What makes a family? What tears one apart? And how do the family stories we inherit shape the people we become? Three novelists whose books circle these questions with great skill and different perspectives come together for a richly rewarding panel discussion about family as one of fiction's great subjects.
 
From Jodie Chapman's California Gold, to Emily Itami's Kakigori Summer and Harriet Evans' The Treasures, this is a conversation about love, loyalty, loss and the extraordinary, maddening, irreplaceable complexity of family life. Chaired by local novelist Isabelle Broom.
 
Format: Panel Discussion & Q&A
Themes: Fiction, Adults, Headliner, New Voices, Writing, Literary, Book Club
Access: Live Captioning
 
Jodie Chapman Books: California Gold, Oh, Sister, Another Life
Jodie Chapman spent twelve years working as a photographer before returning to her first love of writing. She lives in Kent with her husband and three sons. Another Life, her debut novel, was a BBC2 Between the Covers pick while her second novel, Oh, Sister was published to critical acclaim. California Gold is her third work of fiction.
 
Emily Itami Books: Kakigori Summer, Fault Lines, Tokyo: A Novelist’s Guide To The City
Emily Itami is the author of Fault Lines, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel award, Kakigori Summer, and Tokyo, a novelist’s guide to the city. She is also a primary school teacher, and has been published widely as a freelance journalist and travel writer. She has lived between Tokyo and London, and currently lives in London with her family. 
 
Harriet Evans Books: The Treasures, The Stargazers, The Garden of Lost and Found, D is for Death and Murder on the Royal Crescent.
Harriet Evans is the author of sixteen bestselling prize-winning novels, most recently The Treasures, the first in a trilogy about a family and a house. She is a former publisher and worked for both Penguin and Hodder Headline. She recently served on the Management Committee of the Society of Authors advocating for authors' rights in a time of AI. In 2024, as Harriet F Townson, she published her first crime novel D is for Death which was longlisted for the CWA Crime Novel of the Year. Murder on the Royal Crescent is out in October 2026. She lives in Bath with her family and likes jumpsuits, karaoke, and butterflies, but books most of all. 
 
Isabelle Broom Books: The House Of Hidden Letters
Isabelle (Izzy) Broom is the bestselling author of 13 novels. Based in Sudbury, Suffolk, she travels widely, searching the world for story inspiration – a quest that led her to the Greek island of Folegandros, where her latest series of books are set. The most recent of these, The House of Hidden Letters, asks: What if you entered a one-euro lottery to win an abandoned cottage on a remote Greek island and won? Izzy writes about family, history and love in all its forms and is also a passionate reader.