Maggie Shipstead's debut novel SEATING ARRANGEMENTS was a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and L A Times Book Prize for First Fiction. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Guardian, Conde Nast Traveller, The Best American Short Stories and elsewhere.

She is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford and a two- time National Magazine Award finalist for fiction. Her second novel is the critically acclaimed ASTONISH ME. Her latest novel GREAT CIRCLE is due to be published around the world.

Maggie Shipstead grew up in California and lives in Los Angeles, California.

Lars Kepler is a No.1 bestselling international sensation, whose Joona Linna thrillers have sold in excess of 10 million copies in 20 countries.

The first book in the series, The Hypnotist, was selected for the 2012 Richard and Judy Book Club and the most recent, The Sandman, was one of the Evening Standard's books of the year.

This is the sixth novel in the series and went straight to No.1 in Sweden, Norway, Holland, Denmark and Finland. Lars Kepler is the pseudonym for writing duo, Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril. They live with their family in Sweden.

Helene Wecker grew up near Chicago, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in New York. Her work has been published in the online magazine Joyland, and she has read from her stories at the KGB Bar in New York and the Barbershop Reading Series in San Francisco.

After a dozen years of moving around between both coasts and the Midwest, she now lives near San Francisco with her husband and daughter. The Golem and the Djinni is her first novel.

James Smythe was born in London in 1980. He has worked as a computer game writer and currently teaches creative writing.

He also writes a blog for the Guardian. The Machine is his fourth novel and is shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2014.

Previous novels include The Testimony and a science fiction series including The Explorer and The Echo.

The Testimony was awarded Wales Fiction Book of the Year, 2013. He lives in London.