We’re delighted to host a rich series of literary events in and around Warwick. These include our popular author events. The talks usually last about an hour, followed by questions, and then there is an opportunity to meet the speaker and have a book signed. Previous authors Melvyn Bragg, Kit de Waal, Robert Harris, Professor Edith Hall, Dr Elizabeth Goldring, Cressida Cowell and Michael Morpurgo. These events take place across Warwick including the beautiful Lord Leycester Hospital. We also support Warwick Words History Festival.
An evening with Rachel Morley - Church Crawling
St Peter's, Wellesbourne, CV35 9LS
Tuesday 15th September 2026, 18:30pm
Rachel Morley is a building conservator who is Director of the Friends of Friendless Churches, which rescues, repairs and re-opens unwanted old churches. She is also judge for the John Betjeman Award for Church Conservation and Repair, and has served as Chair and Trustee of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
Church Crawling is a transporting and gloriously entertaining journey through the hidden lives of England’s rural parish churches.
The poet John Betjeman coined the phrase ‘church crawling’ to describe his days out visiting churches. In the spirit of Betjeman, Morley’s book captures the magical experience of poking around a deserted rural church only to see it transform – through her expert eyes – into a portal to the past, one that brings England’s people and history to life in the most colourful, moving and unexpected ways.
Through their wall-paintings and monuments, their graffiti and plaques, carved beams and crypts, their jumble of furniture and oddities, Morley shows these buildings to be the living expression of centuries of communal history and folk culture, time capsules of wonder and connection. The stories they contain are both boisterous and tender, raucous and sublime, transporting us to the ancient and medieval past, to revolutions and wars, to lives both glorious and humble.
Often the oldest and most significant building in a settlement, churches are where for centuries births have been celebrated, relationships consecrated and deaths memorialised, where the great and enduring mysteries have been contemplated, and where the ghosts of countless, unnamed, normal lives are to be found. As Rachel Morley shows, the concentration of human experience within their walls is so rich and so layered, that they offer as close an encounter with the past as it is possible to get.
Ticket £8.00
Ticket and a copy of the book £18.99
Booking is essential. Please book tickets in the shop or through TicketSource, where a small booking fee will be applied: www.ticketsource.co.uk/warwick-books
An evening with Robert Harris - Agrippa
Warwick Methodist Church, Warwick, CV34 4TH
Monday 21st September 2026, 18.30pm
Join bestselling authors Robert Harris and Lindsey Davis as they talk about all things Roman and Robert's forthcoming book Agrippa.
More about the book...
Julius Caesar is dead, and the lives of two teenaged boys are about to be changed forever. One is Caesar’s 17-year-old nephew, Octavius, whom he has made his heir.
The other is Octavius’s closest friend, Agrippa.
To claim Octavius’s inheritance, they must fight the giant figures of the Roman Empire – and, against all odds, they win. Octavius becomes the Emperor Augustus. For twenty years, they rule the world together.
Now Agrippa is fifty. Ailing and alone, betrayed by his wife’s infidelity, he takes refuge in his house on the Bay of Naples and begins to write his memoirs. Yet to stir up the past can be dangerous. From his earliest meetings with Julius Caesar, through the epic conflict with Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the great naval battle of Actium and the endless wars to expand the empire, he describes how one man has dominated his life: the cunning, ruthless, unknowable Octavius.
When it comes to power, does friendship exist at all?
Single Ticket and a copy of the book £20.00
Two Tickets and a copy of the book £30.00
Booking is essential. Please book tickets in the shop or through TicketSource, where a small booking fee will be applied: www.ticketsource.co.uk/warwick-books
An evening with Peter James - Dead In Three Two One
Castle Hill Baptist Church, Warwick, CV34 4EX
Thursday 15th October 2026 18:30pm
A pre-publication event not to be missed with bestselling author Peter James talking about his latest book Dead In Three Two One.
Roy Grace is back. Brighton is celebrating. A killer is waiting. And Roy Grace is the target . . .
Brighton Pride is the biggest date on the city’s calendar with half a million people lost in the party. But behind the opulent façade of the Royal Courteney Hotel, a nightmare is checking in. Dritan Dervishi, the cold-blooded consigliere for Albanian mob boss Roel Albazi, has arrived with a beautiful woman on his arm and a lethal secret in his suitcase.
He has specifically requested Room 321 – a room with a perfect view of the sea, and a deadly proximity to a target he’s been dreaming of for years. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is already pushed to the limit, coordinating the city’s massive security operation amid whispers of a potential terrorist attack. But the threat is more personal than he could ever imagine.
Back in a prison cell, his old nemesis Albazi is counting down the seconds to a revenge that will not just take Roy’s life, but erase his entire bloodline. And as Roy and his wife Cleo prepare for a night of celebration at the Royal Courteney, they have no idea that they are stepping into a deadly trap. As the relentless countdown nears zero, Roy must outsmart an invisible enemy and protect his loved ones before their time finally runs out .
