Twin sisters Keziah and Tilly Lovell are identical in every way, except that Tilly hasn’t grown a single inch since she was five. Coerced into promoting their father’s quack elixir as they tour the country fairgrounds, at the age of 15 the girls are sold to a mysterious Italian known as ‘Captain’. Theo is an orphan, […]
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 […]
Return to Shiaba by Willie Orr
Willie Orr’s second Shiaba novel follows the lives of two crofters struggling to come to terms with the Highland Clearances. While Catherine spreads her wings to find new talents for survival within herself, her husband, Callum, uses his stubborn loyalty to the land of his fathers to face down the increasing wrath of a political […]
The Men Who Were Sherlock Holmes by Daniel Smith
In 1893, young army officer Cecil Hambrough was murdered at the sprawling Ardlamont estate in Scotland, unleashing one of the most gripping court cases Victorian Britain had ever known. Even more remarkably, the case brought together two pioneering forensic experts – Joseph Bell and Henry Littlejohn – two men upon whom Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock […]
The Household by Stacey Halls
It’s 1847, and 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 […]
The Devil to Pay by Katie Daysh
In 1802, the Treaty of Amiens brings the French Revolutionary Wars to an end. After the drama of the past few years, Lieutenant Arthur Courtney returns home to England where he hopes to spend a blissful summer with his close friend, Hiram Nightingale. But within weeks, HMS Loyal goes missing en route to Malta. She […]
The Romanov Brides by Clare McHugh
They were granddaughters of Queen Victoria and two of the most beautiful princesses in Europe. Princesses Alix and Ella were destined to wed well and wisely. But while their grandmother wants to join them to the English and German royal families, the sisters fall in love with Russia — and the Romanovs. Defying the Queen’s […]
Felo de Se: the gruesome punishment that led to me writing The Low Road
Katharine Quarmby’s investigation into the gruesome burial of a suicide victim — for felo de se — with links to her home town inspired her first novel, The Low Road. For Women’s History Month, she explains why this punishment fell disproportionately onto poor women, and what made her want to tell this story. On a […]