Hannah Murray will start by looking at the bestseller lists on Amazon and The Sunday Times, the oldest and most influential book sales chart in the UK, and seeing what new entries there are.



Kevan Christie left school at 16 to work in a builder's merchant. He gained a degree in journalism in 2006 and there followed a career with the Daily Record, The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. His debut novel 'To Be Frank' is set in the streets of Portobello and Leith. It's a thriller that follows a journalist and his estranged daughter as they navigate a tangled web of addiction, parenthood and hidden pasts, with devastating consequences. 



Paul A. Mendelson is a BAFTA nominated screenwriter and author. His latest novel 'Seville' is a bittersweet romantic comedy where past, present and future mingle, clash and resonate. It's based on Paul's honeymoon in Seville that poses the question - what if you met your younger selves on their honeymoon? The movie script has become a finalist in the world's largest romantic comedy contest in LA. 



Ally Walker is a noted television and film actress, screenwriter and director, who has been in films such as While You Were Sleeping, Universal Soldier and Happy Texas. Her debut novel 'Happy Texas' is the first installment in The Realities Series, and is an edge-of-your-seat metaphysical thriller that will mesmerize and haunt you from the first page to its shocking end. 



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Rob Biddulph is an award-winning author and illustrator who previously worked on magazines like Just Seventeen, NME and The Observer Magazine. His first picture book 'Blown Away', published in 2014, was only the second picture book to win the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. Rob was an official World Book Day author in 2024 with his first ever Draw With Rob picture book 'Charlie McGrew and the Horse that he Drew' His latest inspiring picture book 'When I Grow Up I'd Like to Be...' is an exploration of jobs and the world of work, and is full of hope and childhood ambition. 



Caroline Swinburne is a piano teacher and qualified music therapist. Originally a French Horn player, she became obsessed with the piano and now runs a successful teaching practice as well as writing music-themed fiction. 'Solo' follows a former French Horn player learning to face her past when a disastrous solo humiliated her on the world stage.



Peter Hain is a politician who as a teenager was exiled to the UK from South Africa, becoming a leading activist in the anti-apartheid movement. Elected MP for Neath in 1991, he stood down in 2015 to join the House of Lords. He has written three environmental thrillers, with 'Fallout' being his first standalone thriller set in the 1980s. He weaves historical facts amongst the fiction, including his own experience of an un-detonated letter bomb arriving at his family home in the 1970s.