thirty years in the field of community development across the United Kingdom. During this time he was regularly writing non-fiction and is credited as author and co-author of a number of books and guides on community participation. In 2006, Charlie moved to Donegal, Ireland and this is when his fiction writing began, through involvement in a creative writing group. Charlie is currently working on a fictionalised memoir and on a third novel in the Inspector James Given series. In 2016, three of Charlie's short stories were included in a collection, Wild Atlantic Words, fifteen tales drawing from life along the west coast of Ireland. He returned to England in the Spring of 2018 and now lives in Shropshire. When he's not writing, Charlie enjoys gardening, playing and listening to music, genealogy, short-mat bowls and, of course, reading crime fiction.

Christine Evans was brought up in Moss Side, Manchester and then moved to Wythenshawe, a sprawling council estate at the edge of south Manchester. Leaving grammar school at sixteen, she went to work in a bank. After Christine married she gave up work to have her children and, after a spell of temping, worked at the Bishop of Manchester’s office for twenty years. During that time she began night school classes for creative writing. One of the tutors suggested that she send off some of her short stories to magazines and her first short story was published in 1999 in Ireland’s Own. Since then she has had over two hundred short stories published in various magazines, mostly in People’s Friend but also in Ireland’s Own, Take a Break, Bella, My Weekly and Yours. All sorts of idea set Christine off, memories, funny things that happened to people or someone’s love story, not to mention eavesdropping. She has written three serials for People’s Friend and “Song of the Shuttle” began as one of those serials. She became interested in the Lancashire Cotton Famine caused by the American Civil war. The Famine rarely makes an appearance in any history books, so she decided to weave a story around it, set in Lancashire and America. Christine sadly passed in 2020. Rest in peace Christine.

Claire Gray lives in the South Lakes with her family. She studied Creative Writing at the Cumbria Institute of the Arts, which no longer exists, having been absorbed by the University of Cumbria. She graduated in 2006 and then went on to complete a journalism course at Darlington College. That same year, she won a Northern Promise Award from New Writing North, and her work was featured in their anthology, entitled Ten Years On. Claire now works as a freelance copywriter and continues to write short stories, some of which have been published in magazines and online. Recently, she has been guest editor for the prose section of SpeakEasy Magazine, which showcases Cumbrian writing. In 2015, she received editing advice from The Literary Consultancy through their Free Read scheme. They subsequently felt that her manuscript, Running in Circles, showed potential, and began approaching literary professionals on Claire’s behalf. This resulted in the novel being placed with Sapere Books, and Claire is very excited to be a part of their inaugural launch list.

Get in touch 

Follow Claire on Twitter to keep up with her news.

Colonel David de Crespigny Smiley, LVO, OBE, MC & Bar (11 April 1916 – 9 January 2009) was a British special forces and intelligence officer. He fought in the Second World War in Palestine, Iraq, Persia, Syria, Western Desert and with Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Albania and Thailand.

  Cora Harrison was born in Cobh, in southern Ireland, but was educated in the city of Cork. After attaining a first honours degree in French, she went to London and worked initially for the Linguaphone Institute. When her children were young she and her husband moved to Kent where she took up teaching and after some years became a headteacher. After retirement, she and her husband relocated back to Ireland where they bought a twenty-acre farm with a river, an Iron Age fort and a derelict cottage. This place inspired the seventeen ‘Drumshee’ books, historical novels for children. Inspired by the success of these books, and other books for children, Cora began to write the thirteen Burren mysteries for adults, using the ancient Brehon laws of medieval Ireland and set in the scenic stony land of the Burren in the west of Ireland, beside the Atlantic Ocean. These historical mysteries were followed by the Reverend Mother series, six of them at this moment, dealing with her native city of Cork during the tumultuous times after the war of independence and the civil war, during the early part of the twentieth century.

Get in touch

Get in touch with Cora through her website.

David Field was born in post-war Nottingham, and educated at Nottingham High School. After obtaining a Law degree he became a career-long criminal law practitioner and academic, emigrating in 1989 to Australia, where he still lives. Combining his two great loves of History and the English language he began writing historical novels as an escape from the realities of life in the criminal law, but did not begin to publish them until close to fulltime retirement, when digital publishing offered a viable alternative to literary agencies, print publishers and rejection slips. Now blessed with all the time in the world, his former hobby has become a full time occupation as he enjoys life in rural New South Wales with his wife, sons and grandchildren to keep him firmly grounded in the reality of the contemporary world.

Get in touch with David

You can contact David through his website or via Facebook.

Dean Carson trained as a physicist, then worked as a journalist for a decade, covering the crime beat during the infamous Limerick drug war. His first book was a definitive account of that conflict, Family Feud: Gangland Limerick Exposed. It became the most shoplifted book in Ireland. He followed it with several more true crime titles. His first thriller, The Christmas Killer, was published by Penguin in 2014. Dean quit journalism to concentrate on writing full-time, and on his second career as a magician and comedian. He travels widely doing magic and hypnosis shows. He has performed throughout Europe, in America, and in the Middle-East. He lives outside Cork, Ireland, and when not writing thrillers, he enjoys hiking and climbing, and is currently training for a 1,000 mile hike through Siberia in deep winter (www.coldestjourney.info). He writes factual books as Anthony Galvin, and fiction as Dean Carson, and occasionally Jim Gallows.

Get in touch: 

You can check out Dean's website or follow him on Facebook or Twitter.  

Deborah Swift used to be a set and costume designer for theatre and TV, during which time she developed a love of research which fuelled her passion for the past. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and also writes successful seventeenth century historicals. She likes to write about extraordinary characters set against the background of real historical events and is the author of nine novels so far. Her first novel, The Lady's Slipper was shortlisted for the Impress Prize and Past Encounters was awarded Best In Genre at the BookViral Millennium Book Awards.

Get in Touch

Find her at www.deborahswift.com or on Twitter @swiftstory and Facebook. Pictures of Deborah's research can be found on Pinterest 

Doreen Tovey was born in Bristol in 1918 and raised by her grandparents, her love of animals was fostered by her grandmother who was an inveterate rescuer of anything in need. The family shared its home with cats, dogs and an owl called Gladstone. Having attended grammar school she had a couple of boring jobs before joining Imperial Tobacco as a typist/secretary before graduating to their public relations department. It was here that she met her future husband, Rene (called Charles in the books). Doreen Tovey was the author of more than a dozen books about the life she and her husband shared with their Siamese cats and other animals in Somerset, England. She was president of the Siamese Cat Club, President of the West of England Cat Club and President of the RSPCA for North Somerset. Doreen passed away in 2008.

Coming soon 

Sapere Books are delighted to be reissuing Doreen's books, beginning in 2018. We currently have plans to republish seven of Doreen's books, charming tales of life surrounded by various pets, most importantly, cats. We are happy to announce that all author proceeds from the sales of Doreen's books will go to the North Somerset branch of the RSPCA.

Dorothy Mack is a native New Englander, born in Rhode Island and educated at Brown and Harvard Universities. She and her husband have made their home in the National Capital Area for many years. They enjoy exchanging visits with their large extended family and try to take any opportunity for world travel.  

