Charlie Chaplin rose from the hard streets of Victorian London to become one of the most beloved comedians of all time. With his threadbare jacket, baggy trousers and puzzled expression, Chaplin’s ‘Little Tramp’ alter ego was shaped by the city of his childhood — a place of ribald variety shows and hard drinking, radical politics […]
The Cardinal by Alison Weir
It begins with young Tom Wolsey, the bright and brilliant son of a Suffolk tradesman, sent to study at Oxford at just 11 years old. It ends with a disgraced cardinal, cast from the King’s side and estranged from the woman he loves. The years in between tell the story of a scholar and a […]
The Man Who Stopped the Sultan by Edoardo Albert
Throughout the 16th century, wars raged across Europe as kings and republics jostled for wealth and power. Yet one man exceeded all these medieval princes of Christendom: Suleiman the Magnificent. As ruler of the Ottoman Empire, he governed 25 million people from Constantinople, his realm stretching from Persia to the Atlantic Ocean. Turning his gaze […]
The Edge of Darkness by Vaseem Khan
It’s India in 1951. After wilfully ignoring orders, Persis Wadia, India’s first female police detective, is exiled from Bombay to the wild and mountainous Naga Hills District. As India’s first post-Independence election looms, and tensions rise across the country, Persis finds herself banished to the Hotel Victoria, a crumbling colonial-era relic, her career in tatters. […]
A Slow and Secret Poison by Carmella Lowkis
When, in 1922, Vee Morgan accepts the job of gardener at a crumbling stately home in Wiltshire, she’s hoping for a fresh start where nobody knows her troubled history. But Harfold Manor is shadowed by grief and the memories of long-faded glory, its rooms haunted by the only surviving member of the family, Lady Arabella […]
Bad Company on Coronation Close by Lizzie Lane
Bristol, 1942, and following the death of her controlling husband, Margaret Routledge is no longer the downtrodden church mouse she once was. Now she’s the talk of the Close, frequenting seedy pubs and clubs where men gather to pick up good-time girls. It seems Margaret is past redemption until she sees neighbour Jenny Crawford’s headstrong […]
Braving the Dawn by Peggy Joque Williams
Banished from France by Louis XIV, once-royal favourite Sylvienne d’Aubert must make the dangerous ocean crossing with a group of young women eager to secure husbands in the French colony of Quebec as Filles du Roi (Daughters of the King). Sylvienne, however, scarred by an abusive, arranged marriage in France, vows never to wed again. […]
The Berlin Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith
In September, 1930, fearless detective Miss Clara Vale is bound for Berlin, but this trip is all about la mode, not murder. Clara is set to walk the runway at Berlin Fashion Week, as a favour to her designer friend Juju, with her assistant Bella in tow. Elections loom in Germany, and among Juju’s friends, […]