This year’s new style Warwick Words Festival kicks off with a Summer Festival long weekend 13 – 16 June.

Special Festival guests include Jeremy Page talking about his first historical novel, The Collector of Lost Things, in which the characters are fuelled by obsession, passion and ghosts. Biographer Jane Dunn uncovers the unconventional lives of the successful, beautiful and rebellious Du Maurier sisters, while Elizabeth Chadwick will be talking about her best-seller ‘The Summer Queen’. The first novel in a trilogy it tells the story of the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, a life overflowing with sex, scandal and politics.

Numbered among local writers taking part in the weekend is Festival Patron Andrew Davies who will be talking about his latest television blockbuster series Mr Selfridge, the story of the London department store creator’s extraordinary life.

Festival Director Helen Meeke said, ‘In recent years Warwick Words has taken place over 10 days in the autumn.  This year, in an exciting new departure, we’ve split the Festival into two long weekends – a Summer Festival from 13 – 16 June and an Autumn Festival from 3 – 6 October.  Our popular series of Tea Time Talks which was launched in 2012 in association with the University of Warwick returns as part of the Summer Festival and runs throughout the year, as does our programme of Festival Xtra events.’

This year’s Summer Festival line up also includes Rosie Goodwin talking about her latest novel The Home Front Girls, a World War II drama about three remarkable women from different backgrounds who kept the country moving during its darkest hours and forge a friendship that will last forever.

Actress and writer Kathleen Hilditch who published her autobiography, Full Circle, at the age of ninety three and has now completed a novel, The Boat Wife, about life on an old Air Sea Rescue launch after World War II

will be chatting to Warwick Words Story Collector, Campbell Perry.

Chris Skidmore will be discussing The Battle of Bosworth and its legendary significance in British history.

In ‘Licence to Thrill, 50 years of James Bond’, intelligence scholar Christopher Moran, author of Classified: Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain, will be seeking to understand James Bond’s enduring popularity.

Journalist Diana Alexander will be talking about The Other Mitford, the story of Pamela, the only one of the eccentric, high-profile family who never hit the headlines and never espoused a cause but was content to live a quieter life, becoming the rock on which her more volatile sisters were to depend.

Rhyme and Song for the under 5s celebrates National Book Start Week’s 2013 theme Fairytales and is a free event.

Aimed at all ages, Warwick Words Summer Festival Weekend 13 – 16 June takes place at venues in Warwick.