Historian and author. Chamberlin was the author of numerous popular history books ranging from ancient Rome to twentieth-century Britain. Although he was born in Jamaica, he returned to England with his father during the Great Depression. Chamberlin dropped out of school when he was fourteen and became an apprentice leather dresser. When he was old enough, he eagerly left this work behind to enlist in the Royal Navy in 1944. He served in the military until 1947 and then found work at the Norwich Public Library. It was here that his real education began, and Chamberlin took advantage of his vocation by reading history texts avidly. He later also worked at the Holborn Public Library and then for the book division at Readers’ Digest. His first book, The Count of Virtue: Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, was released in 1965. This would be followed by thirty more books over the next three decades. Among these are The Bad Popes (1969), The Sack of Rome (1979), The Nineteenth Century (1983), The Emperor, Charlemagne (1986), and The Tower of London: An Illustrated History (1989). Also active in historical preservation projects, Chamberlin helped rescue the Guildford Institute building from destruction in 1982 and had a monument to Admiral Horatio Nelson constructed on Mt. Etna in Italy. For the former endeavor, Chamberlin was recognized with an honorary degree from the University of Surrey in 1982.

Edward Wake-Walker, born in 1952, is the great nephew of Barbara Bertram, the central figure in A House for Spies. The son of a Royal Navy officer, he was educated at Marlborough College and Aix-en-Provence University. After two and a half years sampling the City’s reinsurance broking world, he joined the staff of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1975. There, after a spell of organising volunteer fund raisers, he moved to public relations. He spent some years as editor of The Lifeboat magazine before becoming PR Director, a position he held for 16 years. On leaving the RNLI in 2002 he became a full-time writer and has published five books on the history of saving lives at sea as well as A House for Spies and the Owners Workshop Manual for the Westland Lysander. He is currently working on the biography of his grandfather, Admiral Sir Frederic Wake-Walker, who played a leading role off the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940 and in the pursuit of the Bismarck the following year. Edward lives with his wife on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset.  

Elizabeth Bailey feels lucky to have found several paths that have given her immense satisfaction - acting, directing, teaching and, by no means least, writing. Through the years, each path has crossed the other, honing and deepening her abilities in each sphere. She has been privileged to work with some wonderful artistic people, and been fortunate enough to find publishers who believed in her and set her on the road. To invent a world and persuade others to believe in it, live in it for a while, is the sole aim of the novelist. Elizabeth's own love of reading has never abated, and if she can give a tithe of the pleasure to others as she has received herself, it's worth all the effort.  

Elizabeth Lemarchand was born in 1906. She became a teacher at The Godophin School in Salisbury. Her first book Death of an Old Girl was published in 1967. Elizabeth passed away in 2000 at the age of 94.

Coming soon

Elizabeth wrote 17 books throughout her life in the acclaimed Pollard and Toye detective series. Sapere Books is delighted to be reissuing the series beginning in 2018. 1. Death of an Old Girl (1967) 2. The Affacombe Affair (1968) 3. Alibi for a Corpse (1969) 4. Death on Doomsday (1971) 5. Cyanide With Compliments (1972) 6. No Vacation from Murder (1973) 7. Buried in the Past (1974) 8. Step in the Dark (1976) 9. Unhappy Returns (1977) 10. Suddenly While Gardening (1978) 11. Change for the Worse (1980) 12. Nothing to Do with the Case (1981) 13. Troubled Waters (1982) 14. The Wheel Turns (1983) 15. Light Through the Glass (1984) 16. Who Goes Home? (1986) 17. The Glade Manor Murder (1988)

Eric Helm is a pseudonym used by the writing team of Kevin D Randle and Bob Cornett. Kevin D. Randle Kevin D. Randle is a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot accumulating more than 1100 hours of combat flight time. In 2003 he deployed to Iraq as an intelligence officer. He served on active duty with the Army and later the Air Force. He was a member of the Iowa National Guard on his deployment into the Middle East. He retired from the National Guard in 2009. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa, has advanced degrees from California Coast University and American Military University. He has taught classes at both the community college and the university level. Randle is the author of dozens of books about the military drawing on his own experiences as a soldier in a combat environment. He has also written nonfiction books about UFOs as well as science fiction. He teamed with Robert Cornett in the 1980s to create the Vietnam Ground Zero series as well as write many science fiction novels. He makes his home in Iowa where, if nothing else, the seasons change and sometimes the sun shines. Bob Cornett Bob Cornett was born in a small town in Iowa no one has ever heard of. And he tries to keep it that way. Growing up, he developed an appreciation for hunting and fishing. At the University of Iowa, Bob worked for Dr. James Van Allen and learned to fly under the AF ROTC program. He has been a private investigator, a fire-medic, an outdoors writer, a junior college instructor in both creative writing and EMS, and a Marine (no longer on active duty.) Bob now makes his home in New Mexico where he enjoys shooting, ham radio, and retirement when his three dogs and his cat will let him.  

I first started writing as a child; mainly poetry, but there was one horrific novel (mercifully, never finished) in which a woman gives birth to a hideously deformed child in a thunderstorm. While I was bringing up my four children, I began writing and selling short stories to magazines before the enforced immobility following a fractured spine gave me the time to tackle my first novel, Dead Ernest. My main career was in nursing, but I also trained and worked for many years as a relationship counsellor with Relate. Widowed in 1992, I re-married and now live with my husband in Wiltshire, where I enjoy riding my horse in the beautiful Pewsey Vale, reading, writing, singing in our large church choir and keeping up with my grandchildren. I also write regularly to a prisoner on Texas Death Row and do local voluntary work with homeless and vulnerable adults. All my books are very strongly relationship-based. My writing has also been affected by my widowhood and my experiences with my Relate clients, and my books sometimes include issues of death and bereavement. Strangely (and not by design) they all seem to include pet animal funerals (not a subject which normally occupies my mind!). Get in touch with Frances You can contact Frances through her website or via Facebook.

Gail Lindenberg enjoys her home in Phillips Ranch, CA with her husband Gene and a furry cat named Smudge. Retired after thirty-seven years of teaching in public schools, Gail spends her time caring for her mother and her granddaughter. Gail wrote He Wrote Her Every Day while recovering from cancer. She presented a hard-cover version to her mother as a 90th birthday gift. Once the chemo fog lifted, she joined a writer's workshop to produce better edited editions. Gail often says that she felt as though her father was watching over her shoulder while she wrote about his letters. “Sometimes,” she notes, “I think he may have been shaking his head a bit.”

Get in contact with Gail

You can contact Gail and read more about the background of her book on her website.  

Gaynor Torrance writes chilling contemporary thrillers, often, though not solely, about serial killers. Having studied Psychology at university, she uses her interest in the subject to create memorable characters. She is the author of the DI Jemima Huxley series of books, which are set in and around the Welsh capital city, Cardiff; an area she knows and loves, having lived there for many years. Revenge is due to be published by Sapere Books in 2019, as is the second book in the series, Sole Survivor. The third DI Huxley installment, Stalked, is close to completion. Gaynor is also the author of an international thriller, Step Up or Die, set against the backdrops of New York, Toronto and London. A Goodreads reviewer said of Step Up or Die – ‘A very well-written international thriller ... Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists, turns and a huge set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make another great international thriller movie, or better yet a mini TV series. A very easy rating of 5 stars.’ When she is not writing, Gaynor enjoys going to the cinema, theatre and live music events, socialising with friends and family, reading, playing the piano, and travelling with her husband.

