London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London Clara has created the country’s only underground library, built over the tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here a secret community thrives: with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a café and a theatre offering […]
The Royal Secret by Andrew Taylor
Two young girls plot a murder by witchcraft. Soon afterwards a government clerk dies painfully in mysterious circumstances. His colleague James Marwood is asked to investigate – but the task brings unexpected dangers. Meanwhile, architect Cat Hakesby is working for a merchant who lives on Slaughter Street, where the air smells of blood and a captive […]
Apples, Chelsea, and my route to the plant hunters
How did an apple tree and a lecture about the history of Chelsea give TL Mogford the idea which his first historical novel grew from? He tells Historia about his route to The Plant Hunter, set in Victorian England and in China. When I was seven years old, my family left the cosy Oxfordshire village […]
Son of Mercia by MJ Porter
Tamworth, Mercia AD825, and the once-mighty kingdom of Mercia is in perilous danger. Their King, Beornwulf, lies dead, and years of bitter infighting between the nobles and cross-border wars have left Mercia exposed to her enemies. King Ecgberht of Wessex senses that now is the time for his warriors to strike and exact his long-awaited […]
Agricola: Architect of Roman Britain by Simon Turney
Gnaeus Julius Agricola was a man fated for conquest and tied to the island of Britannia. He cut his teeth on military command during the revolt of Boudica, later commanded a legion against the warlike Brigantes, and was finally given the governorship of the province and was able to lead the armies north, incorporating into […]
What Only We Know by Catherine Hokin
When Karen Cartwright is unexpectedly called home to nurse her ailing father, she goes with a heavy heart. The house she grew up in feels haunted by the memory of her father’s closely guarded secrets about her beautiful mother Elizabeth’s tragic death years before. As she packs up the house, Karen discovers an old photograph […]
Fortune’s Heir by Alex Rutherford
In his Himalayan retreat of Glenmire, Nicholas Ballantyne is determined his days of bloodshed and intrigue in the service of the British East India Company are over. Yet the Battle of Plassey, where he fought with Robert Clive, has delivered only a short-lived peace and the 1770s are precarious times in India. Martial Marathas, formidable […]
This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin by Emma Darwin
Everybody knows about Charles Darwin, and many know about others in his family, from Erasmus Darwin and Tom Wedgwood, the first photographer, to composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and poet and radical John Cornford, the first Briton to be killed in the Spanish Civil War. But when Charles and Emma Darwin’s great-great-granddaughter, another Emma Darwin, tried […]