Stephen Hawking once said that the development of AI could spell the end of the human race. In the new books by Akemi Dawn Bowman and Ben Oliver, we certainly don't have the best of times going up against them. 

In Akemi Dawn Bowman's The Infinity Courts, eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto discovers that the afterlife has been taken over by an AI bent on destroying humanity. Meanwhile, in Ben Oliver's The Block, the sequel to his debut The Loop, Luka goes to war against an all-powerful AI called Happy – once he gets out of prison that is.

About the event:

Chaired by Linda Strachan

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £3 / £5 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be live on Zoom.

About the authors:

Akemi Dawn Bowman is a critically acclaimed author who writes across genres. Her novels - including her most recent The Infinity Courts - have received multiple accolades and award nominations, and her debut novel, Starfish, was a William C. Morris Award Finalist. She has a BA in social sciences from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and currently lives in Scotland with her husband and two children. She overthinks everything, including this bio.

Akemi Dawn is on Twitter and Instagram.

Ben Oliver began writing creatively at age seven and was promptly placed into the lowest reading and writing group at school. Frustrated by his lack of immediate success, Ben chose to step down from the world of writing. Three years later, he came out of retirement to write a 'What I Did During My Summer Holiday' assignment, where he claimed he saved the world from the apocalypse. Encouraged by an enthusiastic teacher, Ben returned, triumphantly, to writing - The Block is his latest publication.

Ben is on Twitter.

Distracted by mind games, murder and mayhem, can you tell friends from foes?

Arriving in London during a series of attacks at young, brunette women, sixteen-year-old Irish-born Niamh needs to trust her new friends and stay ahead of the attacker in Cynthia Murphy’s Last One To Die. And Kathryn Foxfield’s Good Girls Die First, blackmail has sixteen-year-old Ava facing up to her secrets and deciding how far she is willing to go to survive the night against her peers.

About the event:

Chaired by Tony Jones

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £3 / £5 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be live on Zoom.

About the authors:

Cynthia Murphy is a YA writer from the North-West of England, though her ‘real job’ is in education. She has a long-standing love affair with all things scary, reading Point Horrors at primary school before graduating to Stephen King in her misguided teens. Classic 90s and 00s horror movies are definitely her pub quiz strong point and her first love may well have been Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Studying for a degree in Art History and Archaeology meant that she developed a thirst for anything old, beautiful and very often dead. She tries to combine this with contemporary settings in her writing to make unique and chilling modern stories. Cynthia is married to her best friend and they share (are ruled by) a Romanian rescue dog called Loli, who loves to steal socks. Her YA thriller Last One To Die is published by Scholastic in the UK.

Cynthia is on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Kathryn Foxfield writes dark books about strange things. She blames her love of the creepy and weird on a childhood diet of Point Horror, Agatha Christie and Dr Who. She writes about characters who aren’t afraid to fight back, but wouldn’t last 5 minutes in one of her own stories. Kathryn is a reformed microbiologist, one-time popular science author, cat-servant and parent. She lives in rural Oxfordshire but her heart belongs to London. ​ Her YA thriller Good Girls Die First is published by Scholastic in the UK.

Kathryn is on Twitter and Instagram.

Join the journey and discover your destiny!

In Caroline Logan’s The Cauldron of Life a war between Heaven and Earth is brewing, the lines between good and evil are blurring, and Ailsa must decide where she stands.

And the forces of light and darkness clash once again in Katy Rose Pool’s As The Shadow Rises - can the approaching Age of Darkness be stopped or will it be unleashed?

About the event:

Chaired by Eleanor Pender

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £3 / £5 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be live on Zoom.

Caroline Logan is a writer of Young Adult Fantasy. Her debut novel, The Stone of Destiny, is the first in The Four Treasures series. Caroline is a high school biology teacher who lives in the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland, with her fiancé and dogs, Ranger and Scout. Before moving there, she lived and worked in Spain, Tenerife, Sri Lanka and other places in Scotland. She graduated from The University of Glasgow with a bachelor’s degree in Marine and Freshwater Biology. In her spare time she tries to ski and paddle board, though she is happiest with a good book and a cup of tea.

Caroline is on Twitter and Instagram.

Katy Rose Pool was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in history, Katy spent a few years building websites by day and dreaming up prophecies by night. Currently, she resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she can be found eating breakfast sandwiches, rooting for the Golden State Warriors, and reading books that set her on fire.

Katy Rose is on Twitter and Instagram.

Mythology is the source of inspiration for these two authors: Rachel Burge’s The Crooked Mask is part ghost story, part murder mystery steeped in Norse Myth, and Gabriela Houston’s The Second Bell a provocative spin on Slavic striga mythology.

Prepare to be stunned, terrified and absolutely thrilled!