Get in touch with Gaynor

You can get in touch with Gaynor via her website, and follow her on Facebook or Twitter. See a full list of Gaynor’s books on Goodreads.

Born and raised in Newcastle upon Tyne and living all his life in the North East, Geoffrey Davison was first published at the age of 40 with The Spy Who Swapped Shoes and went on to publish twelve books. All were thrillers, set against backgrounds ranging from Cold War espionage to World War Two. With the support of Northern Arts, Geoffrey travelled widely in the name of research, visiting Berlin, other Eastern European cities, the South of France and later the far East.

Gillian lives in Darlington in the North East of England, with her husband and rescue dog Liffey. With four adult children and nine grandchildren, there is always plenty to do but her passion for writing occupies much of her time. After a career in childcare as the owner/manager of a Day Nursery, Gillian changed course and trained as a therapeutic counsellor. Following this, five years working in the voluntary sector for Victim Support brought a whole new range of experiences as she supported victims of crimes, from burglary to homicide. The characters Gillian creates are inspired from the diversity of people she has met throughout her working life.

Get in touch with Gillian

Gillian can be found on Twitter @GillianJackson7 and at her website www.gillianjackson.co.uk You can check out her page on Facebook at Gillian Jackson Fiction Author.

Graham Brack hails from Sunderland and met his wife Gillian in Aberdeen where they were both studying pharmacy. After their degrees Gillian returned to Cornwall and Graham followed. This is now called stalking but in 1978 it was termed “romantic”. They have two children, Andrew and Hannah, and three grandchildren, Miranda, Sophie and Olivia. Gillian and Graham now live in Northamptonshire. Graham’s foray into crime writing began in 2010 when he entered the Crime Writers’ Association’s Debut Dagger competition and was highly commended for Lying and Dying (previously titled The Outrageous Behaviour of Left-Handed Dwarves), in which the world was introduced to Lt Josef Slonský of the Czech police. Slaughter and Forgetting followed. Both have been re-published by Sapere Books along with another four in the series, Death On Duty, Field of Death, A Second Death and Laid in Earth In 2014 and 2016 Graham was shortlisted for the Debut Dagger again. The earlier novel, Death in Delft (previously titled The Allegory of Art and Science), is set in 17th century Delft and features the philosophy lecturer and reluctant detective Master Mercurius. Sapere Books published it in 2020.

Henry Denham was born in Harrow on 9 September 1897, the son of Henry Mangles Denham and Helen Clara Lowndes. He married Estelle Margaret Sibbald Currie in 1924, with whom he had one son and two daughters. He entered the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth, 1910. He served as a Midshipman in the battleship HMS Agamemnon, 1914-15, and later the destroyer HMS Racoon, and saw action during the Dardanelles campaign, 1915. He was sent by the Admiralty on a year's course at Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1919. He served in the cruiser HMS Renown, 1920, during the Prince of Wales' trip to Australia and New Zealand; the Rhine flotilla, commanding a small armed motor launch; and the battleship HMS Centurion in the Mediterranean. He spent a brief period in Austria in order to learn German. He was Divisional Officer in the boys' training ship HMS Impregnable at Devonport, 1924-6, and then Flag Lieutenant to Admiral Sir Osmond Brock at Portsmouth. From 1927 he spent five years in the Mediterranean in HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Warsprite. He was a student at the Staff College, 1935, promoted Commander, and commanded HMS Penelope, 1936-9. He joined Naval Intelligence at the Admiralty, 1939, where he created an Information Section. He was appointed Naval Attaché in Copenhagen, Denmark, 1940, but returned to London later that year when the Germans occupied Denmark. He was then posted as Naval Attaché in Stockholm, Sweden, 1940. He alerted the Admiralty to the movement of the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen into the Atlantic in May 1941. He retired from the Navy in 1947. He was a keen sailor and after his retirement he pursued a career as a travel writer, producing a series of sea guides. He died in London on 15 July 1993. He was awarded the CMG, 1945.

elen Cathcart was a prolific writer about the Royal Family, who enjoyed enormous success with her books in the 1960s and 1970s. These emerged with regularity, sold well and were largely enjoyed (if not always at Buckingham Palace). One mystery surrounded the author - she was never seen. Occasionally journalists visited her agent, Harold Albert at his cottage near Liphook, and suspected that Helen Cathcart did not exist. Invariably they left less convinced. Only when Harold Albert died was it revealed - in an obituary written by Hugo Vickers - that Harold Albert and Helen Cathcart were one of the same.

Irving A. Greenfield was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was a youthful runaway, a merchant seaman, and a soldier during the Korean War, after which his writing talent burst into print. His novel, The Ancient of Days, was a best-seller for six weeks and Tagget was made into a film for TV. his work has appeared in a variety of media, but, of all his works, Irving sadly passed away in 2020. Rest in peace Irving.

J. C. Briggs taught English for many years in schools in Cheshire, Hong Kong and Lancashire. She now lives in a cottage in Cumbria. The Murder of Patience Brooke is the first novel featuring Charles Dickens as a detective and his partner, Superintendent Sam Jones of Bow Street. The idea of Dickens as a detective came about when she read Dickens’s articles about the London police in his periodical Household Words. Dickens was fascinated by police investigation and by murder, in particular – there are plenty of murderers in his writing, and Dickens is credited with the creation of the first literary detective in Inspector Bucket who solves the murder of Mr Tulkinghorn in Bleak House. The second in the series is Death at Hungerford Stairs (2015), and the third, Murder by Ghostlight, set in Manchester and London, was published in 2016.

Get in touch 

You can check out Jean's website or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.  

James L. McWilliams is a prairie-born-and-bred Canadian, growing up in Moose Jaw and on the family farm in Saskatchewan. Jim joined the Canadian Army a day after his eighteenth birthday intending to serve as a piper in The Black Watch, but somehow ended up as a tank officer. Back to civilian life he eventually turned to teaching high school and pipe bands for thirty years. Beside his family, piping, and exploring the world, history has always been Jim’s passion. This array of interests led him into a writing career. Jim is the co-author of three books on the First World War, THE SUICIDE BATTALION, GAS! THE BATTLE FOR YPRES, and AMIENS:DAWN OF VICTORY, published in Britain as AMIENS 1918 The Last Great Battle. He is also the creator of THE MacHUGH MEMOIRS, a series of seven historical-adventure novels based on a Canadian adventurer, Rory MacHugh in the early 1800’s. One, A SECRET OF THE SPHINX, was a finalist in the global Book Excellence Awards.

Contact James

You can check out James's website here.

Jane Cable started to take her scribbling seriously when the manuscript that would become her debut novel reached the final of The Alan Titchmarsh Show’s People’s Novelist competition. After that she took time out to hone her craft and with two successful independently published novels under her belt is delighted to be joining Sapere Books. The timing is perfect because last year Jane and her husband fulfilled their dream of moving to Cornwall and, despite the obvious distractions of surf, sand and the great outdoors, she has now become a full time author. Jane writes contemporary romance with a twist of mystery and a glance back over the shoulder at the past. More than anything she is inspired by a place, delving back into its history to find stories which resonate with her modern characters – and her readers – alike. An enthusiastic member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, Jane also writes a weekly column about publishing and books for Frost online magazine.

