10 Scotland Street – the story of an Edinburgh home and its cast of booksellers, silk merchants, sailors, preachers, politicians, its stories of cholera and coincidence and its widespread connections over two centuries across the globe. 10 Scotland Street by Leslie Hills is published in paperback on 6 August, 2024. Read Leslie’s feature about how […]
A Grave for a Thief by Douglas Skelton
It’s 1716. Christopher Templeton is a lawyer whose conscience troubles him. He knows many of the secrets of The Fellowship, the shadowy group profiting from the civil unrest in the nation, and has intimated to the Company of Rogues that he is willing to share them. The problem is, he has vanished. Jonas Flynt – […]
Costanza by Rachel Blackmore
Rome in 1636, and Costanza Piccolomini is a respectable young wife — until she meets Gianlorenzo Bernini, the famed sculptor and star of Roman society, whose jet-black gaze matches his dark temper. From the second they set eyes upon each other, a fatal attraction is born. Their secret love burns with a passion that consumes […]
Dora Maar: much more than a muse
Even now, Dora Maar is probably remembered for being Picasso’s lover and the subject of many of his paintings rather than as the innovative artist she was. Louisa Treger, whose latest novel retells her story, explains why Dora was much more than a muse. For years, the epithet ‘Picasso’s Weeping Woman’ has followed every mention […]
Ravenous: A Life of Barbara Villiers by Andrea Zuvich
Barbara Villiers was a woman so beautiful, so magnetic and so sexually attractive that she captured the hearts of many in Stuart-era Britain. Her beauty is legendary: she became the muse of artists such as Peter Lely, the inspiration of writers such as John Dryden and the lover of John Churchill, the future great military […]
If I Can Save One Child by Amanda Lees
Young linguist Elisabeth has been working for the British secret service since the war began, rescuing downed pilots and Jewish refugees. Now, in 1942, the Gestapo are on her trail: her next mission must be her last. Or she may never see the white cliffs of Dover again. But she can’t even think about abandoning […]
Barbara Villiers, beautiful, powerful… ravenous?
Barbara Villers, Countess of Castlemaine and later Duchess of Cleveland, was one of the most beautiful women of the Restoration period and probably Charles II’s most politically powerful mistress. She had a great appetite for wealth, influence, and handsome men, as Andrea Zuvich, author of Barbara’s biography, Ravenous, explains. The Stuarts, who ruled over Scotland, […]
The Bomber and the Weathervane by Tony Aston
In 2009 Helen and John bought an old metal weathervane, fashioned in the shape of a Lancaster bomber, and placed it on the roof of their house where it remained for the following nine years. Only when it was removed as part of them packing to relocate in 2021 was a small inscription noticed on […]