No mystery about it – UK’s best crime writing festival made us friends | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV

Is there anything better than enjoying shared experiences with friends? Four author pals have revealed how their friendship was born at the world’s best-known crime writing festival in 2019 – and it still going strong.

Since meeting at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, Lauren North, Nikki Smith, Zoe Lea and Laura Pearson have all become published writers. And this year, to add the icing to the cake, they all published books within four weeks of each other. As they prepare to enjoy their sixth festival together later this week – featuring crime writing stars including Irvine Welsh, Attica Locke, Lee and Andrew Child and Val McDermid – each of them shares their memories of a unique friendship born amid a love of books and writing.

I started writing novels in my early twenties, when I realised office life just wasn’t for me. I’d always loved stories, and writing gave me an escape, a sense of purpose beyond the 9 to 5. Like most authors, I was no overnight success. After nearly ten years of trying, failing, and trying again, I finally signed a book deal with Penguin Random House. The Perfect Betrayal, my debut psychological suspense, came out in April 2019.

That summer, still feeling like an imposter author, I decided – nervously – to attend the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. I had no idea that weekend would change my life again, not through a publishing deal, but through three extraordinary women I’d never met before. I remember agonising over a Twitter DM to another author who’d posted it was her first time attending too. It felt like being back in school, asking: “Can I sit with you?” That author was Laura Pearson – and to my relief, she said “Yes!”

From the moment we met in the lobby of The Cairn Hotel with two other first-time festival authors – Nikki Smith and Zoe Lea – something clicked. For the first time, I felt truly understood – not just as a writer, but as a person. I’d found my people! Nikki created a WhatsApp group that weekend, aptly named Harrogate. And six years on, it’s still going strong. We’ve spoken every day since. We laugh, we vent, we cry. We cheer each other on and pull each other through. That group has become a lifeline.

Since 2019, I’ve published ten more psychological suspense novels, including my most recent, For Better, For Worse. And through every single one, Nikki, Laura and Zoe have been by my side: cheering me on, picking me up, keeping me going. But this year, something magical happened: all four of us have books coming out in the same couple of weeks. To have met as strangers at a crime writing festival six years ago, and to now be sharing this moment with them feels nothing short of incredible.

• For Better, For Worse by Lauren North (Bookouture, £8.99) is out now

Back in 2019 when I signed my debut publication deal which was due to launch in April 2020, I knew very few authors, But the ones I’d ‘met’ on social media all told me the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate was the place to go to in order to meet other crime and thriller authors. So I booked myself a weekend ‘Rover’ ticket and made the long train journey from London to the Cairn Hotel where I was so nervous walking in I almost turned around and went home again.

I’d basically stalked Laura Pearson on Twitter before arriving – she seemed to know everyone – and I begged her to meet me in reception so I wouldn’t have to wander around on my own. I often think how differently things may have turned out if Laura hadn’t been there or I hadn’t spotted her – how your life can change in an instant from what seems like an insignificant moment.

Lauren North and Zoe Lea were also there and, although we’d never met before, and despite the fact we’d all had very different writing journeys, I think we all felt immediately that we’d known each other for years.

Since then, we’ve rented a house together at Harrogate every year since (apart from when covid meant there was no festival and we had a weekend away in London, accompanied by facemasks, instead) and we’re in touch pretty much on a daily basis.

We are each other’s biggest supporters – not just through the ups and downs of the publishing industry, but also through the inevitable tragedies and celebrations of life, too. This year, by some miracle, the publishing schedules across our four different publishers aligned and we all had books out in the same couple of weeks.

It’s been so lovely to be able to celebrate the launch of They Had It Coming alongside For Better, For Worse, The Woman Who Met Herself and Closer Than She Thinks. We can’t wait to see each other at the Harrogate festival again and if there are any other authors who are attending for the first time, do come and say hello!

• They Had It Coming by Nikki Smith (Penguin, £9.99) is out now

I’d been to the Harrogate Festival a few times before but 2019 was a game-changer. It was my first time attending as an author, and the first time I went alone. It’s not too dramatic to say I was terrified that first day. I’d just gone through a really tricky time writing wise, a lifelong friendship had just ended, and all I wanted to do was hide under my duvet. But I knew how important the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival was.

My book, The Secretary, was just published and I needed to get out, and (gulp) network, and so, I took a deep breath and told myself I’d just do one day. I’d already swapped a few messages with Lauren on Twitter and had made brief plans to meet up in reception with two other authors, but I had low expectations. I felt like a fraud.

The imposter syndrome was in full force, and I honestly thought it would be an hour of some awkward small talk, and then I’d make my excuses and hide in my hotel room, telling myself at least I’d tried. To this day, I don’t think Nikki, Lauren and Laura realise how much they saved me that weekend. They made me feel validated. Offered me immediate friendship, and I instantly knew I’d met a group of special women.

That afternoon, we got a drink, started chatting and have never stopped! I did not hide in my hotel room; I stayed in the big tent way into the evening and I left that weekend wishing I could’ve stayed longer, and in the years since, Nikki, Lauren and Laura have been my constant cheerleaders.

I work as a freelance copywriter and social media strategist, and don’t have as much time or energy as I’d like for my novel writing. So, when my next book, Closer Than She Thinks, got a publishing date a couple of weeks after their books, it felt like the stars had aligned!

The Harrogate Festival is a rare and wonderful gathering of people who live and breathe the written word and I look forward to it every year. I’ll forever be grateful to it for bringing me friendships I didn’t know I needed, and now couldn’t imagine being without.

• Closer Than She Thinks by Zoe Lea (Piatkus, £9.99) is out now

I wasn’t too nervous when I arrived at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival alone for the first time in 2019. My children were still young enough that any time away was uncommon and special. That said, I was so glad to have Lauren, Nikki and Zoe to hang out with. I’m a bit of an anomaly in the friendship group and at the festival more generally, in that I don’t write crime.

My novels are classed as women’s fiction, but I read a lot of crime and help run a Facebook book club called The Bookload which covers a range of genres, and everyone very kindly welcomed me into the fold. It was lovely that first year to not have to walk into the tent on my own and panic-scan for familiar faces.

I think what sealed the deal for our lasting friendship was that Lauren booked us a house to share the following year before we left. I wouldn’t have suggested that but it’s been the making of us! The next year was 2020 and the festival didn’t happen because of Covid, but we rolled the rental over to 2021 and have stayed together in a house every year since.

In 2021 and 2022, we hosted drinks for friends in our Airbnb on the first evening of the festival, but now we know too many other authors between us so since 2023 we’ve had to hire a bar for drinks. It’s such a nice way to kick off the event. Our Harrogate WhatsApp group started out as writing talk only but now we chat daily and share all sorts of things – anecdotes about our kids, photos of our holidays, and always, always, updates on our writing careers.

We’ve recently started sending a lot of voice notes so we can share more info more quickly. Hearing one of their voices never fails to cheer me up.

• The Woman Who Met Herself by Laura Pearson (Boldwood Books, £9.99) is out now