The Witching Hour

Bridget Collins trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art after reading English at King's College, Cambridge. She is the author of seven acclaimed books for young adults and has had two plays produced, one at the Edinburgh Fringe. She is the No. 1 bestselling author of THE BINDING and THE BETRAYALS. THE SILENCE FACTORY is her third adult novel.

Imogen Hermes Gowar studied Archaeology, Anthropology and Art History at UEA’s Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts before going on to work in museums. She began to write small pieces of fiction inspired by the artefacts she worked with and around, and in 2013 won the Malcolm Bradbury Memorial Scholarship to study for an MA in Creative Writing at UEA. 

She won the Curtis Brown Prize for her dissertation, which grew into a novel titled The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock. An early draft was a finalist in the MsLexia First Novel Competition 2015, and it was also one of three entries shortlisted for the inaugural Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers’ Award.

Natasha Pulley is the internationally bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, The Bedlam Stacks, The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, The Kingdoms, and The Half Life of Valery K. She has won a Betty Trask Award, been shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award, the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award, and the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. She lives in Bristol, England.

Jess Kidd is the award-winning author of Himself, Mr. Flood's Last Resort, Things in Jars, The Night Ship, Little Spark, and the Nora Breen Investigates series. She has a PhD in creative writing from St. Mary's University in London. She grew up in London as part of a large family from Ireland's County Mayo and now lives in North Yorkshire. Jess is currently developing her own original TV projects with leading UK and international TV producers. Learn more at JessKidd.com.

Andrew Michael Hurley is based in Lancashire. His first novel, The Loney, won the Costa Best First Novel Award and the Book of the Year at the British Book Awards. Devil's Day, his second novel, was picked as a Book of the Year in five newspapers, and won the Encore Award. Starve Acre was made into a film starring Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark.

ELIZABETH MACNEAL is the author of two Sunday Times bestselling novels: The Doll Factory, which won the 2018 Caledonia Novel Award and has been adapted into a major TV series on Paramount+, and Circus of Wonders. Her work has been translated into twenty-nine languages. Born in Scotland, Elizabeth is also a potter and lives in Twickenham with her family. 

Kiran Millwood Hargrave is a multi-award-winning, internationally bestselling novelist. She is the author of instant Sunday Times bestseller The Mercies, which was a Richard and Judy Book Club Pick, won a Betty Trask Award, and was named an NYT Best Book of the Year, and The Dance Tree, which was shortlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award, and picked for the BBC Two Between the Covers Book Club. Her bestselling works for children are published in over thirty languages. Kiran lives in Oxford with her family, and a constant rotation of foster kittens.

STUART TURTON is a freelance journalist who lives in West London with his wife. Turton is not to be trusted—in the nicest possible way. He is the author of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water.

Susan Stokes-Chapman is a writer based in North Wales. She grew up in the Georgian city of Lichfield, before spending four years in the town of Aberystwyth and graduating with a BA in Education and English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing. Her debut novel Pandora was an instant #1 bestseller in the UK, was shortlisted for the 2020 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and longlisted for the Bath Novel Award.

Stacey Halls was born in 1989 and grew up in Lancashire, England. She studied journalism at the University of Central Lancashire and has worked as a journalist since the age of 21, writing for publications including The Independent, Fabulous magazine, Stylist and Psychologies. She lives in London with her husband. The Familiars is her first novel. 

Michelle Paver was born in central Africa, but moved to England as a child. After earning a degree in biochemistry from Oxford University, she became a partner in a London law firm, but eventually gave that up to write full-time.

Chronicles of Ancient Darkness arises from her lifelong passions for animals, anthropology, and the distant past. It was also inspired by her travels in Norway, Lapland, Iceland, and the Carpathian Mountains—and particularly by an encounter with a large bear in a remote valley in Southern California.