The rain and umbrellas are out which can only mean one thing: it’s summer book festival season in the UK! This year we were thrilled to have three Pontas authors attending the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate from 17–20 July, so Pontas agent Carla Briner headed across the Channel to meet them.
British-Tanzanian forensic anthropologist and prize-winning author Clea Koff was over from the US to talk about her utterly un-put-downable crime thriller series, the first two books of which, Silent Evidence and Deadly Evidence, have just launched in the UK and US with Avon/HarperCollins. She joined other experts turned novelists on the fascinating “True Grit” panel hosted by Nadine Matheson, which had audience members calling it one of the best panels of the weekend! Clea discussed how her professional experience has informed her protagonists, forensic anthropologists Jayne Hall and Steelie Lander, and how writing has helped her process the emotional toll of her day job; subjects she wrote about in her internationally acclaimed memoir The Bone Woman (Grove Atlantic UK/Random House US).
Jill Johnson, the British-Māori author of the bestselling Professor Eustacia Rose mystery novels, was in Harrogate to celebrate the hardback launch of the latest instalment in the series, Bella Donna, with Black & White/Bonnier Books UK (Sourcebooks US). She joined Musih Tedji Xaviere, author of the British Book Award finalist These Letters End in Tears (Jacaranda Books UK/Catapult US), in hosting a table at the Author Murder Mystery dinner. We have it on good authority that they worked out "who" did it but failed to win because they didn’t write down "why”. Rather like failing a maths test for not showing the working out. Better luck next time, detectives!
The festival was also a chance to catch up with international colleagues and friends, including Orenda Books publisher, Karen Sullivan, who dropped off a beautiful copy of French novelist Anne Sénès’ stunning debut novel Double Room, which launched in English in June (originally published in French by Le bruit du monde in 2023). Nothing beats seeing the physical book – and its gorgeous French flaps! – in the flesh.
Then it was a hop and a jump on the train down to Manchester where former lawyer, publisher, and local councillor turned Zumba teacher, novelist and ultimate multi-tasker British-Jamaican writer Marcia Hutchinson was launching her acclaimed debut The Mercy Step, an Observer Best Debut for 2025 published by Cassava Republic Press. After a packed and sold out event at bookstore House of Books & Friends, there was dinner and a catch up before heading to BBC Radio Manchester early the next morning for the breakfast show with Simone Riley. Then there was just time before Marcia’s next Zumba class to call in at Waterstones Deansgate to meet wonderful fiction bookseller Martha and see The Mercy Step “in the wild”.
For more information about any of the above authors and their novels please contact Carla Briner (carla@pontas-agency.com) or Anna Soler-Pont (anna@pontas-agency.com).