Who wrote it?

Also known as Chelsey Flood, C J Flood lives in Bristol. She graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2010 with an MA in creative writing.

Whenever she got lost writing her novel, she would stop and have a little look at where she had been and suddenly, without really trying she was on her way again. All she had to do was keep going. Unfortunately this is not how it works when she is driving her car!

What's it about?

A truly beautiful book about the summer that changed one girl's life, as her mum leaves home, travellers set up camp in the family's field, her older brother goes off the rails, and she falls in love for the very first time. The book opens with a funeral: Iris is mourning the boy in the casket - but who is it? Sam, her tearaway brother, or Trick, her tentative boyfriend? Over one long hot summer, we find out just how their three lives were turned upside-down.

Fact File

C J Flood likes fire, the sea and trees, she also dreams of being a table tennis player.

C J enjoys music by Blondie, The Smiths, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Morrissey, Slow Club, Pulp, The Libertines, Laura Marling, Anna Calvi, Bombay Bicycle Club, Blur, Oasis and David Bowie.

For more information about C J, visit http://cjflood.blogspot.com or follow her on Twitter (@cjflood_author).

Who wrote it?

Nick Lake was born in Britain but grew up in Luxembourg, where his father worked for the European Parliament. Nick works in publishing by day and writes in every spare moment he can find. He lives near Oxford with his wife and family. His long commute to work gives his imagination time to explore places he's never visited.

What's it about?

A girl on a yacht with her super-rich banker father; a chance for the family to heal after a turbulent time, but a nightmare is about to explode as a group of Somali pirates seizes the boat and the family becomes a commodity in a highly sophisticated transaction. Hostage 1 is Dad - the most valuable. Amy is Hostage 3. As she builds a strange bond with one of her captors, it becomes clear that the price of a life and its value are very different things...

Fact File

The idea for Hostage Three came from a dream.

Nick’s next book is set in Haiti. He got interested in Haitian culture whilst studying for his Master’s Degree in Linguistics and has been fascinated ever since.

For more information on Nick visit his website: http://www.in-darkness.org/ or follow him on Twitter (@nicholaslake).

Who wrote it?

Sarah lives in Brixton and is a teacher in a high school in Lewisham. She lived in Ghana, West Africa, for over 18 years and splits her holidays between England and Ghana.

Sarah has been writing for 20 years. Her first published novel, The Door of No Return, won the Children’s Book of the Year 2007 Award at the Glen Dimplex New Writers’ Awards and was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award, shortlisted for Wirral Best Paperback of the Year and awarded Junior Library Guild Status in the USA.

What's it about?

Leah Jackson - in detention. Then armed Year 9s burst in, shooting. She escapes, just. But the new Lock Down system for keeping intruders out is now locking everyone in. She takes to the ceilings and air vents with another student, Anton, and manages to use her mobile to call out to the world. First: survive the gang - the so-called 'Eternal Knights'. Second: rescue other kids taken hostage, and one urgently needing medical help. Outside parents gather, the army want intelligence, television cameras roll, psychologists give opinions, sociologists rationalize, doctors advise - and they all want a piece of Leah. Soon her phone battery is running out; the SAS want her to reconnoitre the hostage area... But she is guarding a terrifying conviction. Her brother, Connor, is at the centre of this horror. Is he with the Eternal Knights or just a pawn? And is all of this part of some bigger game in which they are all being played? She remembers. All those times Connor reached out for help... If she'd listened, voiced her fears about him earlier, would things be different now? Should she give up her brother? With only Anton for company, surviving by wits alone, Leah wrestles with the terrible choices.

Fact File

Sarah wanted to be an explorer when she was little!

Sarah has strong feelings about the choices of books children are asked to study in school.

Sarah has a BA in Fine Art from the Royal College of Art.

Sarah writes using a computer.

Her favourite colour is turquoise.

For more information about Sarah visit her website: http://www.sarahmussi.com/

Who wrote it?

Annabel Pitcher was born on New Year’s Day 1982. She studied English at Oxford and then taught English in Wakefield. Whilst teaching she wrote her first book (My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece) which was a best seller and helped her decide to become a full time writer. She is married and lives in Yorkshire.

What's it about?

Ketchup Clouds is a book of very real people with very real issues. Zoe is 15 years old and has a terrible secret, one she has never been able to tell anyone.

Then she hears about Stuart Harris, a man on death row in Texas, and she realises that he is probably the one person who would understand her secret. She sits herself down and starts to write, telling her story, and her secret, in a series of letters.

Fact File

Annabel really wanted to be a detective when she was little but realised it wasn’t really like being Miss Marple on television.

She has worked in television on shows like You’ve Been Framed.

Annabel is multi-talented. She can act, play a couple of musical instruments and dance.

For more information visit her website: http://www.annabelpitcher.com/

Who wrote it?

Alison was born in Liverpool and now lives in Somerset with three teenage children, her partner, an extremely naughty Jack Russell and a ghost cat. Before becoming a writer Alison worked as a fashion designer, a production controller for a group of newspapers, a painter and decorator and a barmaid. She now owns a teeny tiny tea room where she combines two great loves, eating cakes and talking about books!

Alison was inspired by an actual court record taken at the trial of two 19th century baby-killers. Here she came across a first-person account by the accused women's 15 year old assistant, and this became the voice of Queenie, one of book's main characters.

What's it about?

The Quietness follows the two stories of two girls with drastically different backgrounds who meet unexpectedly.

Queenie lives in the slums of Victorian London, dreaming of escape. Ellen lives in a house full of luxuries and beautiful dresses with her feeble mother, and her father’s rage. As they try to change their lives, an awful thing happens to both of them. Ellen is thrown out of her home after her father believes she has ruined the family’s reputation. She loses her home, family, most of her possessions. Queenie sets out to change her life and free herself from trouble. She manages to get a job at a rich house, but finds there is more trouble there than she had before, and finds herself deep in a plot that she can’t escape. The two girls find each other and try one last time to find freedom before it’s too late, only sometimes there are things that you can’t leave behind.

Fact File

Alison loves to visit museums and old buildings, imagining the lives of people that passed through doorways and whose footsteps trod ancient staircases. She reads historical novels and fills her home with odd relics from the past.

For more information about Alison visit her website: www.alisonrattle.com