The Name Game with Beth O'Leary - Lighthouse Books
[First Date Festival 2026]
This event is part of FIRST DATE ROMANCE FICTION FESTIVAL, which Lighthouse books are co-hosting with Book Lovers Bookshop! You can book tickets to their First Date events on their website.
About our speaker: Beth O'Leary is a Sunday Times bestselling author whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. Her debut, The Flatshare, sold over a million copies and is now a major TV series. Her subsequent novels, The Switch, The Road Trip, The No-Show and The Wake-Up Call, were all instant bestsellers. A TV series of The Road Trip was first aired in 2024. Beth lives in the Hampshire countryside, and if she's not in her writing shed, you'll probably find her chasing a toddler, with a strong coffee in hand...
About our chair: Rachel Wood is the founder of Rare Birds, a thriving independent bookstore in the heart of Edinburgh that was named “one of the coolest new bookshops” by the Sunday Times. As a former theatre kid, Rachel’s love of storytelling began on stage, but by the time she was a teenager she’d figured out it was much easier to write the lines rather than to learn them. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Rachel first moved to Edinburgh to pursue a masters in creative writing and has lived there ever since.
The Ballad of Ronan McCoy with Colin Morgan - The Portobello Bookshop
The Portobello Bookshop is thrilled to welcome Colin Morgan for the Edinburgh launch of his debut novel, The Ballad of Ronan McCoy. It is a beautifully written, tender coming-of-age story about friendship and first love, loss and letting go, and the hopes and fears of a young man. Perfect for fans of Douglas Stuart, Michael Magee, David Nicholls and Andrew O'Hagan, we can't wait to dive into this stunning book with the author.
Colin Morgan grew up in Northern Ireland, a boy with an instinctive love for stories: hearing them, telling them, writing them, performing them. As an adult he counts himself very lucky that not much has changed, finding himself on stage, in front of a camera, before a microphone or with pen in hand, storytelling. The Ballad Of Ronan McCoy is his debut novel.
Careless People - Blackwell Books
Sarah Wynn-William's Careless People was one of the non-fiction sensations of 2025. A hugely praised - and award winning - bestselling account of Sarah's time as Global Policy Director at Facebook, Meta secured a ruling against Sarah on publication day preventing her from promoting the book, or indeed saying anything critical or ‘otherwise detrimental’ about Meta.
Nation of Strangers - Lighthouse Books
In a highlight event of spring, we're thrilled to welcome back the internationally acclaimed author and political thinker for a launch of her latest book! A powerful and consoling reappraisal of the concept of exile, migration and home, Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21 st Century is one of our most anticipated books of 2026.