The trouble with Mrs Montgomery Hurst is not Mrs Montgomery Hurst – as young Miss Amelia Ashpoint well knows. The real trouble is the polite society of Wickenshire in 1841, with its inescapable gossip about the arrival of the new Mrs Hurst and – whisper it – her three children from a previous marriage. In […]
The Trouble with Mrs Montgomery Hurst by Katie Lumsden
Summer, 1841, is marriage season in the county of Wickenshire, and Miss Amelia Ashpoint isn’t sure she can face yet another ball. But now that she has reached the grand age of three-and-twenty, time is (apparently) running out. Her father is anxious to secure her a husband and has set his sights on Mr Montgomery […]
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 Secrets of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden
In 1852 Margaret Lennox is offered a position as governess at Hartwood Hall. She quickly accepts, hoping this isolated country house will allow her to leave her past behind. But Margaret soon starts to feel there’s something odd about her new home, despite her growing fondness for her bright, affectionate pupil, Louis. Strange figures move […]
How Victorian literature helped me write my debut novel
Katie Lumsden’s debut novel, The Secrets of Hartwood Hall, is a “love letter to her favourite books” — the classics of Victorian literature. She explains how these works didn’t just inspire her writing; they also helped her to craft a book which is Victorian in its voice, feel, and richness of plot and character, but […]