Sometimes the inspiration for a novel is very close to home, very personal. It was the true story of her mother and aunt, both biologists and PhDs, both denied the careers they might have had, that led Rachel Hore to the idea for The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge. Here she writes about the barriers that […]
Bonjour, Sophie by Elizabeth Buchan
It’s 1959 and time for 18-year-old Sophie’s real life to start. Her existence in the village of Poynsdean, Sussex, with her austere foster-father and his frustrated wife is suffocating. She dreams of escape to Paris, the wartime home her French mother fled before her birth. Getting there will take spirit and ingenuity, but it will […]
City of Destruction by Vaseem Khan
Bombay, 1951, and a political rally ends in tragedy when India’s first female police detective, Persis Wadia, kills a lone gunman as he attempts to assassinate the divisive new defence minister, a man calling for war with India’s new post-Independence neighbours. With the Malabar House team tasked to hunt down the assassin’s co-conspirators — aided […]
Looking for radioactivity in Las Vegas
Lucy Jane Santos, the author of Chain Reactions, is prepared to go anywhere to look for the history of radioactivity. Even Las Vegas. Fortunately, she found that the sinful city still radiates with its atomic heritage, which hasn’t decayed yet. Over the last — almost — decade of tracing the history of radioactive elements – […]
The Drummond Affair: Murder and Mystery in Provence by Daniel Smith and Stephanie Matthews
1950s France. A British establishment figure. A shocking crime. A miscarriage of justice. The search for truth. In 1952, in a peaceful corner of Provence, a farmer’s son stumbled upon a terrible scene. Three bodies: a husband and wife shot dead, their ten-year-old daughter savagely beaten to death. They were all British. So begins one […]
The Black Crescent by Jane Johnson
1950s Morocco is full of murder, magic and divided loyalties… Hamou Badi is born in a mountain village with the magical signs of the zouhry on his hands. The zouhry is a figure of legend, capable of finding all manner of treasure. But instead of finding treasure, young Hamou finds a body. Haunted by this […]
73 Dove Street by Julie Owen Moylan
West London, 1958. 73 Dove Street is a shabby house in a shabby street. But this boarding house’s attic room suits newcomer Edie Budd very well. It’s somewhere to hide. Tommie, on the second floor, is up in Soho every night. There’s a man she’s pursuing – whether he wants her or not. Landlady Phyllis […]
The surprising joys of armchair travel
The novelist Elizabeth Buchan usually looks forward to travelling to research a new novel. But when she became ill while starting work on her latest, Bonjour, Sophie, she had to rethink… A new novel to write usually triggers the anticipatory thrill of travelling for research. Many summers have seen me, rucksack on back, tracking down […]