- 31 May -30 June 2024
- Fiction
Two O’Clock Boy: Mark Hill
Mark Hill's debut The Two O’Clock Boy is the gripping, twist-filled start to a new London-set crime thriller series, starring morally corrupt DI Ray Drake - a new spin on the modern police novel, with a focus on psychological suspence and a heady sense of the macabre. Read more
- Fiction
Dead Men Whistling: Graham Masterton
Graham Masterton, author of bestselling horror novel The Manitou, brings us a gripping new thriller about police corruption, whistleblowing and murder. DCI Katie Maguire investigates a string of police fatalities, discovering that when murder is the best way to stop people talking, only silence is the safe option. Read more
- Fiction
The Cross and the Curse: Matthew Harffy
AD 634: In Anglo-Saxon Britain, confusion and conflict continue as warlords battle across Britain to become the first King of the English. In the second gripping, action-packed instalment in The Bernicia Chronicles, Matthew Harffy weaves an enthralling tale of murder, betrayal and vengeance. Read more
- Fiction
- ONLY A FEW TICKETS LEFT!
The Special Girls: Isabelle Grey
DI Grace Fisher investigates a cold case and the murder of a young doctor, all connected to a summer camp for young patients with eating disorders located deep in the Essex countryside. The Special Girls is a nailbiting psychological thriller with a main character you will love and a final twist that will break your heart. Read more
- Fiction
- For Writers
- Non-fiction
- Poetry
- Storytelling
- Workshop
Essex Authors Day
This exciting day of seminars and workshops brings together Essex-based authors, writers and aspiring writers. Listen to author readings at the Pop Up Podium, pick up top tips, meet other writers, and find out more about getting published and publicising your book. Read more
- Fiction
- Non-fiction
- Poetry
- Storytelling
Pop-up Podium: Meet the Authors
A fascinating and enlightening day for all book-lovers. Visit our Pop-up Podium and meet a whole host of Essex based writers and published authors. Talk to them about their work and inspirations, and listen to pop-up readings through the day. Read more
- Fiction
- SOLD OUT!
Strange Sight: Syd Moore
The second in the Essex Witch Museum Mysteries follows the La Fleur restaurant, which has a slew of unusual phenomena. Bonnet-clad apparitions pass through walls, blood leaks from ceilings and rats besiege the dining room. Will Rosie Strange be able to solve the mystery? Read more
- Fiction
The Woolgrower’s Companion: Joy Rhoades
A war story and a love story set against the dusty heat and high stakes of the Australian outback. The Woolgrower’s Companion is a passionate tribute to Australia’s landscape and its people, inspired by the author’s grandmother. Read more
- Fiction
Spooked! – Spiritualists, Spies and Scandals
In the picturesque setting of Chalkwell Hall, Moore and Unsworth discuss the occult and secret service networks during the Second World War, the mysteries that surrounded these clandestine operations, and the links between clairvoyants, magicians, witchcraft and spies. Read more
- Fiction
The Sealwoman’s Gift: Sally Magnusson
Set in Iceland and Algiers in the 17th century, broadcaster and journalist Sally Magnusson reimagines the true story of a pirate raid of a tiny Westman island, in which a pastor, his wife and their children – along with half their island – were abducted into slavery. Read more
- Fiction
2084: A Science Fiction Anthology
This out-of-this-world anthology brings together the writings of fifteen authors, inspired by George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984. Warnings or prophesies? Paradise or destruction? Our future unfolds before us. Read more
- Fiction
- Poetry
Journey into the Underworld
Join award-winning storyteller and Cambridge Bard Glenys Newton for a mythic journey into the Underworld. A bespoke Odyssey into the dimly-lit, cavernous, triple-tiered Bunker: the perfect canvas for spontaneous conjurings of Dante's Inferno and The Cyclop's Cave, to name but some! Read more
- Fiction
Bait in the Bunker
Allow yourself to be lured into a landscape of danger seasoned with humour. Fields of wheat soar, baskets attack, and bones are a form of currency. Nicky Winder reads her prize-winning short story 'Bait' and other works, proving that we enter the world of fairy tales at our peril. Read more
- CANCELLED
- Fiction
Behind Her Eyes: Sarah Pinborough
*** THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED DUE TO ILL HEALTH - NEW DATE TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON *** Already one of the most talked about thrillers of 2017, Behind Her Eyes masterfully walks the tightrope between psychological and supernatural thriller. Read more
- Fiction
Kitty Peck and the Daughter of Sorrow: Kate Griffin
The latest in Kate Griffin's popular Kitty Peck series. Summer 1881: the streets of Limehouse are thick with opium... and menace. At eighteen Kitty has inherited Paradise, a sprawling criminal empire on the banks of the Thames, and soon realises that the past casts a long and treacherous shadow. Read more
- Fiction
- SOLD OUT!