Get in touch with Jane

You can check out Jane's website, her Facebook Page or her Twitter Page if you would like to get in touch.  

Called “The Mistress of Romantic Mystery”, Janet Louise Roberts was born in New Britain, CN in 1925 and died June 11, 1982 in Dayton Ohio. Writing under her real name, and also as Rebecca Danton, Louisa Bronte and Janette Radcliffe Janet books spanned contemporary, historical and gothic romances, as well as the occult genres. In addition to her successful writing career, Janet Louise Robert was also a reference researcher and librarian at the local Public Library in Dayton, Ohio.

Jean Stubbs was born in 1926 in Lancashire. Even as a small child she made up stories and plays – her younger brother a captive audience and ‘bit part player’. Jean’s book writing began with The Rose Grower, published in 1962. She lived in London for over 20 years, thriving on city life and later its publishing world. Her writings included innumerable short stories for magazines and collections, some of which have been adapted for radio. She also ran seminars and discussion groups at writer’s summer schools and was appointed for a year as writer-in-residence for Avon. Her books include three Victorian-set crime novels featuring the charismatic Inspector Lintott, and she also based some of her fiction on historical figures like Henry VII. She was mostly published in the UK by Macmillan and by St Martins Press in the US. In 1975 Jean moved to Cornwall with her husband, to live in a small stone cottage on the Lizard peninsula – a sea change. Once more Jean’s creativity responded to her surroundings. This very different Cornish life inspired a number of books, several set in Cornwall, and the four novels comprising The Brief Chronicles, set in industrial-age Her final novel – I’m a Stranger Here Myself – was published in 2004. Jean died in 2012.  

John Adair is one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership and leadership development. Over a million managers worldwide have taken part in the Action-Centred Leadership programmes he pioneered. John has had a colourful early career. He served as a platoon commander in the Scots Guards in Egypt, and then became the only national serviceman to serve in the Arab Legion, where he became adjutant of a Bedouin regiment. After national service he qualified as a deckhand in Hull and worked on an arctic trawler in Iceland waters. He then worked as a hospital orderly in the operating theatre of a hospital. After being senior lecturer in military history and adviser in leadership training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and Associate Director of The Industrial Society, in 1979 John became the world’s first Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Surrey.  

John Wingate was born in 1920. He was a successful novelist with some twenty-five books to his credit. Many of these had a naval theme. Frequently involving the submarine service, they gained much authenticity from Wingate’s personal wartime experiences. John was in the Battle of the Channel in a Chasseur and was mentioned in Dispatches. Then went into submarines based in the Mediterranean in Malta. He and his crew survived a 36 hour dive while being depth-charged. This was thought to be impossible at that time because of the build-up of carbon dioxide. He was awarded the DSC for that. After the war he went into market gardening until he was recalled to the Navy for the Korean Crisis in 1951. He was based in Portsmouth for that. After that he started teaching in Sussex, and then Aysgarth Preparatory School near Bedale in Yorkshire. He taught there for 3 years and then went to Milton Abbey School in Dorset until he was asked to start Hampshire Activities Centre at Calshot. This was the first of its kind, and was a great success. It was opened by Prince Phillip. He retired from there and took up writing full time, eventually moving to France to live. John sadly passed away in 2008.

Justin Fox is a novelist, travel writer and photographer based in Cape Town. He was until recently a photojournalist (and subsequently editor) of Getaway, South Africa’s leading travel magazine, and has spent the past two decades travelling the length and breadth of Africa writing and photographing for the publication. Justin was a Rhodes Scholar and received a doctorate in English from Oxford University (1995) after which he became a research fellow at the University of Cape Town, where he still teaches part time. His articles have appeared internationally in a number of publications and on a wide range of topics including travel, literature, history, nature and art, while his short stories and poems have appeared in various anthologies. He has written 20 books, mostly non-fiction, and been published in South Africa, the USA, UK, Holland and France. Recent titles include The Marginal Safari: Scouting the Edge of South Africa, Whoever Fears the Sea and The Impossible Five. Justin is a two-time Mondi journalism award winner and has been longlisted for the Olive Schreiner Prize for literature, the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction and the Etisalat Prize for African literature.

Kate Dunn comes from a long line of writers and actors: her great-great-grandfather Hugh Williams was a Welsh chartist who published revolutionary poetry, her grandfather, another Hugh Williams, was a celebrated film star and playwright and she is the niece of the poet Hugo Williams and the actor Simon Williams. Kate has acted in repertory, toured around Britain, the Far and Middle East and appeared in three West End plays, as well as a number of television productions. She has a PhD in Drama from Manchester University. Following the birth of her son Jack she turned to writing and has had six books published: Rebecca’s Children Always and Always – the Wartime Letters of Hugh and Margaret Williams Exit Through the Fireplace – The Great Days of Rep Do Not Adjust Your Set – The Early Days of Live Television. The Line Between Us The Dragonfly (short listed for the Virginia Prize awarded to encourage fresh women’s voices in fiction). Sapere Books will also be re-publishing The Line Between Us in 2019.

Get in touch with Kate

You can check out Kate's other books on her website, or follow her on Twitter.

Keith Moray was born in St Andrews and studied medicine at the University of Dundee in Scotland. He lives in England now, within arrow-shot of the ruins of a medieval castle, the scene of two of his historical novels, The Pardoner’s Crime and The Fool’s Folly. He is a part-time doctor, medical journalist and novelist, writing in several genres. He writes historical fiction and crime as Keith Moray, non-fiction as Keith Souter and westerns as Clay More. Curiously, his medical background finds its way into most of his writing. He is a member of various writers’ organisations, including the Crime Writers’ Association, Medical Journalists Association, International Thriller Writers, Western Writers of America and a past vice-president of Western Fictioneers, a professional organisation of Western writers. In his spare time, Keith enjoy the movies, theatre and making bread. He plays golf, tennis and runs at carthorse speed. As a frustrated actor, he has found occasional solace as a supporting artist, but enough said about that! Keith lives in West Yorkshire in England with his wife Rachel and whichever of his children and grandchildren happen to pop home.

Get in touch with Keith 

You can check out Keith's website or follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Kim Fleet holds an MA and PhD in Social Anthropology and spent five years living and working in Australian Aboriginal communities, helping indigenous people gain access to their traditional country. This experience informed several of her short stories and her novels Sacred Site and Featherfoot, which are set in the Australian outback. She has been writing since the age of nine, when her father gave her a book called Write Your Own Novel. Over 80 of her short stories have appeared in magazines in the UK and Australia, including People's Friend, Woman's Weekly, Take a Break and That's Life Fast Fiction. She has won or been short-listed in over twenty literary competitions, including the Asham Award.

Get in touch

Kim welcomes visitors to her website: www.kimfleet.com  

Leo Heaps was born in Winnipeg Canada in 1922, and lived his life in California, England and finally in Toronto. His early years were in the shadow of his father, a famous Parliamentarian, followed by his service in the British 1st Airborne during WW2, where he was awarded the Military Cross. His post-war exploits took him to the war of Independence in Israel, where he trained members of the Israeli army, and finally to the Hungarian revolution where he he worked with the International Rescue Committee. In civilian life, he had an unbridled passion for adventure, fine artwork. and writing, all of which played important roles in his various published works. An accomplished ocean sailor and tennis player he always made time for these two pursuits, while still attending obscure auctions, where he uncovered several rare works of art. His various exploits produced life-long relationships with a fascinating array of colleagues from all walks of life, many of them becoming the basis for characters in some of his published works. Leo Heaps died in 1995.

