Join us for this special event with best-selling crime and thriller authors CJ Skuse, Dorothy Koomson and Barbara Copperthwaite. What a combination! Come and hear all about their latest books and what goes into creating novels in this hugely popular genre.

C.J. Skuse is the bestselling author of the Sweetpea series and six other novels across YA and adult crime fiction. She holds two First-Class degrees in Creative Writing and a PhD by Publication. Her work has won the Dumfries and Burgh Book Award and France’s Jean Monnet Prize, and has been shortlisted for several others. The Guardian credited her with pioneering the YA antiheroine trend while her adult debut, Sweetpea, helped define the ‘Sassy Noir’ genre and was adapted for TV by See-Saw Films, premiering on Sky Atlantic in 2024. A second series is currently in production. 

Dorothy Koomson is an award-winning, global bestselling author of 22 novels. Her thrillers have connected with readers all over the world, with sales of over 2.5 million copies in the UK alone. Dorothy featured on the 2021 Powerlist as one of the most influential Black people in Britain, appeared in GQ Style as a Black British trailblazer, and was a judge for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction. 2023 marked Dorothy’s 20th anniversary as a published author. The Quiet Girls is Dorothy’s 23rd book and is published on the 12th March 2026.

Barbara Copperthwaite is an international bestselling author of contemporary psychological thrillers, including her Amazon Number 1, The Perfect Friend. She started as a journalist, and has written for The Guardian, The Daily Mail, Marie Claire, Woman, Chat, and many more. She uses her experience to create complex characters, and loves to explore moral grey areas. As Barbara Havelocke, she writes gothic historical thrillers. Her debut in this genre, Estella’s Revenge, is a Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award 2025 nominee, and is inspired by Great Expectations. It’s follow-up, Estella’s Fury, was released in November 2025.

This event will be BSL interpreted.

This event is part of The Heath Bookshop Literature & Music Festival and is supported by National Lottery Grants Funding through Arts Council England.