Voted best crime writer of all time by W H Smith readers and winner of the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger, Peter James will be appearing at the Island’s literary festival in September, along with the highly acclaimed author Joanna Trollope.
Mr James has recently become a Jersey resident and this week his latest novel, Dead If You Don’t, secured the writer his 13th consecutive No 1 in the Sunday Times bestsellers’ chart.
Dead If You Don’t is the 14th book featuring Brighton-based detective Roy Grace in a series that has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide and been translated into 37 languages.
And Joanna Trollope, whose novels about modern love, marriage and community life have kept her among the bestsellers for over 30 years, will also star in the festival, which runs from 26 September to Sunday 30 September at venues around the Island.
Renowned as one of today’s most insightful social commentators, her latest novel, An Unsuitable Match, explores the challenges of love in later life, with the reactions of grown-up children to contend with.
Novelists signed up for this year’s festival also include some of the most celebrated new names in modern fiction.
Libby Page’s first novel, The Lido, was snapped up for international publication within hours of submission. It tells the story of a public bathing pool in London under threat from property developers and how such old-style lidos, like Jersey’s own at Havre des Pas, have the power to bring communities together.
Jersey Occupation heroine and groundbreaking artist Claude Cahun is the subject of Never Anyone But You, a new novel by Rupert Thomson whose earlier work, The Insult, was named by the late pop icon David Bowie as one of the 100 must-read books of all time.
They will be joined in the festival programme by Tor Udall, whose debut novel A Thousand Paper Birds received rave reviews for its strange and beautiful interweaving of five lives through a year at Kew Gardens.
And costume expert Lucy Adlington will give a 1940s ‘history wardrobe’ presentation to highlight her novel The Red Ribbon, which is about the dressmakers of Auschwitz.
Jersey’s own aspiring novelists will have the opportunity to gather expert advice from the director of the fiction programme at the Faber Academy, Richard Skinner, who is also the author of Writing a Novel, which draws on his years of experience as a writer and teacher.
For more information about the festival, visit
jerseyfestivalofwords.org.