Euphrasia Emmeline Cox (Lewis Cox) was born in 1889 in South Wales, the second of six children - four girls and two boys - to Jonathan and Laurette Lewis. Both parents died when she was quite young and the family was rather left to look after themselves. The youngest sibling, Leonard, was killed in 1917 aged 19, in the Somme and his name can be found on the Menin Gate in Ypres. She married William Lewis Cox from Dunmanway, co. Cork in 1913 at St George’s, Hanover Square and their only child, Euphrasia Joan (Tam) - my mother - was born on 4th August, 1914. For most of their married life they lived at various addresses in central London, except for a short period when they rented Chawton House in Hampshire, the home of the Knight family, where Jane Austen wrote her novels. When William died in 1946, Euphrasia lived with her daughter, Tam (who had married Cecil Playford in 1939) and their family until she died in 1983. She wrote over 250 novels all in longhand; she started her career in the late 1920s and continued writing well into her 80s. She wrote under the names of Lewis Cox, Bridget Parsons and Mary Blair, and her books were published, primarily, by Hutchinson, Mills & Boon and later, Robert Hale. They were available in many countries and translated into several languages, including Japanese and Dutch. In her writing, as in life, she was very disciplined and forthright with a strong will and high standards; not outgoing with few friends, she did not seek publicity, but enjoyed her success and, whilst not a traveller, it is perhaps true that she lived through her imagination. She loved antiques and enjoyed collecting furniture and pictures. It is fair to say that she was not an easy person to live with but one cannot help but admire all that she achieved, particularly at a time when women were expected to be in the background- hence her using the name ‘Lewis Cox’ - and during the war; judging by the cuttings she was very highly thought of and had good reviews and billing.

Linda's love affair with the printed word started when she was two, when her mother, a keen reader, taught her the alphabet. She has had her nose in a book ever since. By her teens, she had developed an absorbing and enduring interest in true crime and history and a special fascination for the Victorian era. 2003 saw the launch of her first published book, Chloroform: the Quest for Oblivion. Several true crime books were to follow, most recently The Secret Poisoner, a study of nineteenth century poison murder, and three biographies, including The Marquess of Queensberry: Wilde’s Nemesis. Linda's first fiction series, the Frances Doughty Mysteries set in 1880s Bayswater, features a clever and determined lady detective. Through her adventures, Linda explores aspects of Victorian life such as diet, education, medicine, women’s rights, fear of premature burial and the fashion for cycling. In her second series, set in 1870s Brighton, Mina Scarletti is a deceptively diminutive lady who writes horror stories and exposes the activities of fraudulent spirit mediums. Linda is delighted to be an active member of the Crime Writers’ Association, and was elected Vice-Chair in 2017. Get in touch with Linda You can get in touch with Linda via her website or on Facebook.  Follow her on Twitter and Instagram. See a full list of Linda’s books on Goodreads. Sign up to her newsletter to hear about Linda's news and exclusive content.

Lynne Reid Banks is the author of ten acclaimed adult novels as well as many much-loved books for children.

She was born in London in 1929, the only child of a Scottish doctor and an Irish actress. During WW2 she was evacuated to the prairies of Canada where she spent 5 years. After studying at RADA in the late 1940’s she became an actress and later joined ITN to become one of the first women TV news reporters in Britain. Her first novel, The L-Shaped Room, was published in 1960 and caused outrage in more conservative quarters for its portrayal of a an unmarried mother-to-be who is thrown out by her father and has to live in the L-shaped room of the title. The novel was later adapted for cinema by the legendary Bryan Forbes and brought great critical acclaim.

In the early 1960's she went to live in a kibutz in Israel with her husband where she taught English. In 1971 she brought her family back to London where she continued to write for adults and children including her classic children’s novel, The Indian in the Cupboard which has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and was made into a highly successful feature film.

In 2013 Lynne won the prestigious JM Barrie Award for her contribution to children's arts.

Lynne has now written over forty five books and lives in Shepperton, England.

Get in touch

You check out Lynne's books and her news on her website.

M. J. Logue (as in cataLOGUE and epiLOGUE and not, ever, loge, which is apparently a kind of private box in a theatre) wrote her first short novel on a manual typewriter aged seven. It wasn't very good, being about talking horses, but she made her parents sit through endless readings of it anyway. Thirty-something years later she is still writing, although horses only come into it occasionally these days. Born and brought up in Lancashire, she moved to Cornwall at the turn of the century (and has always wanted to write that) and now lives in a granite cottage with her husband, and son, five cats, and various itinerant wildlife. After periods of employment as a tarot reader, complaints call handler, executive PA, copywriter and civil servant, she decided to start writing historical fiction about the period of British history that fascinates her - the 17th century. Her first series, covering the less than stellar career of a disreputable troop of Parliamentarian cavalry during the civil wars, was acclaimed by reviewers as "historical fiction written with elegance, wit and black humour" - but so many readers wanted to know whether fierce young lieutenant Thankful Russell ever did get his Happy Ever After, that the upcoming series of romantic thrillers for Sapere Books began.

Get in touch with MJ

She can be found on Twitter @Hollie_Babbitt, lurking on the web at asweetdisorder.com, and posting photos of cake, cats and extreme embroidery on Instagram as asweetdisorder.

Marilyn Todd is the award winning author of sixteen historical thrillers, three anthologies and scores of short stories. Most of these stories are crime, with the others swinging from comic fantasy to commercial women's fiction and all points in between. Two scooped awards from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and a third was nominated for a Shamus. She is also a reviewer for the New York Journal of Books. Born in London, she's been killing people for a living since 1995. These days she lives with her husband on a French hilltop, surrounded by vineyards, chateaux and woods, and when she isn't killing people, Marilyn enjoys cooking. Which is pretty much the same thing.

Get in touch with Marilyn

You can check out Marilyn's website at www.marilyntodd.com.  

Matthew Pritchard is a former investigative journalist and worked 10 years in Spain, covering stories for the local and national press. Since becoming a novelist, he has had four novels published (two of which were translated and sold in Germany). The Danny Sanchez series is based on his Pritchard’s experiences of working in the hot, chaotic and corrupt world of southern Spain. His standalone, Werewolf, is a historical thriller, set in Germany, August, 1945, as the British settled down to occupy the north of the country. Outside of writing, Pritchard is also a talented musician, and plays in the rock band, The 109s, who have released two albums.

Get in touch 

You can check out Danny's website here.

Following retirement, after thirty-two years as a police officer, working mainly as a detective, Michael Fowler returned to the deadly business of murder, as a writer. His past work brought him very close to some nasty characters, including psychopaths, and gruesome cases, and he draws on that experience to craft his stories: there is nothing gentile about the novels he writes. He penned his first DS Hunter Kerr novel in 2010 and he says that writing about Hunter is like writing about himself. “In many ways I am inextricably linked with Hunter Kerr. His career shadows mine to an extent and many of his experiences were mine. South Yorkshire remains a key element in my books. It’s Hunter’s patch and we both know it well.”

