TICKETS to an inaugural literary festival go on sale today (Thursday).

The first-ever Ayot Literary Festival takes place from June 24 to 26, featuring several best-selling authors, including Alexander McCall Smith, Darren Shan, Adele Parks, Prue Leith and Tony Parsons.

Also on the bill at the Ayot Green event are author Conn Iggulden and his illustrator Lizzy Duncan, renowned economics journalist Will Hutton, historical novelist Simon Scarrow, crime writers Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, better known as Nicci French, and writers Barbara Erskine and Jane Johnson.

The festival will close with a talk by upcoming young author Jake Wallis Simons, who will discuss his new novel The English German Girl, about child Holocaust survivors, with a real survivor from the concentration camps.

Ticket prices vary.

Call 01707 326865 or visit the website for more information.