The Keeper of Lost Things: Ruth Hogan
Aging author Anthony Peardew has spent his life collecting misplaced items. When he dies his assistant Laura is left to fulfill his final wish of reuniting the objects with their rightful owners. An enchanting debut novel from self-confessed ‘magpie’ Ruth Hogan about loss, second chances and endless possibilities. Read more
- Fiction
Sarah Perry, Melmoth
We are delighted to launch this year’s festival with Festival Patron Sarah Perry, who will talk about her new novel Melmoth, hailed as a masterpiece of moral complexity, asking profound questions about mercy, redemption, and how to make the best of our conflicted world. Read more
- Fiction
- Young Essex
AL Kennedy
Join one of Britain's most gifted and celebrated award-winning writers, as A L Kennedy tells us the tale of The Little Snake, a magical and deeply moving fable about the journey we all take through life, about love and family, about war and resilience, about how we live in this world. Read more
- Fiction
An Evening with Sophie Hannah
Sophie Hannah shares her lifelong love of Agatha Christie and how she came to be chosen to write the new Hercule Poirot novels. She reveals insights into her new Poirot novel The Mystery of Three Quarters, and will also share insights into her new self-help book How to Hold a Grudge. Read more
- Fiction
Amer Anwar
A Sikh girl on the run. A Muslim ex-con who has to find her. A whole heap of trouble. After being released from prison, Zaq Khan is lucky to land a dead-end job at a builders' yard. All he wants to do is keep his head down and put the past behind him. But when Zaq is forced to search for his boss's runaway daughter, he quickly finds himself caught up in a deadly web of deception, murder and revenge.… Read more
- Fiction
Elizabeth Haynes
From the award-winning and best-selling author of Into the Darkest Corner comes a delicious Victorian crime novel based on a true story that shocked and fascinated the nation. Brimming with lust, mistrust and guilt, this is a masterclass of suspense from one of our greatest crime writers. Read more
- Fiction
Apple and Knife
Intam Paramaditha is an Indonesian writer who re-writes traditional Indonesian folk tales through a feminist horror lens. Syd Moore's mystery thrillers are inspired by the myths of Essex. The authors discuss what it means to re-write old stories and myths with a contemporary, feminist slant. Read more
- Fiction
Jessica Fellowes
From the pen of Jessica Fellowes, who authored five official companion books to Downton Abbey and the highly acclaimed The Mitford Murders, comes Bright Young Dead, a Golden Age-style crime novel based on a real crime of the 1920s. Read more
- Fiction
Stella Duffy
Inspector Roderick Alleyn is back in this unique crime novel, started by Ngaio Marsh during the Second World War and now completed by Stella Duffy. Stella Duffy skilfully picks up where March left off, in a way that has delighted readers and critics alike. Shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger Award 2018. Read more
- Fiction
Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s historical crime debut is a vivid, thrilling novel set in 18th century Deptford, against the backdrop of the brutal British slave trade, and follows a young abolitionist killed in the pursuit of a better future. Read more
- Fiction
Bridget Collins
Set in 19th century Britain with one crucial difference: Books are not for learning or pleasure, but contain our worst memories - our grief, trauma and fear. Bridget Collins’ debut novel is an exploration of mental illness, memory loss, and a shamelessly romantic love story. Read more
- Fiction
Launch Event: How the Dead Speak
Val McDermid, Queen of Crime and number one bestseller, joins us for the launch of Essex Book Festival. Perhaps best known for her Wire in the Blood series, Val will talk about her latest heart-pounding thriller in the series How the Dead Speak. Read more
- Fiction
Sunfall
Quantum physicist, author and presenter of the long-running weekly BBC Radio 4 programme, The Life Scientific, Jim Al-Khalili OBE FRS, joins us to talk about his debut novel Sunfall which combines rip-roaring storytelling and mind-expanding science. Read more
- Fiction
- SOLD OUT!
The Forgotten Wife
Emma Robinson is the author of five novels about motherhood and friendship and writes the humorous blog Motherhood For Slackers. Emma will share her own journey to publication as well as reading from her latest novel The Forgotten Wife – a heart-breaking family drama with a stunning twist. Read more
- Fiction
- SOLD OUT!
