Swifts

Beth Lincoln is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Swifts.

Raised in a former Victorian railway station in the North of England, her childhood fears included porcelain dolls, the Durham panther, and wardrobes that looked at her funny. She grew neither tall nor wise, and never learned to play an instrument – but she did write stories, a bad habit that has persisted to this day.

When she isn’t writing, Beth is woodcarving, or making a mess of her flat, or talking the nearest ear off about unexplained occurrences. Her favourite things include ghosts, crisps, and weird old words like bumbershoot and zounderkite.

Among its many accolades, The Swifts was the winner of the 2023 Nero Children’s Fiction Award and the Barnes & Noble Children’s & YA Book Award.

Beth lives in Newcastle upon Tyne with her partner and hopefully, by the time you are reading this, a dog.

Claire Powell is the author of At The Table, which was named one of the best books of 2022 by The Times and Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Critic, Red Magazine and Good Housekeeping. A graduate of the University of East Anglia Creative Writing MA, she was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury Bursary and the Malcolm Bradbury Continuation Prize. Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and in 2017 she won the Harper's Bazaar short story contest. She lives with her family in south-east London.