Cromarty, The Black Isle, 1831. As seagulls shriek and rise on the coastal winds, a circulating library in the bustling port town of Cromarty is meeting for the first time. Ostensibly united by a love of books, the demands of social convention have brought together a disparate group of people. Charlotte Mackenzie, the remote and […]
The Twelve Days of Christmas by Susan Stokes-Chapman
The air glitters with hope as the snowy village of Merrywake celebrates the Christmas season after the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars. As the Viscount’s famous Twelfth Night Ball draws closer, many of the villagers have a story to tell. We meet a lovelorn vicar and kindly maid reunited after a misunderstanding, three sisters vying […]
Tangled Souls by Jane Dismore
Outrageously handsome, witty and clever, Harry Cust was reputed to be one of the great womanisers of the late Victorian era. In 1893, while a Member of Parliament, he caused public scandal by his affair with artist and poet Nina Welby-Gregory. When she revealed she was pregnant, horror swept through their circle known as ‘the […]
Argentina: football and history
The unpopularity of Argentina goes back much further than the reaction to its team’s behaviour during the 2026 World Cup. It’s rooted in the 150-year-old idea that “Argentines came from boats from Europe” and were — are — superior to other Latin American people, Matthew Carr explains. The World Cup always produces villains as well […]
Orphan of the Storm by Lizzie Lane
Jamaica 1804, and as the last will and testimony of sugar plantation owner Sir Edward Albert Kildare is disclosed to an eager audience, a loyal servant is brutally murdered and a young girl’s life hangs in the balance. With the help of a guardian angel, young Lochranza Kildare, is spirited back to England under the […]
Edwin Landseer’s vanished paintings and lost love
Did the Victorian artist Edwin Landseer have an affair with Georgina, Duchess of Bedford? Was his lost love the reason for his deteriorating mental health? And how is that question linked to a vanished painting of deer in a Highland run? Lucy Waverley writes about researching her debut novel. On my honeymoon, I read about […]
The Scandalous Ladies Football Club by Frances Quinn
London, 1897,and Minnie Newton – 28-year-old schoolteacher and women’s rights advocate – has a passion for football. But in Victorian society, football is a men’s game. That is, until Minnie decides to take matters into her own hands and place an ad in the newspaper, asking for volunteers to join the first ever women’s football […]
Twice Shy by Sophia Holloway
After her heartbreaking first Season, Elizabeth Ashling resolved to avoid London Society – and matrimony – completely. However, family obligations mean that Elizabeth is thrust back into society where she faces an overzealous poet, a bitter rival and, most awkwardly, the man who jilted her three years before. Sir Lucius Radstock, dry, dashing and as […]