Bone China
Join award-winning author, Laura Purcell, to hear about her latest spine-tinglingly eerie book, Bone China. It’s a Daphne du Maurier-esque chilling tale set on the mysterious Cornish coast. Menacing and macabre…you may want to bring somebody to hold your hand. Read more
- Fiction
A Death in Mayfair
Mark Ellis is a thriller writer and the creator of DCI Frank Merlin. Mark grew up under the shadow of his parents’ experience of the Second World War and has always been fascinated by the Home Front and the fact that while the nation was engaged in a heroic endeavour, crime flourished. Read more
- Fiction
- Online
- Partner Event
The Manningtree Witches
Appetite Book Club and Essex Book Festival are very excited to host this online event with debut author A.K. Blakemore. In The Manningtree Witches fear and destruction take root in the lives of the local women when the Witchfinder General comes to town in this dark and thrilling debut. A.K Blakemore gives a striking account of the everyday mechanics of misogyny, power and privilege—and a masterfully crafted, ferociously compelling story. Read more
- Book Club Event
- Fiction
- In partnership
- Online
Essex Book Festival (UK) in partnership with Roving Heights Book Club (Nigeria) presents Ukamaka Olisakwe
A modern feminist classic in the making from a rising star of the Nigerian literature scene Ogadinma or, Everything Will be All Right tells the story of the naive and trusting Ogadinma as she battles against Nigeria's societal expectations in the 1980s. After a rape and unwanted pregnancy leave her exiled from her family in Kano, thwarting her plans to go to university, she is sent to her aunt's in Lagos and pressured into a marriage with an older man.… Read more
- Fiction
The Secrets of the Lake
Liz Trenow, bestselling author of In Love and War and Under a Wartime Sky, returns to her East Anglian roots for her latest novel The Secrets of the Lake. Inspired by the intriguing legend of a dragon said to live in a supposedly bottomless lake on the Essex/Suffolk border, it is a coming of age story with a tragic mystery at its heart. The traumas of two world wars reverberate through a rural village, rocking the community and threatening the… Read more
- Fiction
The Mermaid of the Black Conch
**Overall Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2020** Set on an imaginary Caribbean island, this tantalising tale of disruption brought about by a beautiful stranger marries mythical elements with the piercing realism of everyday life. Themes of unconditional love, friendship, family and loss, are examined without sentimentality. Join us at Chelmsford Library to hear Monique talk about her latest mesmerising novel. Tickets: £7 / £5 Read more
- Fiction
Unsettled Ground
What if the life you’ve always known is taken from you in an instant? What would you do to get it back? Claire Fuller returns with her fourth novel, a tale of a dysfunctional family hiding dark secrets. Unsettled Ground is a heart-stopping novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival. It is a portrait of life on the fringes of society that explores with dazzling emotional power how we can build our lives on broken foundations, and spin light from… Read more
- Fiction
This Lovely City
Observer Top 10 Debut Novelist 2020, Louise Hare, will be discussing her debut novel This Lovely City, a poignant, conversation-starting story set around Brixton’s Windrush community in London in the aftermath of the Second World War. Beautiful and soaring, this heart-breaking yet hopeful debut explores themes of race, poverty and community. Read more
- Fiction
The Manningtree Witches
Fear and destruction take root in the lives of the women of Manningtree when the Witchfinder General comes to town in this dark and thrilling debut. A.K. Blakemore gives a striking account of the everyday mechanics of misogyny, power and privilege—and a masterfully crafted, ferociously compelling story. It is a visceral, thrilling book that announces a bold new talent. Tickets: £7 / £5 Read more
- Fiction
The House that Alice Built
A heart-warming summer read set in Portugal. Home is where the heart is. Alice Mathews is very much a homebody until a postcard from her ex turns her life upside down. She finds herself on the coast in Portugal ‘going with the flow’. A lesson that sees her cat-sitting, paddle boarding, dancing on top of bars and rediscovering her artistic talents. But perhaps the most important part of the lesson for Alice is that you don't always need a house to… Read more
- Fiction
- In Conversation
**Moved to Digital Platform more tickets available ** Common Ground
Did you ever have a friend who made you see the world differently? From the acclaimed author of the story collection Escape Routes comes a timely, bittersweet and beautifully observed coming of age story about a friendship that defines two lives, and about the value of loyalty in a divided world. **An Evening Standard Must Read for 2021** THIS EVENT HAS MOVED TO DIGITAL PLATFORM if you have purchased tickets you will receive an email shortly. Read more
- Fiction
Girl A
The Sunday Times best seller, an astonishing new crime thriller debut novel from the biggest literary fiction voice of 2021. She thoughts had escaped her past. But there're some things you can't outrun. Following the news that their abusive mother has died in prison, Lex and her siblings must face the horrors of their past once more in this arresting debut that is both a page-turning thriller and a searing portrait of survival. Read more
- Fiction
A More Perfect Union
