Review: The Wicked Cometh, by Laura Carlin

Down the murky alleyways of London, acts of unspeakable wickedness are taking place

Review: Longbourn, by Jo Baker

Synopsis: It is wash-day for the housemaids at Longbourn House, and Sarah's hands are chapped and raw. Domestic life below stairs, ruled with a tender heart and an iron will by Mrs Hill the housekeeper, is about to be disturbed by the arrival of a new footman, bearing secrets and the scent of the sea. …

Review: A Robot in the Garden – by Debora Install

Synopsis: A story of the greatest friendship ever assembled. Ben Chambers wakes up to find something rusty and lost underneath the willow tree in his garden. Refusing to throw it on the skip as his wife Amy advises, he takes it home.       Title: A Robot in the Garden Author: Debora Install Publisher: Transworld Pub Date: …

Review: The Girl Who Couldn’t Read – by John Harding

Synopsis: New England, the 1890s. A man calling himself Doctor John Shepherd arrives at an isolated women’s mental hospital to begin work as assistant to the owner Dr Morgan. As Shepherd struggles to conceal his own dark secrets, he finds the asylum has plenty of its own. Who is the woman who wanders the corridors by …

Review: The Miniaturist – by Jessie Burton

Synopsis: There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed . . . On an autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman knocks at the door of a grand house in the wealthiest quarter of Amsterdam. She has come from the country to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes …

Review: The White Queen – Philippa Gregory

Synopsis: Internationally bestselling author Philippa Gregory brings the tumult and intrigue of The Wars of the Roses to vivid life through the women of the House of Lancaster and the House of York, beginning with the story of Elizabeth Woodville, the White Queen. A woman who won the love of a king and ascended to …

Review: Plague Child – by Peter Ransley

Synopsis: September 1625: Plague cart driver, Matthew Kneave, is sent to pick up the corpse of a baby. Yet, on the way to the plague pit, he hears a cry – the baby is alive. A plague child himself, and now immune from the disease, Matthew decides to raise it as his own. Fifteen years …

Review: Wolf Hall – by Hilary Mantel

Synopsis: England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey's clerk, and later his successor. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son …

Pure – by Andrew Miller

Synopsis: Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young, provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it. At first Baratte sees this as a chance to clear the burden of history, a …

The Darling Strumpet – by Gillian Bagwell

Synopsis: From her beginnings as a humble oyster seller, Nell Gwynn’s dazzling rise to fame has gone down in history. Step into the tumultuous world of Restoration England, and join Nell on her journey from courtesan, to famed actress to King’s mistress in a novel that is as captivating as Nelly herself. She sold her …

Palace of Curiosities – by Rosie Garland

Synopsis: Before Eve is born, her mother goes to the circus. She buys a penny twist of coloured sugar and settles down to watch the heart-stopping main attraction: a lion, billed as a monster from the savage heart of Africa. Mama swears she hears the lion sigh, just before it leaps…and nine months later when …

Delilah – by Eleanor de Jong

Synopsis: Maligned as the courtesan who revealed the mighty Samson's secret for money, Delilah has become synonymous with treachery. But behind the myth is a tale far more tragic… From the moment they met, there was a fire in their relationship, with Samson pitted against Delilah's family. But Samson soon develops an overwhelming passion for Delilah; …

Remarkable Creatures – by Tracy Chevalier

Synopsis: In the early nineteenth century, a windswept beach along the English coast brims with fossils for those with the eye… From the moment she’s struck by lightning as a baby, it is clear Mary Anning is different. Her discovery of strange fossilized creatures in the cliffs of Lyme Regis sets the world alight. But Mary …

Falling Angels – by Tracy Chevalier

Synopsis: January 1901, the day after Queen Victoria's death: two families visit neighbouring graves in a fashionable London cemetery. One is decorated with a sentimental angel, the other an elaborate urn. The Waterhouses revere the late Queen and cling to Victorian traditions; the Colemans look forward to a more modern society. To their mutual distaste, the …