Before they were moved to Ekaterinburg and execution, Nicholas II and his family crammed most of their remaining treasure in three jars, which they gave to trusted friends to guard. Two of these jars have disappeared from the record, their hiding places undiscovered. The Romanovs’ lost treasure inspired Mark Grenside’s latest thriller, he explains. In […]
Christmas with the East End Girls by Jean Fullerton
East London, 1943. Georgina St John-Smythe – George to her friends – is usually the life and soul of any party. But as the East End of London prepares wearily for another wartime Christmas amid nightly bombings, she is finding it hard to muster her festive spirit, still hurting from a recent romantic betrayal. But […]
Generaloberst Erich Hoepner by Philip Kay-Bujak
Erich Hoepner was a talented officer during World War One and a leading panzer commander during World War Two. Rising through the traditional Prussian roots of the Imperial Army and indoctrinated by loyalty, he became a committed supporter of Guderian’s new tank strategy of the 1920s and 30’s. By 1939 he was a corps commander, […]
Music to Die For at the Seaview Hotel by Glenda Young
Eighties pop band The A64 are reuniting for the gig of a lifetime at Scarborough’s Open Air Theatre, and Helen Dexter is overjoyed when they book into her Seaview Hotel. However, as old tensions rise within the band, it’s clear each musician has something to hide. Why is lead singer Starr running away from her […]
Dismantling the misogynistic Marilyn Monroe myth
How does a historian challenge the ‘misogynistic Monroe myth’ of lateness, drinking, and emotional fragility? Not by denying it, says Lucy Jane Santos, but by showing that memories can be faulty, stories retold and reshaped for their audience – and Marilyn’s own words are largely missing. And by remembering that history, like memory, is not […]
Nobody’s Perfect by Lucy Jane Santos
What happens when you bring together: a legendary director with a razor-sharp wit, a bombshell determined to prove she’s more than her appearance, a rising leading man hungry for his breakthrough, and an unflappable professional striving to keep everything together? Add a fiercely protective drama coach with a reputation at stake, a playwright under the […]
A Fatal Love by Louisa Treger
It’s Easter Sunday in 1955 and a young man lies face-down on the ground covered in blood. A woman, blonde and petite, stands over him with a gun in her hand. This is the story of Ruth Ellis as never told before… As Ruth awaits her trial in Holloway Prison, she recollects growing up in […]
Liesel’s War by Corin Burnside
In April, 1945, Hamburg is a city on the brink of collapse, and Liesel Heinemann is caught in the storm of war. Once a promising student of translation, she is now a reluctant interpreter for the Nazis, her life irrevocably altered by the horrors surrounding her. Everything changes when she saves a British soldier who […]