Get in touch with Michael

Check out Michael's website or get in touch via Twitter.  

Natalie came late to writing, but not to reading, and it was her lifelong love of Regency romance that led her to turn from contemporary romantic fiction to try her hand at her favourite genre. She takes delight in creating short stories of which more than fifty have been published, but is never happier than when immersed in an age of etiquette and manners, fashion and intrigue, all combined into a romping good tale. Natalie is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association, the Society of Authors and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists. Natalie lives in southeast London with her husband who fortunately enjoys cooking, as she can be found at her laptop at almost any hour of the day.

Coming soon

Written in the flowing language of the era, The Reluctant Bride tells the story of Charlotte, a young woman who is forced by her ambitious father into marriage with an earl. Within six weeks she is widowed and must find her own way in society, frustrated by the interference of her husband’s cousin and heir who proves to be a thorn in her side. When Prudence loses her beloved father to suicide and is left without a home she resolves with only a small legacy to stand on her own two feet. What else can she do When Only Pride Remains? Sophie is twenty-one years old when she learns that her life has been a sham. Shunned by society but with a spirit that will not be broken, The Girl with Flaming Hair is determined to overcome every challenge that is thrown at her. The Ghost of Glendale (released previously under the same title) is a delightful romp in which Phoebe and her beau, Duncan, try to resolve the mystery of why her several times great grandfather’s spirit cannot rest in peace.

Get in touch with Natalie

Natalie can be found on Twitter @NatKleinman and on her website. Check her out on Facebook and on her Amazon Author page.

The main themes of Noel B.s writing included personalities and events in American history. Among the subjects of his biographies were Sam Houston, Kit Carson and Presidents Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt. As Dana Fuller Ross, he wrote the popular ''Wagons West'' series; as Donald Clayton Porter, he wrote the ''White Indian'' series. Two of his novels, ''55 Days at Peking'' and ''The Naked Maja,'' were made into movies. Noel B. who wrote 325 books of fact and fiction under his own name and several pseudonyms, died at the age of 75 in 1988.

Following a childhood spent writing her first books, most notably, Our Book about Jesus – a self-help guide for fellow young Catholics, and, The Sleepover – a compelling tale of a midnight feast, shockingly intercepted by fictitious parents with badly drawn hands, Patricia Caliskan always liked to play with words. Patricia first saw her name misspelt in print aged 17, interviewing hungover rock stars and illegible actors for an Arts and Entertainment magazine. After graduating from the University of Liverpool, Patricia joined Trinity Mirror Newsgroup, working as editor across a portfolio of lifestyle magazine titles. Patricia likes a good pair of boots, wearing perfume with her pyjamas, and laughter. Lots of laughter. Because without it life feels far too grown up for her liking. Told with mischievous humour, Patricia’s stories explore family dynamics, office politics, and the divergent roles of women throughout their lives.

Get in touch 

You can get in touch with Patricia on her website or follow her on Instagram, Twitter or Goodreads.

Rebecca Jenkins was born into history and never recovered. Her first home was a 15th Century college house in Oxford High Street with the red and white roses of the War of the Roses carved over the door. In her early teens she was such a fan of D’Orczy’s Scarlett Pimpernel, she took up fencing determined to master the “prise de fer”. Her library began at the same age – collecting cheap between-the-wars editions of diaries and memoirs from the Georgian era. She spent the second half of her childhood in Switzerland but returned to Oxford University to take a degree in history. Sewing a loose buckle on a towering ugly sister’s shoe aged 16, as a dresser at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, Rebecca discovered a fascination with theatre and celebrity that later led to her first non-fiction book, a biography of Georgian actress and anti-slavery campaigner, Fanny Kemble (The Reluctant Celebrity, Simon & Schuster 2005). Raif Jarrett, the returning soldier and detective of her Regency mystery series first appeared in The Duke’s Agent in 1997. Despite many the distractions of a busy career in communications and PR, his world remains her first love. In between producing a book on The First London Olympics, 1908 (Piatkus Little Brown 2012), the opening novels of the Faith Morgan series (as Martha Ockley - Monarch Books), and serving as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at York St John University, she managed to return to write the second book of the series, Death of a Radical. She is presently at work on the third Jarrett mystery.

Get in touch with Rebecca

You can check out Rebecca's website and follow her on Twitter here.

Rory was born on the 23rd November, 1911. Until he was 18 his home was in Nairn, Scotland. He was a linguist speaking French, German, and Persian. He was educated at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire from the age of 6 after his father had died; and later at the Imperial College of Science and Technology where he gained a B Sc in Chemistry. In 1932 he joined the Anglo Persian Oil Company (BP) as a research chemist. He transferred to Iran in 1935 where he worked first as a chemist at the Abadan Refinery, and later as a technical services manager in Tehran before he returned to the UK at the outbreak of war. Whilst in Iran he played polo. After the war, following a short return to Iran, he became the personnel manager of the Kuwait Oil Company in London, In 1955 he was appointed general manager of Iranian Oil Services and later its chairman. He retired in 1970. Outside work he helped Hungarian refugees after the 1956 uprising, and looked after the finances of a youth club in Poplar, London. In retirement, first in London, and then from 1978 in Alresford, Hampshire he was the honorary treasurer of the Georgian Group, a trustee of the Leach Trust, a guide at Winchester Cathedral, and pursued his penchant for making fine furniture and decoration out of the most unpromising materials. He died 1993 aged 83. From 1930 to 1935 he served with 604 Squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force where he was commissioned and gained his wings. During his time in Persia from 1935 to the outbreak of war he flew during leave with the RAF in neighbouring Iraq. He rejoined 604 Squadron, now a night fighter unit based at Middle Wallop, Hampshire, in June 1940 after re-training. The squadron was one of the first to use and develop airborne radar to find aircraft at night. Flying Beaufighters he shot down 7 enemy planes for which he was awarded 2 DFCs. In March 1942 he was assigned to do staff work at 81 Group, which undertook night fighter training. Later in July he was made CO of the Fighter Interception Unit at Ford, Sussex. This unit was charged with improving the effectiveness of airborne interception radar. In November 1943 he joined Bomber Command to become 2nd in command, with the rank of Air Commodore, of the newly formed 100 Group that was to develop Radio Counter Measures and night fighter support for bombers. During his time with 100 Group he managed to fly on operational missions. He shot down two more enemy aircraft and was awarded the DSO. At the end of the war he was awarded the CBE. Cover of Darkness is an account of his involvement in wartime night fighter operations and the development of airborne radar. It was first published in 1953. In 1945 he married Sanchia Whitworth, a wartime WAAF officer. She died in 1994 They are survived by a son, Julian, and two daughters, Jane & Rose.

Roger Longrigg was born into a military family in 1929. He joined an advertising agency in 1955 and his first novel, A HIGH PITCHED BUZZ, was based on his experiences there. He subsequently went on to write 55 novels under 8 different noms de plume, revelling in the challenge and diversity each individual identity afforded him. Extraordinarily, he achieved success within every category he turned his pen to. He was married to writer Jane Chichester and had three daughters. He died in 2000.

