Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist who wrote successful thrillers or adventure stories, the best known of which are perhaps The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare, both having been made into successful films. He also wrote under the pseudonym Ian Stuart. While a university student, MacLean began writing short stories for extra income, winning a competition in 1954 with the mari... Read More
Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist. He joined the Royal Navy in 1941, serving in World War II with the ranks of Ordinary Seaman, Able Seaman, and Leading Torpedo Operator. MacLean effectively translated his own experiences as a torpedo man on a convoy escort into the plot of H.M.S. Ulysses, which takes place on a British destroyer. HMS Ulysses was Alistair MacLean's debut novel. Wh... Read More
Joanne Harris is an acclaimed contemporary English writer who writes under mixed genres, such as magic realism and gastromance. She was born in Barnsley in Yorkshire, to an English father and a French mother. Her parents were both teachers of modern languages and literature at a local grammar school. Her first language was French, which caused divisions between her English family, where nobody... Read More
Joanne Harris is the author of the Whitbread-shortlisted Chocolat, The Testament of Loki and many other bestselling novels, plus the novella The Blue Salt Road, short stories, screenplays and cookbooks. Her books are published in more than 50 countries and have won numerous awards. The Evil Seed, Sleep, Pale Sister and Chocolat were published before she retired from teaching to become an author... Read More
Joanne Harris is an Anglo-French author, whose books include fourteen novels, two cookbooks and many short stories. Her first novel, The Evil Seed, was published in 1989, with only limited success. Sleep, Pale Sister is her second novel. In 1999 her third novel, Chocolat, a darkly magical modern folk-tale, thematically based on food and set in the Gers region of France, reached No. 1 in the Sun... Read More
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a 1963 Cold War spy novel by the British author John le Carré. It depicts Alec Leamas, a British agent, being sent to East Germany as a faux defector to sow disinformation about a powerful East German intelligence officer. This novel became an international best-seller. Alec Leamas is waiting in West Berlin at the Wall for Karl Riemeck to come across. Riemec... Read More
Diane Setterfield is a British author. Before writing, Setterfield studied French Literature at The University of Bristol, earning a bachelor of arts in 1986 and a PhD in 1993. Setterfield taught at numerous schools as well as privately before leaving academia in the late 1990s. First published in 2006, The Thirteenth Tale was the author's first published book and became a New York Times No.1 b... Read More
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British writer. He was regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. Lord Jim, Conrad’s most famous work, is also his most extensive examination of a persistent theme: the conflict between an individual’s inner moral code and his or her outward actions. Jim was born and raised in an English person's home, and when he was still a young lad... Read More
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Scotland and died in Samoa at the end of a life of travels, during which he produced novels, short stories, literary essays, poetry, drama, and travel writing. Trained in law at Edinburgh University, Stevenson was under pressure to conform to the Edinburgh bourgeois society in which his family had made its name as lighthouse engineers; he preferred a more bohe... Read More
Robert Louis Stevenson is best known as the author of the children’s classic Treasure Island, and the adult horror story, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Hyde. He is currently ranked as the 26th most translated author in the world. Robert Louis Stevenson was a great traveller. He sought adventure through travel but also needed an environment amenable to his recurring ill health. Early trave... Read More
Jonathan Littell is a writer and a dual citizen of the United States and France and is of Jewish background. His first novel written in French, Les Bienveillantes, won two major French awards. Littell is the son of author Robert Littell. Although his grandparents were Jews who emigrated from Russia to the United States at the end of the 19th century, Littell does not define himself as a Jew "at... Read More
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. She came from the Beecher family, a famous religious family, and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811, in Litchfield, Connecticut. Her father, Lyman Beecher, was a leading Congregationalist minister... Read More
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American writer and philanthropist, the author of the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which contributed so much to popular feeling against slavery that it is cited among the causes of the American Civil War. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential for both her writings and her public stances... Read More
Rafael Sabatini was an Italian-English writer of romance and adventure novels. After a brief stint in the business world, Sabatini went to work as a writer. He wrote short stories in the 1890s, and his first novel came out in 1902. His most famous works have been translated into the classic swashbuckling films Captain Blood and Scaramouche. However, these books represent a small fraction of Sab... Read More
When talking about Rafael Sabatini, most people think of high adventure, sword-fighting and damsels in distress. Sabatini's writing, usually functioning in a historic setting, explores political intrigue, religion, and the place of chivalry and honour, while entertaining with clever dialogue, deftly drawn characters and action sequences as vivid and thrilling as modern movies. In all, he produc... Read More
Ambrose Bierce, in full Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce, was an American newspaperman, wit, satirist, and author of sardonic short stories based on themes of death and horror. Bierce was born in a log cabin at Horse Cave Creek in Meigs County, Ohio, on June 24, 1842, to Marcus Aurelius Bierce and Laura Sherwood Bierce. He was of entirely English ancestry: all of his forebears came to North America betw... Read More
Mary Balogh is a Welsh-Canadian novelist writing historical romance. She was born and raised in Swansea, Wales, daughter of Mildred "Double", a homemaker, and Arthur Jenkins, a signwriter and painter. She moved to Canada on a two-year teaching contract in 1967 after leaving university. As an adult, Balogh discovered the world of the Regency romance as written by Georgette Heyer. The vast majori... Read More
Mary Balogh is a Welsh-Canadian novelist writing historical romance. She was born in 1944 in Swansea, Wales, UK. After graduating from university, moved to Saskatchewan, Canada, to teach high school English, on a two-year teaching contract in 1967. Then Comes Seduction is the second novel in Huxtable Family Quintet. Katherine Huxtable knows that Jasper Finley, Baron Montford, is a rake, but he'... Read More
Mary Jenkins, better known by her pen name Mary Balogh, was born and raised in Swansea, Wales, daughter of Mildred "Double", a homemaker, and Arthur Jenkins, a signwriter and painter. She moved to Canada on a two-year teaching contract in 1967 after leaving university. Mary Balogh started writing in the evenings as a hobby. Her first book, A Regency Love Story, was published in 1985 as A Masked... Read More
Mary Balogh is a Welsh-Canadian novelist writing historical romance. She was born and raised in Swansea, Wales, daughter of Mildred "Double", a homemaker, and Arthur Jenkins, a signwriter and painter. She moved to Canada on a two-year teaching contract in 1967 after leaving university. As an adult, Balogh discovered the world of the Regency romance as written by Georgette Heyer. The vast majori... Read More