Can a white man receive justice in post-colonial India? It’s Bombay in 1950. James Whitby, sentenced to death for the murder of prominent lawyer and former Quit India activist Fareed Mazumdar, is less than two weeks from a date with the gallows. In a last-ditch attempt to save his son, Whitby’s father forces a new […]
Acts of Love and War by Maggie Brookes
Twenty-one-year-old Lucy is frustrated with her constrained life in Hertfordshire, teaching and keeping house for her domineering father. But she is happy to be living next door to Tom and Jamie, two brothers she has known since childhood, and whom she loves equally. Her life is turned upside down when, in 1936, Tom decides he […]
The German Mother by Debbie Rix
Before the war began, Minki had everything – an attentive husband, three adorable children, and a successful career as journalist. But all that changed in an instant. Her sweet Clara, with her blue eyes and porcelain features, started having fits. Since then, Minki hasn’t been able to sleep properly because she knows children with illnesses […]
73 Dove Street by Julie Owen Moylan
When Edie Budd arrives at a shabby West London boarding house in October 1958, carrying nothing except a broken suitcase and an envelope full of cash, it’s clear she’s hiding a terrible secret. And she’s not the only one; the other women of 73 Dove Street have secrets of their own… Tommie, who lives on […]
Sinners of Starlight City by Anika Scott
Madame Mystique is a performer extraordinaire, come to work her scandalous magic at the glittering 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Of African-American and Sicilian heritage, Mystique – aka Rosa Mancuso – and her fellow performers move on the margins. Her ambiguous status serves a hidden vendetta: she awaits the arrival of Paolo Amanta, the dashing pilot […]
The Silk Code by Deborah Swift
England in 1943: deciding to throw herself into war work, Nancy Callaghan joins the Special Operations Executive in Baker Street. There, she begins solving ‘indecipherables’ – scrambled messages from agents in the field. Then Nancy meets Tom Lockwood, a quiet genius when it comes to coding. Together they come up with the idea of printing […]
The stigma of illegitimacy: forced adoption
Mary Chamberlain’s new novel, The Lie, exposes the truth about the stark choice faced by pregnant unmarried women before contraception was widely available. It’s all so different now, we think. But, she asks, will the rolling back of abortion rights in America revive the stigma of illegitimacy — and the practice of forced adoptions — […]
Mussolini meets the World’s Fair
While researching the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933 for her new novel, Anika Scott came across an episode of political public manipulation which took her aback – for its present-day resonances as well as its impact at the time. She tells Historia what happened when the Fascists flew to the Fair. Sometimes, a piece of […]