Books by the Beach - fiction hit list includes Costa award-winning Sadie Jones and Booker Prize nominee Belinda Bauer

From lunch with a prize-winning novelist to a romantic evening with free chocolates, there is something for fiction lovers at Books by The Beach.
Books by the Beach director Heather FrenchBooks by the Beach director Heather French
Books by the Beach director Heather French

There is also crime and comedy to be discussed at the event which runs at various locations in and around from Scarborough from Thursday April 11 to Sunday April 14

Festival director Heather French said: “I’m a big fiction reader – when I’ve time – and I’m delighted to welcome prizewinning crime writer Belinda Bauer alongside acclaimed biographer Claire Harman, and Lynne Truss featuring her new comic crime series with crime critic Barry Forshaw.

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“Also a fabulous female duo Tessa Hadley and Sadie Jones who will be talking about new novels,” she said.

Books by the Beach programme in full here

Romance novel specialist Jenny Colgan has had to withdraw from her event. Instead Lucy Diamond will be joined by Lynne Truss at Scarborough Library on the Saturday.

They will be chatting about writing in different styles and the event will be chaired by festival host Peter Guttridge.

Time and Place in Fiction is the title of the event featuring Tessa Hadley and Sadie Jones. Tessa is the author of seven novels. She will be talking about Late in the Day.

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She received both the Windham Campbell Prize and the Hawthornden Prize in 2016 and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize in 2018.

Sadie is a screenwriter and prize winning novelist. The Outcast won the Costa First Novel pize, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and was adapted for the BBC.

She will be introducing The Snakes – the story of a family whose worst sins come back to bite them.

Sadie will also be a lunch guest at the unique setting of Wykeham Abbey on the Friday.

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Crime writer Belinda Bauer shares the stage with biographer and critic Claire Harman also on the Friday.

Belinda was awarded the CWA Gold Dagger for Crime Novel of the Year for her debut Blacklands. Rubbernecker was voted 2014 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.

Her latest novel Snap was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018.

Claire’s latest work is Murder by the Book which tells the story of the killing of Lord William Russell and the investigation that scandalised Victorian society.

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Sit down to lunch at the Palm Court with Professor Kate Williams who will be talking about Rival Queens: the Betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots.

Kate is also the author of four historical novels including Pleasures of Men – about a young girl obsessed with a serial killer in Spitalfields in 1840.

Tickets for all events from the Stephen Joseph Theatre box office: 01723 370541