About the event:

Chaired by Linda Strachan

Running time: 60 minutes

The event premiered on YouTube

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

About the authors

Rachel Burge is an author living in East Sussex, England. She used to work as a freelance copy writer but now writes creepy YA novels surrounded by candles, usually with a horror soundtrack playing. She doesn’t get out much, but can sometimes be found muttering plot ideas to herself whilst walking in the woods with her black Labrador, Biff. Rachel has always been drawn to the macabre. As a child, she would write stories and draw pictures that her mum would take away because they gave her nightmares. She has seen a ghost, and to this day swears she once saw a doll’s hand move by itself when she was a kid. Unfortunately, her first proper writing job was on The Dolls House Magazine, which meant handling dolls and styling them for photoshoots (oh the horror!). crow-cut-out Thankfully, dolls don’t feature in her work – much. Oh, and she also has a thing about crows. Don’t forget the crows.

Rachel is on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Gabriela Houston is a London-based writer. She was born in Poland and raised in a book-loving household on the nourishing diet of mythologies, classics and graphic novels. She had spent much of her early school years holed up in the library, only feeling truly herself in the company of Jack London’s trappers and Lucy Maud Montgomery’s red-headed orphan, among many others. She came to the UK at 19 to follow her passion for literature and she completed her undergraduate and Masters degrees at Royal Holloway, University of London. After her studies, she worked in publishing for a few years. She now lives with her family in Harrow, where she pursues her life-long passion for making stuff up.

This event starts with a Brave New Words reading from C.C. Peñaranda

Will the protagonists in Victoria Aveyard’s Realm Breaker and Kesia Lupo’s We are Bound By Stars accept the card they have been dealt or will they change their fortunes?

The first tale has Corayne starting a desperate journey to complete the impossible task of saving the world from destruction after a surprising encounter and the latter sees Livio and Beatrice attempting to stop a deadly revolution in a thrilling, plot-driven adventure. All carry the fate of their worlds on their shoulders…

About the event:

Chaired by Eleanor Pender

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £3 / £5 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be live on Zoom.

This event includes a Brave New Words reading from C.C. Peñaranda

About the authors:

Kesia Lupo studied History at Oxford University and Creative Writing at Bath Spa. She lives in Bristol with her husband and works as a children's book editor, writing in the mornings before work. Her debut YA novel, We are Blood and Thunder, and its follow-up We are Bound By Stars are published by Bloomsbury.

Kesia is on Twitter.

Victoria Aveyard is an author and screenwriter, born and raised in a small town in Western Massachusetts. Both her parents are public school teachers, as well as avid film, television, and literature fans. Victoria grew up on a steady diet The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, and LOST. She pursued a degree in Writing for Film & Television at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. After graduating college in 2012, Victoria moved home from Los Angeles and began writing the manuscript that would become Red Queen. She has since published four #1 New York Times bestselling and USA Today bestselling books, two New York Times bestselling novellas, a New York Times bestselling short story collection. She lives full-time in Los Angeles and is hard at work on her next young adult fantasy series. The first instalment, Realm Breaker, publishes in 2021.

Victoria is on Twitter and Instagram.

In Cari Thomas' Threadneedle, Anna is counting down the days to the ceremony that will bind her magic forever. After all, Anna's Aunt has always warned her of the dangers of magic. Until she meets Effie and Attis, who open her eyes to a London she never knew existed. But as she is swept deeper into this world, Anna begins to wonder if her Aunt was right all along. Is her magic a gift. or a curse?

In Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart, two witches enter a very untrustworthy alliance. For Iraya Adair, her magic is the only way to reclaim her birthright and to bring vengeance to those who exiled and imprisoned her. Jazmyne Cariot grew up dressed in gold, with stolen magic at her fingertips. Daughter of the self-crowned doyenne, her existence is a threat to her mother's rule. But unlike her sister, Jazmyne has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother's power. Sworn enemies, the two witches enter a deadly alliance to take down the woman who threatens both their worlds.

About the event:

Chaired by Sonali Misra

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £3 / £5 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be live on Zoom.

This event includes a Brave New Words reading from Lindsey Stirling

About the authors:

Cari Thomas’ first story, at seven years old, was about a witch who took over her school. Many years later she graduated with first class honours from Warwick’s English Literature and Creative Writing course and gained a Distinction in Magazine Journalism at The Cardiff School of Journalism. She landed her first journalism job at teen magazine Sugar where she was put in charge of the YA book club. Writing book reviews and attending launches confirmed her suspicion that this was her world. She went on to work in consumer publishing and as a digital strategist at a creative agency, learning how to apply storytelling techniques to multimedia brand campaigns. All spare moments were spent dreaming up ideas for her book series while accumulating an odd collection of research books on magic and the occult. Her first novel, Threadneedle, set in contemporary London, is also about witches and they’re still causing just as much chaos.

Cari is on Twitter and Instagram.

Of Jamaican heritage, Ciannon Smart grew up in a small town in the south-east of England. As the only daughter in a house full of boisterous sons, she developed a voracious appetite for reading from an early age, preferring anarchy in stories rather than real life. In YA she loves her heroines exactly as she loves her villains: wilful, wily, and unpredictable. When not writing, Ciannon can be found reading, painting, or taking the long way home to listen to a good song more than once.

Ciannon is on Twitter and Instagram.