In London, in 1909, the Fitzglens combine running London’s finest theatre with a very profitable side-line in stealing. But while they might be thieves, they still have principles. They never pinch anything their victim couldn’t afford to lose. When a stranger approaches Jack Fitzglen after a performance, claiming that a Fitzglen has committed a grave […]
The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge by Rachel Hore
Nancy Foster has harboured a devastating secret that shattered her professional and personal life. On meeting her, journalist Stef Lansdown realizes that she has the power to restore Nancy’s reputation and to heal the wounds, if only Nancy will trust her. But someone else wants to get to the bottom of the story first, someone […]
Chain Reactions by Lucy Jane Santos
Tracing uranium’s past, and how it intersects with our understanding of other radioactive elements, this book aims to disentangle our attitudes and to unpick the atomic mindset. Chain Reactions looks at the fascinating, often-forgotten, stories that can be found throughout the history of the element. Ranging from glassworks to penny stocks; medicines to weapons; something […]
Women in science – a true story
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 […]
Wartime Comes to West India Dock Road by Renita D’Silva
It’s 1940 and the Blitz rages, but life goes on in the heart of London’s East End. Charity has spent her life keeping her family together – raising her younger brothers, running the family boarding house on West India Dock Road, and now shielding her fragile parents from the relentless bombardment outside their door. When […]
Love and Other Poisons by Lesley McDowell
1857, Glasgow. A young socialite named Madeleine Smith stands accused of murdering her lover. Thousands wait outside the court to hear the result. The scandalous nature of the affair, detailed explicitly in letters published in newspapers across the world, has made her case a worldwide sensation. But when the jury find themselves unable to decide […]
The Best of Intentions by Caroline Scott
1932: When gardener Robert Bardsley arrives at Anderby Hall, an Elizabethan manor house in the Gloucestershire countryside, it is home to Greenfields, a community of artists and idealists. Robert has been employed to revive Anderby’s famous roses and restore the topiary garden, but he also soon befriends the other residents: from colourful neighbour Trudie, who […]
Segregation and suffering in the cities of occupied Europe
Catherine Hokin looks at why ghettos were created in the cities of occupied Europe during the Second World War – places of segregation and also of suffering. My latest World War Two novel, The Secret Locket, tells a story that’s very much tied to its settings. Part of the book takes place in the Bavarian […]