Susannah Clapp is the theatre critic of The Observer and of BBC Radio 3's Nightwaves. She has worked as an editor and reader at Jonathan Cape and helped found the London Review of Books, where she was assistant editor for several years. She is the author of With Chatwin: Portrait of a Writer. She lives in London.

Veronica Buckley was born in New Zealand. Studies in humanities, music, and computing led to her work in diverse fields from orchestras to the oil industry. After doctoral research at Oxford, she turned to full-time writing. She is the author of Christina, Queen of Sweden and Madame de Maintenon: The Secret Wife of Louis XIV. She lives in Vienna with her husband, writer Philipp Blom.