This extraordinary debut novel heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in Black women’s writing. It is an interracial love story set in pre-Civil War America, and inspired by the true story of author Tammye’s great-great grandparents. Along with love and race, it touches on themes of identity, sacrifice, belonging and survival. **BBC Radio 2 Book Club choice" and "The Times Best Books for October** Read more
- A Criminally Good Day
- Fiction
The House of Killers
Samantha Lee Howe began her professional writing career predominantly writing writing horror and fantasy under the pen name Sam Stone. To date, Samantha has written 20 novels, 3 novellas, 3 collections, over 40 short stories, an audio drama and a ‘Doctor Who’ spin-off drama that went to DVD. Samantha will be discussing her success with The Stranger in Our Bed (2020) and her latest spy thriller series The House of Killers (2021). Tickets: £8 / £6 Read more
- Fiction
You, Me and the Sea
Compelling, moving and teeming with feral desire: You, Me & the Sea is a contemporary story of love and redemption set on a remote, windswept Scottish island from the bestselling author of Into the Darkest Corner and The Murder of Harriet Monckton. “This is escapism in the best possible way"- Marian Keyes Read more
- Discussion
- Festival Finale
- Fiction
- For Writers
- In Conversation
- In partnership
- In person
- Non-fiction
- Outside
- Storytelling
- The Children's University
- Workshop
- Young Essex
Essex Book Camp
Join in the fun at the Essex Book Camp With a huge range of events for all ages, from author events with the likes of Good Morning Britain’s Dr Hilary Jones through to our fabulous storytelling yurt; woodland crafts and meditation walks; drop-in family yoga sessions and more, Cressing Temple Barns is the place to be this August Bank Holiday Sunday. Free Drop-In Activities for all ages we just need one large image of Shane Ibbs telling stories for this… Read more
- Fiction
Say Her Name
Dreda Say Mitchell is an award-winning and best-selling author and has been collaborating with Ryan Carter since her fifth book. At its heart of their latest chilling thriller are the cases of missing black women that are all too frequently left without investigation, and are overlooked by the media. ‘Britain’s finest crime fiction writer’ – Lee Child Venue: High House Production Park, Vellacott Close, Purfleet-on-Thames, Essex, RM19 1RJ Date and time: Saturday 11th June, 3.30pm Tickets: £8 / £7… Read more
- A Criminally Good Day
- Fiction
Marple: Twelve New Stories
Whether you are a dedicated Agatha Christie fan and Marple aficionado, or intrigued to find out more about this modest, unassuming old lady, we are sure you will enjoy the discussion about one of the greatest deductive minds ever to capture the world' imagination. Read more
- A Criminally Good Day
- Date changed
- Fiction
The Spy Across the Water – DATE CHANGED
** Date Changed to 4th June ** The thrilling third novel from one of our most treasured BBC broadcasters, The Spy Across The Water follows Will Flemyng on a dangerous journey into his clandestine past, from conflict in Ireland to the long shadows of the Cold War. Read more
- Fiction
- SOLD OUT!
Sold Out! – Foxash
With an unsettling sense of place, Kate Worsley's latest book, Foxash, is a deeply original story of quiet and powerful menace, of the real hardships of rural life, and the myths and folklore that seep into ordinary lives – with surprising consequences. Read more
- Fiction
The Birdcage Library
A gothic-tinged tale of obsession and long buried secrets set in a remote and atmospheric Scottish castle. Discover a mystery within a mystery in The Birdcage Library, a novel that will hold you in its spell until the final page. Read more
- Fiction
DLS Lecture: The Three Graces
Join award-winning journalist, critic and author, Amanda Craig for a discussion about her latest enthralling, funny and generous book, The Three Graces, as well as her love of Dorothy L Sayers’s fiction, “the marriage of true minds”, 1930s feminism and the Wimsey-Vane romance. Read more
- Fiction
- In Conversation
Authors in Conversation
Poet and writer, Holly Pester, and author of two poetry collections and two novels, Keiran Goddard, join us at Red Lion Books in Colchester to discuss their latest books: The Lodgers and I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning Read more
- Fiction
Mania
Lionel Shriver turns her piercing gaze on the policing of opinion and intellect, and imagines a world in which intellectual meritocracy is heresy. Hilarious, deadpan, scathing and at times frighteningly plausible, Mania will delight the many fans of her fiction and journalism alike. Read more
- CANCELLED
- Fiction
One Love – EVENT CANCELLED
From the author of Becoming Ted and The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle comes an utterly joyful novel about 20 years of love and friendship, culminating at Manchester Pride. Two men. Twenty years of friendship. One love. Read more
- Listen Up!
- Fiction
Like Water Like Sea
Sometimes we swim, sometimes we float, other times we are drowning. It’s not always easy to know which is which. Set against the vibrant backdrop of London, Like Water Like Sea is an immersive novel of self-discovery, resilience, and the unifying power of love. Read more
- Restless Brilliance
- Fiction
Maybe, Perhaps, Possibly
Joanna Glen, author of the Costa Prize shortlisted debut, The Other Half of Augusta Hope, explores her latest novel, Maybe, Perhaps, Possibly. A beautifully observed and life-affirming novel about finding yourself, and then allowing someone else to find you. Read more