The trouble with Mrs Montgomery Hurst is not Mrs Montgomery Hurst – as young Miss Amelia Ashpoint well knows. The real trouble is the polite society of Wickenshire in 1841, with its inescapable gossip about the arrival of the new Mrs Hurst and – whisper it – her three children from a previous marriage. In […]
Famine, clearance and the inspiration for a novel
It was over 50 years ago when Willie Orr found the seed of an idea for a novel about the Scottish potato famine and the Highland Clearances. He had a lot of living to do first, and the inspiration took root in a Scottish archive much later. Now the third of his series about Shiaba […]
The Household by Stacey Halls
In 1847, in a quiet house in the countryside outside London, the finishing touches are being made to welcome a group of young women. The house and its location are top secret, its residents unknown to one another, but the girls have one thing in common: they are fallen. Offering refuge for prostitutes, petty thieves […]
The Stolen Daughter by Florence Ọlájídé
Western Africa, 1848, and in a small Yorùbá village, 14-year-old Ṣìkẹ́mi refuses to live by the elders’ rules. All she wants is to learn how to hunt and defend herself, like the boys. But her father is quick to remind her that soon she’ll be expected to grow up and marry. But Ṣìkẹ́mi’s world shatters when her […]