In 1857 John Williamson, a gay man from a humble background, does not fit in amongst the British rulers of India. When mutiny erupts he finds his loyalties torn between the Europeans he despises and the Indians he loves. How can he be true to himself and still survive the massacre that will follow the […]
Not One Of Us by Alis Hawkins
The Teifi Valley’s coroner, Harry Probert-Lloyd, is struggling: with the blindness that drove him home from London, with the county magistrates and with an estate teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. He needs an escape, so when Dr Benton Reckitt is asked to give a second opinion on the apparently natural death of young Lizzie […]
The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan
It’s the summer of 1822 and Edinburgh is a-buzz with rumours of King George IV’s impending visit. In botanical circles, however, a different kind of excitement has gripped the city. In the newly-installed Botanic Garden, the Agave Americana plant looks set to flower – an event that only occurs once every few decades. When newly-widowed […]
Brontë’s Mistress by Finola Austin
Yorkshire, 1843: Lydia Robinson has tragically lost her precious young daughter and her mother within the same year. She returns to her bleak home, grief-stricken and unmoored. With her teenage daughters rebelling, her testy mother-in-law scrutinizing her every move, and her marriage grown cold, Lydia is restless and yearning for something more. All of that […]
Did radicals and reactionaries unite against Tsar Alexander II?
Did the radicals plotting to murder Alexander II and the reactionaries who thought his reforms went too far join forces to get rid of the Tsar? RN Morris explores an unlikely alliance that provides the political backdrop to his latest historical crime mystery, Law of Blood. In his excellent biography of Tsar Alexander II (1818-1881), […]
The uncanny story behind my novel
You might expect a thriller to give you the shivers. But when Alexandra Walsh was writing her latest novel, The Wind Chime, she discovered some parallels between her fictional story and her own family history that were unexpected – even uncanny. The Wind Chime is a timeshift thriller set in the present day and the […]
The Wind Chime by Alexandra Walsh
Windsor, England, 2019, and Amelia Prentice is recovering from the worst two years of her life. First her daughter and then her parents have died, leaving her without any surviving relatives. As she gets ready to put the family home, a vast Victorian house in Windsor, on the market, she fulfils her mother’s last request […]
The true story of the man who broke the Monte Carlo bank: Joseph Hobson Jagger
When historian Anne Fletcher started looking into a family story about her great-great-great uncle, Joseph Hobson Jagger – that he’d gone from working in a Bradford woollen mill to breaking the bank at Monte Carlo – she found little evidence to back up the claim. But after ten years of research, she uncovered the true […]