Ronald Healiss was born in West Derby suburb of Liverpool on 23rd April 1914. As a young boy he was a strong swimmer and spent many hours teaching younger children how to swim, little did he know just how useful these skills would be later in life. After school he became an apprentice Chef with British Railways Hotels, starting at the Adelphi, Liverpool before spending time in Birmingham and Glen Eagles in Scotland, specialising in butchery. Before the outbreak of the Second World War he decided that he would join the military. He first applied to the Scots Guards, but was rejected because he was two inches too short of the six foot requirement height, before being accepted into the Royal Marines in 1933. Plymouth was his home port and it was while based at Eastney barracks in Southsea that he met his future wife. HMS Glorious was part of the Mediterranean fleet and he spent the later 1930s travelling to places such as Malta, Gibraltar, Alexandria, the Red Sea and Ceylon. Shortly after the outbreak of the war HMS Glorious was brought back to British waters and based in Scarpa Flow to support the retreat from Norway, which is why it was in Arctic waters when set upon by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. After being demobilised in 1946 he looked for jobs as a cook, but struggling to find anything in this line of work he found employment in one of the many manufacturing companies in area as a Commissionaire, which gave him the opportunity to join the Corps of Commissionaires due to long military service. He rose to become Chief Commissionaire at Skefko Ball Bearing Co Ltd and was a trusted, personal assistant to the Directors and Senior Management of the SKF Group. Although he managed to record his memories in Arctic Rescue he rarely talked about his experiences and could never be found on Remembrance Sunday while other members of the family watched the commemoration at the Cenotaph on television. One of his saddest times was the cessation of his meagre disability pension from the War Office soon after the publication of his book and would wonder whether he had raised too many questions over the tragedy of HMS Glorious and the huge numbers of lives that were lost. In 1979 he retired but sadly passed away on Christmas Day the following year at the age of sixty-six. He was warned by Naval Surgeons in Scotland after rescue in the Arctic that if he survived the effects of the extreme frostbite, then if he reached age 50 he would have the body of a man of 80!

She was born Sarah Kathleen Elinor Norton on January 20 1920, the only daughter of the filmmaker the 6th Lord Grantley and his wife Jean (née Kinloch). Brought up mainly in Scotland, Sarah was educated by a succession of disagreeable European governesses, but when she was 17 her parents dispatched her to Munich to broaden her horizons and learn German. After war was declared Sarah Norton worked briefly for Vogue magazine, writing captions for photographs of models for five shillings a week. She also wrote articles for the Baltimore Sun in America before signing up as a telephonist at an Air Raid Precautions Centre. She then helped to build Hurricanes at the Hawker Siddeley factory near Slough: “I hadn’t expected the work there to be quite as hard as it was, but we were fired up with the desire to make aeroplanes.”   Sarah Norton had never heard of Bletchley Park, and when they arrived they were assigned to Hut 4. “Nobody explained anything,” she recalled. “You were merely told that pieces of paper in German would come through and you had to take out any salient information, put it all on to a filing card with the coordinates, and index it. The information we were dealing with was obviously decrypted. Even then we didn’t know the whole picture. We just did what we were told.” Sarah Norton worked on the Naval Section index, helping to provide details of the U-boats to Hut 8, run at that time by Alan Turing, of whom she once said: “[He] was immensely shy, especially of girls... I once offered him a cup of tea, [and] he shrank back as if I’d got measles or something. He was wonderful. We were all very proud of him.” Sarah Norton spent three years at Bletchley, and in 1944 was sent to the Operational Intelligence Centre at the Admiralty in London as a liaison officer between the Admiralty and Bletchley. Sarah Baring is the author of The Road to Station X, about her wartime experiences and her life as a debutante. She and Thomas Baring divorced in 1965, and she never remarried. She is survived by her son, the 4th Viscount Astor, who is Samantha Cameron’s stepfather, and by an adopted son, Edward, from her second marriage. Sarah Baring, born January 20 1920, died February 4 2013

Sarah Herman is a British writer and editor. She’s worked for film, fashion and food magazines, including Star Wars Insider, Total Film and The Ingénue, and has written over twenty non-fiction books on topics as varied as unsolved crimes, The Archers and Facebook. She is also an expert on LEGO, having authored a number of books on the subject. She currently resides in the fine city of Norwich, England.

Get in touch with Sarah

You can find her blogging at sarahherman.co.uk and tweeting @hermanatee.

Coming soon 

Sarah Herman’s Famous Assassinations will be released in 2018. Spanning from Ancient Rome to the twentieth century, Herman sheds light on some of the most shocking murders in our history.

Seán, the father of three adult children, originally from Galway City, now lives with his partner in Wexford in the sunny South East of Ireland. He is a graduate of the National University of Ireland, Galway and Brunel University, London. After a career spent mostly in youth work and social care, Seán is at last able to indulge his lifelong passion for writing. In the early 2000’s he spent four years driving a taxi in Galway and it was from this experience that his unconventional, taxi-driving crime-solver, Ben Miller, gained life. Along with writing crime fiction and historical thrillers, Seán is also an award-winning playwright and filmmaker. When not writing, Seán is a patient, often frustrated, and always passionate supporter of Galway United FC, his hometown League of Ireland club. As his London-born mother lived on Britannia Road, SW London, there are no prizes for guessing the identity of his other team!

Coming soon

There are three books so far in the ‘Ben Miller’ series, each dealing with gritty contemporary issues yet written with a darkly humorous touch. Each book sees taxi-driver Ben Miller become unwillingly involved in situations, including murder, people-trafficking, prostitution and the illegal drugs trade that blur the distinctions between good and evil, as well as dealing with his own issues, including possible autism. The character of corrupt Gárda Superintendent Martin Folan features prominently in the Galway-set stories, each one of which is based on experiences the author had whilst working as a taxi-driver in the city.

Get in touch

Follow Seán on Twitter. Seán's website is coming soon.

Shirley Harrison began broadcasting with Uncle Mac on the BBC’s Children's Hour in 1954. She wrote for most national magazines and newspapers, turning to non-fiction after the death of her husband in 1982. Her best known is the internationally best selling The Diary of Jack the Ripper in which she takes readers on a journey back to the home of the Ripper in Liverpool and to the scene and execution of the most infamous murders in history. It has all the pace and drama of a thriller and, being based on historical archives remains utterly convincing. Because of her inexhaustible curiosity, at the age of 82, Shirley's professional life has covered a colourful range of subjects that have caught her imagination including Father Christmas, cider, Winnie the Pooh, King James II’s best loved brothel in Paris Gardens, Southwark, and Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst resulting in her biography: Sylvia Pankhurst: The Rebellious Suffragette.

Simon Michael is the author of the best-selling London 1960s noir gangster series featuring his antihero barrister, Charles Holborne. Simon writes from personal experience: a barrister for 37 years, he worked in the Old Bailey and other criminal courts defending and prosecuting a wide selection of murderers, armed robbers, con artists and other assorted villainy. The 1960s was the Wild West of British justice, a time when the Krays, Richardsons and other violent gangs fought for control of London’s organised crime, and the corrupt Metropolitan Police beat up suspects, twisted evidence and took a share of the criminal proceeds. Simon weaves into his thrillers real events of the time and genuine court documents from cases on which he worked. Simon was published here and in America in the 1980s and returned to writing when he retired from the law in 2016. Simon’s theme is alienation; Holborne, who dabbled in crime and in serious violence before becoming a barrister, is an outsider both in the East End where he grew up and in the Temples of the Law where he faces daily class and religious prejudice. He has been compared to Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, honourable men surrounded by corruption and violence, trying to steer an honest course. Simon supplements his writing with his entertaining one-man show, My Life in Crime, which he performs up to 50 times a year to Rotary, WI, library and other groups.

