Oxford in 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight. They have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming […]
Murder of an Oxford Scientist by Fiona Veitch Smith
Oxford, 1925, and intrepid reporter Poppy Denby is heading to Oxford, where a young female scientist, Dr June Leighton, has been found dead. Though June’s death is ruled an accident by the authorities, one of her colleagues, Sophie Blackburn, an old associate of Poppy’s, is convinced June was murdered for threatening to expose a male colleague for plagiarism. […]
The Skeleton Army by Alis Hawkins
The Salvation Army has come prancing and singing from the slums of London to the poorest quarters of Oxford, but along with its red-hot gospel preaching and music hall songs it brings a prohibition message which sparks immediate opposition and violence. An Army soldier – an ex-drunk – is brutally killed and a note suggests […]
The Skeleton Army by Alis Hawkins
The Salvation Army has come prancing and singing from the slums of London to the poorest quarters of Oxford, but along with its red hot gospel preaching and music hall songs it brings a prohibition message which sparks immediate opposition and violence. An Army soldier – an ex-drunk – is brutally killed and a note […]
A Bitter Remedy by Alis Hawkins
Jesus College, Oxford, 1881. An undergraduate is found dead at his lodgings and the medical examination reveals some shocking findings. When the young man’s guardian blames the college for his death and threatens a scandal, Basil Rice, a Jesus College fellow with a secret to hide, is forced to act and finds himself drawn into […]
HNS Conference 2016
Deborah Swift reports on this year’s Historical Novel Society Conference in Oxford. This year’s Historical Novel Society Conference was held in Oxford, a beautiful and historic setting for what turned out to be a thought-provoking event for writers and readers of what has come to be labelled ‘historical fiction’. The conference itself was based in […]