Single Ticket and a copy of the book £20.00
Two Tickets and a copy of the book £30.00
Booking is essential. Please book tickets in the shop or through TicketSource, where a small booking fee will be applied: www.ticketsource.co.uk/warwick-books
An evening with Jody Cooksley - Dark Tales: the Rise of Gothic Novels in the Age of AI
Warwick Books, Warwick, CV34 4SL
Tuesday 20th October 2026, 6.30pm
'For fans of Daphne du Maurier and Laura Purcell, Cooksley delivers gripping, intelligent Gothic' - The Historical Novel Society
Cooksley's award-winning novels explore the darker side of human ambition and desire. Moving between Victorian London's underworld and high society, these clever mysteries chart the rise and fall of the ruthless Everley family and their monstrous crimes, a legacy of the past that bleeds into the present.
Themes of violence, trauma, fear and the unstoppable march of science and progress resonate as much now as they did in the nineteenth century. Join us for a discussion of dark tales, social fear, and unusual murders. Perfect for spooky season!
Single Ticket £8.00
Single Ticket and a copy of a book £9.99
Single ticket and two books £18.00
Booking is essential. Please book tickets in the shop or through TicketSource, where a small booking fee will be applied: www.ticketsource.co.uk/warwick-books
An evening with AJ West - The Deadly Inheritance of Everest Macdonald
Warwick Books, Warwick, CV34 4SL
Friday 6th November 2026
We're delighted to welcome AJ back to Warwick and for fellow author Stephanie Bramwell-Lawes - Thornby Manor, to be in conversation with him.
More about The Deadly Inheritance of Everest Macdonald......
In 1897, Terriss was stabbed to death outside London’s Adelphi Theatre, a killing that shocked Victorian society. The murderer was swiftly arrested and confined to Broadmoor, the case declared closed. Yet, years later, a sealed package of evidence is passed to Everest by her dying father, which casts doubt on the official verdict and the haste with which it was reached.
Drawn back to wartime London, with her husband and children left behind, Everest begins her investigation, following a trail that leads her into the world of late-Victorian theatre, where fame and fortune mask obsession, envy and cruelty. With time running out and her father’s strength failing, Everest must uncover what really happened on the night Terriss died, and shed light on the unsettling legacy he left behind. Based on an extraordinary true story, The Deadly Inheritance of Everest Macdonald is a dark, atmospheric historical mystery and a compelling adventure, as an unlikely investigator risks everything to pursue one of the most notorious killings of the Victorian stage.
A.J. West is a twice Sunday Times bestselling author of historical fiction, a patron of Humanists UK, and Director on the board of Trustees at the Society of Authors. His novel, The Betrayal of Thomas True reached no.2 on the Sunday Times bestseller list and won the coveted CWA Historical Dagger Award, while his debut novel, The Spirit Engineer, won the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown Award. With a distinguished career as a communications director, media training specialist, BBC journalist and broadcaster, he has earned multiple accolades for his work as a writer and broadcaster. He has also produced award-winning documentaries, has written for national newspapers and magazines, and regularly appears on various network television programs discussing current affairs. He is director of The Book Party, the UK’s biggest annual gathering of book bloggers and authors.
Single Ticket and book £18.99
Single Ticket £8
Booking is essential. Please book tickets in the shop or through TicketSource, where a small booking fee will be applied: www.ticketsource.co.uk/warwick-books
An evening with Claire Quinn-The Games We Play, who will be in conversation with author, KJ Whittle
Warwick Books, Warwick, CV34 4SL
Tuesday 10th November 2026, 6.30pm
Join us to celebrate the publication of Claire's latest book, The Games We Play. She will be in conversation with Kerry aka KJ Whittle. There will be a chance to ask questions and get your books signed.
The Games We Play by Claire Quinn
3 Best Friends. 1 Deadly Secret. With Ali's wedding fast approaching, her friendship with Erin and Sophie threatens to implode with deathly consequences when a twisted teenage game comes back to haunt them.
As teenagers, Ali, Erin and Sophie are bonded by a secret, and a promise to protect each other. Years later, Ali’s wedding is looming when the three women set off for their annual couples’ trip, unaware that one final drunken game and a weekend of secrets and revelations will bring their teenage promise back to haunt them. As the truth begins to creep out, making headlines that threaten to pull their lives apart, it puts their friendship to the ultimate test – has it been love or fear holding them together, and if one of them cracks, will any of them survive?
A Reunion To Die For by KJ Whittle
They all wanted their bully dead. Now someone's granted the wish… In a dingy pub, a high school reunion after-party brings five old friends back together. As they catch up after twenty years, painful memories surface, all centred around the disastrous prom night that broke them all apart.
King of the class turned handsome sport superstar, Eric Stewart has led a charmed life since but his old friends know his cruel streak. The more they drink, the more a morbid plan takes shape, with everyone tossing in ideas for how they could get the ultimate revenge. The next morning, they discover Eric has been found dead, exactly the way they drunkenly planned it.
When a cryptic, anonymous message containing a recording of their conversation from the night before starts to circulate, the group knows they need to act, and fast – before they're framed…or worse. Who was listening to them? Who arranged the reunion? And, most importantly, who carried out their murderous plans to the letter?
Single ticket and copy of the book £9.99
Booking is essential. Please book tickets in the shop or through TicketSource, where a small booking fee will be applied: www.ticketsource.co.uk/warwick-books
“A venue fit for a king! It was a fantastic evening, they had arranged it all perfectly. I am gobsmacked and over the moon all at once!”
“Huge thanks for a fab event yesterday!”