Fully booked

Tidelines Book Festival 2015 programme launch featured an appearance by the BBC’s Theresa Talbot, herself a published author. The 2015 festival will run from Friday 11 September until Sunday 13 September and will see 15 events staged in both Largs and Irvine, as well as a schools programme.

As in previous years, several of the events will include a buffet as well as author performances, making for a great night out.

One of the highlights of the year will be the opening event on 11 September with the author of the Shetland and Vera crime series, Ann Cleeves. It is expected to sell out almost as soon as tickets go on sale.

Meanwhile, younger audiences will get the chance to hear from the likes of Ross McKenzie.

The full programme is available at www.tidelinesbookfest.com. Tickets will be on sale from 3pm on Friday 24 July, with venues also selling tickets for the events they are hosting.

Tickets range in price from £5 to £10. (Children’s events are £5 per family.) Keith Charters, who chairs Tideline’s board, said, “Normally people have to travel to the big book festivals like Edinburgh or Glasgow to catch the big names like Ann Cleeves; with Tidelines they don’t. We’re bringing the authors to the people of North Ayrshire.

“We want people to have a great time in the company of books and authors.

“The festival is a celebration of the entertainment – in whatever form – that books and authors provide.” Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV’s Vera and BBC One’s Shetland.

Ann will be reading from, and talking about, The Moth Catcher, the seventh book in the Vera Stanhope series.

This case was different from anything Vera had ever worked before. Two bodies, connected but not lying together. And nothing made her feel as alive as murder.

Ann has written more than twenty-five novels. In 2006 she was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black, the first book in her Shetland series, and she has recently been inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame.

Ross MacKenzie is the author of fantasy adventure Zac and the Dream Pirates, winner of the Scottish Children’s Book Award in 2012. He spends a lot of his time in another world!

Book now to join him on his latest adventure. In The Nowhere Emporium Ross MacKenzie unleashes a riot of imagination, colour and fantasy, perfect for fans of Philip Pullman, Cornelia Funke and Neil Gaiman.

The shop from nowhere can appear at any time, in any city. Its labyrinth of rooms contains wonders beyond belief - but to enter you must pay a price.

When Daniel stumbles into the mysterious Nowhere Emporium in Glasgow, he opens the door to a world of breath-taking magic and looming danger.

Sara Sheridan writes two different kinds of books: a series of cosy crime mysteries set in Brighton in the 1950s - Brighton Belle and British Bulldog among them - and a set of novels based on the real-life stories of Georgian and Victorian adventurers, such as Secret of the Sands.

Sara will talk about how she became inspired by the 1950s and decided to write about the period. She will cover everything from fashion to the Welfare State in addition to offering an insight into the world of the professional writer, especially how to kill off difficult (fictional) characters.

Sara received a Scottish Library Award for Truth or Dare, her first novel, and was shortlisted for the Saltire Book Prize.

Jess Smith has been searching for her Traveller roots for more years than she cares to remember. She’s been surprised to discover just how interesting and ancient they are.

Now the author of six books on the culture of the Travelling People, Jess will share the exciting history of the Wandering Peoples of Scotland, tell some of the tales associated with them and sing a few of her ballads.

Andrew O’Hagan, who grew up in Kilwinning, will also be speaking at an event run in association with Irvine Burns Club, talking about his latest novel, The Illuminations.