In 1552, the printing press is quickly spreading new ideas across Europe, threatening the power of church and state and unleashing a wave of book burning and heretic hunting.
When frightened ex-nun Lysbette Angiers arrives at Charlotte Guillard’s famous Paris printing shop with her manuscript, neither woman knows just how far the powerful elite will go to prevent the spread of Lysbette’s audacious ideas.
In 1952, Milly Bennett is a lonely New York housewife struggling to find her way in her new neighbourhood amidst the paranoid clamours of McCarthy’s America.
She finds her life taking an unexpected turn when a relic from her past presents her with a 400-year-old manuscript to decipher, pulling her into a vortex of danger that threatens to shatter her world.
From the risky backstreets of 16th-century Paris to the unpredictable suburbs of mid-20th-century New York, the stakes couldn’t be higher as, 400 years apart, Milly, Lysbette, and Charlotte each face a reality where the spread of ideas is feared and every effort is made to suppress them.
Book of Forbidden Words by Louise Fein is published on 26 February, 2026.
See what other historical fiction is coming out in 2026 in our summary of over 120 books published this year.
