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WARWICK THURSDAYS EVENT: BONNIE BURKE-PATEL AND STEPHANIE BRAMWELL-LAWES

HYBRID EVENT (IN-PERSON AND WEBINAR), 5-7pm @ OCULUS 1.01, 29th October 2026 (Week 4)

To celebrate Halloween, we’ll be joined by two award-winning gothic novelists in conversation, chaired by Georgia Poplett.

About Bonnie Burke-Patel

Born and raised in South Gloucestershire, Bonnie Burke-Patel studied History at Oxford. After working for half a decade in politics and policy, she changed careers and became a preschool teacher, before beginning to write full time. She is the author of several crime novels, including I Died at Fallow Hall (shortlisted for the Betty Trask Award, the Val McDermid Debut Award, and the CWA Gold Dagger). We Search the Island for Grace is her latest novel. She lives with her husband, son, and needy cat in south east London.

About Stephanie Bramwell-Lawes

Stephanie Bramwell-Lawes grew up in the historic city of Bath and studied History and Ancient History at Exeter University. A lifelong love of literature led to a career in publishing in 2009, and her passion for books has only continued to grow ever since. Her favourite novels include Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, and anything by Tracy Chevalier. She currently lives in º£½ÇÉçÇøshire with her husband and a small feline dictator named Ruby. Thornby Manor, nominated for the Cheshire Novel Prize, is her first novel.

About We Search the Island for Grace

They gather at Saints’ Climb, the only house on an island off the Somerset coast. Seven men with nowhere else to be at Christmas. Father and son George and Xavier Starvely; James, a taciturn archaeologist uneasy with the living; Victor, a French widower; Rik, the groundskeeper; and Chris and Nathan, the two men who want to make a documentary about this place and its extraordinary collection of medieval art. And the housekeeper Marianne, who seems to find peace in serving. Erected around the stone labyrinth built into the floor by monks, Saints’ Climb is a house heavy with loneliness. Xavier Starvely is a successful academic with a real life elsewhere. Yet he is wracked with guilt over the fragmentary memories of a childhood tragedy, and when his guests arrive on the island for Christmas, the deaths begin afresh. A labyrinth is different from a maze. There are no false turns or dead ends: there is only one winding path, which, followed faithfully, will always lead to the centre. What will each find at the centre of the labyrinth? And can it save them?

‘A superb mystery in the style of Agatha Christie, its atmosphere heightened by the isolated location and the exposure of a series of concealed identities.’ — Joan Smith, The Times

‘Gorgeously atmospheric and tightly plotted ... a beautiful love story and a confounding locked-room thriller.’ — Rebecca Hannigan

About Thornby Manor

º£½ÇÉçÇøshire, 1891. Recently orphaned and left destitute, Briar Monroe accepts the protection of Lord Danville and the shadowed sanctuary of Thornby Manor. The great house looms above a mist-shrouded lake, its corridors heavy with secrets – not least the mysterious death of Lady Elizabeth Danville, and the unspoken tensions between her formidable widower and his magnetic son, Gabriel. As Briar navigates the undercurrents of a household ruled by watchful servants and locked doors, she is drawn ever deeper into a web of suspicion, desire and fear. Whispers in the night, figures at windows, and a constant sense of being watched leave her questioning not only the truth about Thornby, but her own safety within its walls. Atmospheric, intoxicating and laced with peril, Thornby Manor is a gothic tale of betrayal, obsession and a house that never forgets.

‘Gothic fiction has a new star.’ — Annie Garthwaite

‘A gripping gothic tale, simmering with menace.’ — A.J. West