Get in touch

Simon's official website is www.simonmichael.uk.  You can catch up with Simon on Facebook or Twitter too.  

Stephen Taylor was once a happy and reasonably well-adjusted person; that was until an urge to write invaded his psyche, this need to be a writer, to tell tales; then these thoughts began to coalesce. A Georgian trilogy was conceived; set in London; a decadent time, a decadent place. If the past is another country, then the Georgian period exemplifies this. Why were these people so different from us? Now added, also Gospels - a Georgian adventure story set in Egypt. He is a widower with a daughter just finished University. Born in Yorkshire, brought up in Manchester (still an avid Manchester City fan); he is now a retired Tax Inspector (now come on out from behind the sofa, they are a fine bunch of lads and lasses at the Tax Office) and lives near Loughborough with his new partner. He has always admired the skill of the storyteller, and his character-driven historical fiction aspires to that simple tradition.

Coming soon

Sapere Books will be reissuing Stephen's Georgian Quartet; series of novels linked by social change, and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. Where class divisions were intensified, where morality declined as prosperity increased. Where sensibilities were strange to our modern eyes, and yet manners were highly prized.

Contact Stephen

You can check out Stephen's website here.

Tanya Jean became addicted to reading as soon as she could hold a book and read her way around the world, first as a military child, and then an air hostess. Now living in Northamptonshire, England she is married to an amazing Elvis & Neil Diamond Tribute artist, thanks to whom she has a house full of jumpsuits & trophies. This, of course, is a source of much embarrassment to their two teenage children! Tanya remains obsessive about books and has an embarrassingly huge, and ever growing, pile of things that she just 'has' to read next to her bed! She squeeze her daydreaming ... ahem ... 'writing' around her family and her day job in HR, and is convinced that chocolate & diet coke should be considered a well balanced diet!

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Coming soon

An Imperfect Christmas Work, relationships, health, everything in Maggie Green’s life is finally going the way its supposed to. Everything is almost good enough, until it isn’t, just in time for her first visit home in years For Maggie, heading home from London for Christmas, and her sisters long awaited wedding should be wonderful, but facing Nathan, the man who was her best friend, the man she wasn’t good enough for, was going to be hard enough, doing it whilst hiding how far from perfect she’d become would be almost impossible. Nathan, however, isn’t prepared to let his old friend keep him at arms-length and pushes at her barriers, hoping to show her that, sometimes, imperfection can be everything you need.

Teresa moved from Surrey to Weston-super-Mare in 1998 – and tries very hard to hold onto her Surrey accent! She lives with her two sons and a budgie called Rio. And when she’s not working (the day job) or amusing her sons, she is writing. Teresa is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and The Society of Authors. She is also involved locally in the Weston Literary Festival and Weston Writers’ Nights. She was appointed (unofficially) the social secretary for her RNA Weston to Wells chapter because she’s quite organised and a little bit bossy. She’s at her happiest baking cakes, putting proper home cooked dinners on the table (whether the kids eat them or not), reading a good romance, or sitting at her PC emptying her thoughts onto the screen. She also has an obsession for superheroes and likes a cocktail (or two). Family holidays in Cornwall inspired the scenic Cornish coastline and the city of Bristol to be the backdrop for her novels. Teresa loves writing contemporary romance, uplifting stories with a touch of escapism, and creating heroes readers will fall in love with.

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Get in touch with Teresa through Facebook, Twitter or her website. You can follow Teresa on her blog and Goodreads too.

Coming soon

The Kittiwake Cove Series The first book in the series sees Rhianna Price arriving at Kittiwake Cove to make a fresh start. She’s taking over a restaurant to make her own bistro and cocktail bar. What she doesn’t know is that her holiday fling – Joe Trescott – from three years ago still lives in Kittiwake Cove. If he’s still the player she remembers, then it would be wise to steer clear of him if she wants her fresh start to work.

Tom was born on 19th Jan 1919 in Poplar, East London, second son of a London Dockworker and an Irish immigrant. They lived in relative poverty, but when Tom won a Scholarship place at Raines Foundation School, his parents agreed to allow him to complete his education to Matriculation level. Tom passed with Honours, but because of family circumstances he had to find work at the age of 16. He obtained a clerical post in Ladywell, Lewisham. At the outbreak of the war he joined the RAF and qualified as a Navigator. His Flying Log Book shows that he flew in numerous types of smaller aircraft as a Pathfinder as well as the far larger bombers. Like many other young men of the time, he married his childhood sweetheart Lillian in October 1940 and went on to have five children. He was commissioned and remained in the RAF after the war serving in various locations including Malta, Lincolnshire and the Isle of Man. On discharge, he and Lillian settled in Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex and he worked for the British India Steam Navigation Company until his retirement. During his latter years he was heavily involved in The 617 Squadron Association and committed to their charitable causes. We should remember that Tom Bennett and all those crews who risked their lives over Europe were really little more than boys – but they learned very quickly to be men. I hope that their undoubted bravery and wonderful sense of humour shines through this book. After attending the celebrations of the opening of the Bomber Command Memorial in Hyde Park on 28th June 2012, Tom passed away peacefully on January 9th 2013, 2 weeks before his 94th birthday.

Valerie Holmes became a published author when she won Writing Magazine’s Annual Ghost Story Competition in 2002 with Three Squashed Pumpkins. Since then she has had over forty novellas published. The majority of her historical romances/mysteries are set in the early nineteenth century in a time of dramatic social change and of war with France. Smuggling, espionage and press-gangs all add to the drama that the hero/heroine faces. Valerie's work also includes contemporary titles. Two of her novellas were shortlisted for the category Romance Award by the Romantic Novelists’ Association. She literally ‘Loves the Adventure!’ Growing up in a coastal town on the edge of North Yorkshire, Valerie Holmes' novella world often reflects her love of the dramatic beauty of North Yorkshire; an area where she enjoys both hiking and discovering its fascinating history. She is an experienced creative writing tutor of distance learning courses who enjoys being able to encourage unpublished writers to move towards their dreams. Valerie also completes manuscript appraisals for the Romantic Novelists’ Association, New Writers' Scheme. As a reader for the Historical Novel Society she reviews both adult and children’s books. She is a member of the Society of Authors, The Crime Writers’ Association, Historical Novel Society and the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

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W. G. Hoskins was born in Exeter on May 22nd 1908. The Hoskins family had lived in Devon for some 500 years and his fierce pride in descent from Devon yeomen was one of the strongest forces shaping his personality. He attended school in Exeter and continued his education at the University College of the South West where he completed his degree at the age of 19. He went on to complete an MSc on ‘The Rise and Decline of the serge industry in SW England’ by the age of 21. As well as writing many books, the most well known being ‘The Making of the English Landscape’ he also did a series for BBC TV ‘ Landscapes of England.’ W. G. Hoskins died in Cullompton in January 1992 aged 83