Where did our fairy tales come from? Nicholas Jubber set out to find the story behind the stories and found himself “bewitched” by one collector, a 17th-century poet and soldier who preserved the earliest-known versions of so many of our best-loved fables that he surely deserves the title of Fairy (tale) Godfather. These are tales […]
Henrietta Maria by Leanda de Lisle
Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s queen, is the most reviled consort to have worn the crown of Britain’s three kingdoms. Condemned as that ‘Popish brat of France’, a ‘notorious whore’ and traitor, she remains in popular memory the wife who wore the breeches and turned her husband Catholic – so causing a civil war – and […]
The Bookseller of Inverness by SG MacLean
After Culloden, Iain MacGillivray was left for dead on Drumossie Moor. Wounded, his face brutally slashed, he survived only by pretending to be dead as the Redcoats patrolled the corpses of his Jacobite comrades. Six years later, with the clan chiefs routed and the Highlands subsumed into the British state, Iain lives a quiet life, […]
A Child of the East End by Jean Fullerton
Life in Cockney London was tough in the post-war years. The government’s broken promises had led to a chronic housing shortage, rampant crime and families living in squalor. But one thing prevailed: the unbeatable spirit of the East End, a tight-knit community who pulled through the dark times with humour and heart. Drawing on both […]
The Sign of the Devil by Oscar de Muriel
An ill-fated grave-robbery unearths a corpse with a most disturbing symbol on it. The very same sign is daubed in blood on the walls of Edinburgh’s lunatic asylum, on the night that one of the patients is murdered. The mark in question? The mark of the devil. The prime suspect: Amy McGray, the asylum’s most […]
Bonny & Read by Julie Walker
The Caribbean, 1720. Two extraordinary women are on the run – from their pasts, from the British Navy and the threat of execution, and from the destiny that fate has written for them. Plantation owner’s daughter, runaway wife, pirate: Anne Bonny has forged her own story in a man’s world. But when she is involved […]
Writing yourself into history: top tips for memoirs
Have you considered writing a book about yourself? A memoir, autobiography, or family history, or even just a private record for your relatives or friends? Jean Fullerton, East Ender and bestselling author, has her own autobiography coming out and learned some useful tips which she’s passing on here. Before I start, can I warn you […]
The Carnelian Phoenix by Jacquie Rogers
AD 224. Former Praetorian Guard Quintus Valerius travels from Britannia to visit his family in Rome. A skilled swordsman, Valerius has an unerring nose for danger and death. Valerius is travelling with his optio, Tiro, a lover of brawling and drinking from Londinium, and the woman he loves, Julia. In Gaul, Valerius receives a mysterious […]