September 1939. A city ruled by fear. A population brutalised by restrictions and reprisals. Amid the devastation, another hunter begins to prowl. What are a few more deaths amid scores of daily executions? Former chief investigator Jan Kalisz lives a dangerous double life, forced to work with the occupiers as he gathers information for the […]
A Court of Betrayal by Anne O’Brien
The Welsh Marches, 1301. Strong-willed heiress Johane de Geneville is married to Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, at just 15 years old. Soon Johane finds herself swept up in a world of treacherous court politics and dangerous secrets as her husband deposes Edward II and rules England alongside Queen Isabella. Yet when Roger is accused […]
The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson
Jersey, 1943. When the German Army invades the tranquil island, librarian Grace La Motée is determined to keep her services running. Ordered to destroy books which threaten the Nazi regime, she refuses, instead hiding them away and fighting back by forming a book club: a lifeline to help islanders escape the terror of war, one […]
10 Scotland Street by Leslie Hills
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 – […]
Review: Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary Beard
The historian Michael Arnheim reviews Mary Beard’s Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World, which has just been published as a paperback. “What was it really like to rule and be ruled in the Ancient Roman world?” That is how Professor Mary Beard describes her book. In fact, it is a not particularly subtle […]
Sharp Scratch by Martine Bailey
Salford, 1983. Lorraine Quick is a single mother, a member of a band going nowhere fast, and personnel officer at the grim Memorial Hospital. A new general manager position is being introduced, and Lorraine’s recent training in the cutting-edge science of psychometric testing will be pivotal. As the profiles start to emerge, a chilling light […]
The Book of Secrets by Anna Mazzola
It’s Rome in 1659, and Girolama Spana lives west of the river Tiber in a house marked by a lily and a garden full of herbs. Many women in Rome seek her help — although they would never admit it — eager for her mysterious balms, her love potions, and her ability to predict their […]