Mari Hannah, LJ Ross and Gervase Phinn among the speakers at this year's Morpeth Book Festival

Seventeen authors – from multi-award winners such as Mari Hannah, LJ Ross, Gervase Phinn and Dan Jackson to renowned Morpeth writers Bridget Gubbins and Jane Ions – have been lined up to talk about, and read from, their works.

The Morpeth Book Festival will run over three days from Friday, March 31 at the Morpeth Rugby Clubhouse on Mitford Road, with other events set to take place in the newly refurbished library.

Frank Rescigno, arts and cultural director of co-organisers Greater Morpeth Development Trust (GMDT) said: “The instant feedback from those attending the first festival events was that we had to do it again and go on to try and make it an annual festival in the town.”

This is exactly what the trust has done, along with its book festival partner – the town’s Northumberland County Library Service – and they have lined up a stellar cast of authors whose work spans a range of writing styles and interests.

They have even persuaded Mari Hannah, now a Northumberland resident and writer of the DCI Kate Daniels, Ryan and O’Neil and Oliver and Stone series of crime thrillers, to be their festival patron.

In her timeslot, Mari will be able to reveal more about how the Kate Daniels series is in development for its television debut with the Sprout Pictures production company partly owned by none other than Stephen Fry.

LJ Ross, the international bestseller of more than seven million books worldwide, has penned 24 novels – many of which have seen her main character DCI Ryan solve seemingly baffling cases from the Holy Island of Lindisfarne in the north to High Force and Penshaw Monument in the south of the region.

Northumbria will also figure prominently in a talk by Dan Jackson, whose best-selling book about the people and place of the North East has become a critically acclaimed read about the history of the region from the days of border warfare to the industrial revolution and beyond.

Author, poet, broadcaster, lecturer, educational guru and after-dinner speaker Gervase Phinn, who is perhaps best known for his warm-hearted reminiscences about the life of a school inspector in the Yorkshire Dales which led him to be dubbed the ‘James Herriot of schools’, will be another stand-out guest at the festival.

Local writer Bridget Gubbins will launch her latest book ‘Cold War, Warm Hearts’ at the festival, which recalls her adventures as a young woman travelling alone in the 1960s behind the Iron Curtain.

Jane Ions, who grew up in the town before returning from university to teach at one of the schools where she was a student and then turned to novel writing when she retired, is eagerly anticipating making her book festival debut at the event.

Many other leading local and regional authors will be at the festival and there will also be a whole day devoted to children’s books and writers.

Full details about all the talks, which authors will be attending the event and where to buy tickets are available at gmdt.net or from the Northumberland Country Library Service.