Malta, 1943. The war in the air above Malta is over, but the battle for Europe is about to begin. Margarita, a young singer in a Valletta nightclub, has seen her former lover Henry Dunn only once since breaking off their affair. His wife Vera, an enigmatic archaeologist, arrives at the club to tell her […]
The Secrets of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden
Margaret Lennox is recently widowed and in need of a position. It must be far from the past that still haunts her. She finds what appears to be the perfect engagement: governess to a child in an isolated country house. Yet from the first, Hartwood Hall is unwelcoming. Why do the locals eye her employer, […]
The London Bookshop Affair by Louise Fein
London, 1962: The world is teetering on the brink of nuclear war but life must go on. Celia Duchesne longs for a career, but with no means or qualifications, passes her time working at a dusty bookshop. The day a handsome American enters the shop, she thinks she might have found her way out of […]
Queen of Diamonds by Beezy Marsh
London, 1922. Orphan girl Alice dreams there’s more to life than toiling long hours in Pink’s jam factory. Inspired by stories about the legendary Queen of Thieves, Mary Carr, who terrorised the streets of Victorian London, Alice decides to set up her own gang: The Forty Thieves. Sly seamstress Kate Felix from Whitechapel has the […]
Historia Live in April
Historia Live, the HWA’s series of author events showcasing historical fiction and history writing, is back at the Wheatsheaf in London on Tuesday, 16 April, 2024. The theme this month is Bad reputations: fortune-tellers, fraudsters & fallen women. On our panel are Laura Shepherd-Robinson, whose The Square of Sevens is out in paperback on 28 […]
Under The Eye by Marilyn Pemberton
Cairo, 1936. Effie, a 10-year-old orphan from London, turns up in a packing case at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. All her life she has dreamed that her mother is an Egyptian princess, but she is faced with cruelty and crushing disappointment before she finds what she is looking for. Beattie Trevethan is the daughter […]
Horse and Pistol by Griff Hosker
An only child of Anglo-French descent, young James Bretherton has known a life of privilege; well-educated and mild mannered, his path is filled with promise. But when James suddenly finds himself orphaned and penniless, his future looks decidedly bleak. It is only when Fate intervenes in the guise of two English mercenaries, that James is […]
Sharp Scratch by Martine Bailey
Salford, 1983, and Lorraine Quick is a single mother, a member of a band going nowhere fast, and personnel officer at the grim Memorial Hospital. A new general manager position is being introduced, and Lorraine’s recent training in the cutting-edge science of psychometric testing will be pivotal. As the profiles start to emerge, a chilling […]