Here's everything that happened at our festive December meet up

Christmas schristmas: for our December meet up, we decided to go for a Calypso theme…

OK, OK – we’re kidding. Of COURSE we went all out on the festive cheer, festooning our beloved room at Effra Social in tinsel, stocking the bar with mulled wine and donning some rather fetching reindeer antlers.

Then there was our very special Christmas raffle that attendees were entered into by virtue of showing up. Lucky members of our audience were sent home with a selection of some of our favourite debuts from 2017 including Bleaker House by Nell Stevens and Lydia Ruffles' The Taste of Blue Light.

But more on that later…

Sadly, we were one author down for the night. Clifford Thompson, author of the sensational Falling Through Fire, was not able to join us – we are thinking of you Cliff and wishing you well for Christmas.

Rather than replace him, we decided to give our other four authors a little extra time on the stage – and lucky that we did as our audience was brimming with questions, so we sat back and soaked up our authors' writer-ly knowledge.

Our first debut author for the night was Kate Murray-Browne, whose novel The Upstairs Room, is an atmospheric ghost story – not one to read when you’re alone in the house – and yet Kate didn’t set out to specifically write in that genre.