Two authors have been lined up to speak about their work at the first event held by a new group promoting Felixstowe Book Festival.

Novelists JM Hewitt and Ruth Dugdall will be the guests at the event this month – both are keen supporters of the summer festival, which has grown in popularity each year with 2016’s hailed the best yet.

The Friends of Felixstowe Book Festival was launched at last year’s big event and friends co-ordinator Elaine Simpson-Long said the afternoon with the two writers on January 17 would be the group’s first event.

She said: “People who are already members of the Friends will have received an invitation to this talk.

“If not, and you would like to come along, then may I urge you to become a Friend and support this wonderful book festival which has now established itself in the literary calendar.”

JM – Jeanette – Hewitt is a crime fiction author living in Trimley. Her novel Exclusion Zone set in the Chernobyl power station no-go area – published last year to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the disaster – sold impressively, and her latest work, The Hunger Within, came out in October.

Her new book, The Duty, is due to be published early this year. At the event she will be discussing this new title and how it differs from her previous novels.

Ruth Dugdall is an award-winning crime novelist, who specialises in psychological suspense.

Four out of five of her novels are set in Suffolk, where she lives, and her books are published around the world. Her books have been described as “gripping and authentic”.

The event takes place at 3pm on January 17 in the Furneaux Suite at The Orwell Hotel, Felixstowe.

To attend email Felixstowefriends@outlook.com