The Wrexham Carnival of Words is now underway.

The annual literature festival is in its tenth year and the latest event took place at Wrexham library with an Audience with authors Katy Watson and Simon McCleave speaking to an eager audience about their work.

Best selling murder mystery author Katy grew up in North Wales before settling down in London.

The first book in the series, 'The Three Dahlias' is a former Waterstones Thriller of the Month, and the second instalment, 'A Very Lively Murder' was released in July 2023.

Described as 'Golden age crime for modern times', Katy's work has been likened to that of the eternally popular Dame Agatha Christie.

Growing up in a family of murder mystery addicts, Katy learned early to look for means, motive and opportunity.

After studying English Literature – with a side-line in crime fiction – at Lancaster University, she set about teaching herself to write her own stories, while also experiencing enough of the world to have things to write about.

Two careers, a lot of airmiles, one husband, two children, three houses and forty-five published books for children and adults later, lockdown finally gave her the means, motive and opportunity to create her own murder mystery – with the aid of her scientist husband’s knowledge of poisons.

Three Dahlias is the result of that.

Katy also writes for adults as Sophie Pembroke, and for teenagers and children as Katy Cannon.

Author Simon McCleave is a million selling British crime novelist, his first book, The Snowdonia Killings, was released in January 2020 and has sold more than 200,000 copies.

The Wrexham Killings was the 16th book in Simon McCleave's DI Ruth Hunter Snowdonia series, which has now hit more than two million sales.

It seems a horrendous crime has been committed, when a young woman is discovered in Wrexham covered in someone else's blood. The only questions are who and where but there's a major problem, she can't remember a thing - not even her name. Once the grisly crime has been uncovered, the Llancastell CID team must track down the killer before they strike again.

The remaining events of the festival can be found at www.wrexhamcarnivalofwords.com and, among the myriad of authors taking part, are Joanne Harris, Catherine Isaac, Suzan Holder, Mike Parker, Elen Caldecott and Vaseem Khan.