Charlotte Strevens

Mrs Laetitia Rodd is the impoverished widow of an Archdeacon, living modestly in Hampstead with her landlady Mrs Bentley. She is also a private detective of the utmost discretion. In winter 1850, her brother Frederick, a criminal barrister, introduces her to Sir James Calderstone, a wealthy and powerful industrialist who asks Mrs Rodd to investigate the background of an 'unsuitable' woman his son intends to marry ? a match he is determined to prevent....

Italy, 1819. Emilia Barton and her mother Sarah live a nomadic existence, travelling from town to town as itinerant dressmakers to escape their past. When they settle in the idyllic coastal town of Pesaro, Emilia desperately hopes that, this time, they have found a permanent home. But when Sarah is brutally attacked by an unknown assailant, a deathbed confession turns Emilia's world upside down. Seeking refuge as a dressmaker in the eccentric household...

Crossbones Yard was a burial ground once. Now it's wasteland, tucked away in the back streets of Borough beneath the shadow of the Shard. The perfect place to leave a body. Alice Quentin finds the murder victim lying there - the woman's hand outstretched, as if begging for her help. A psychologist who sometimes works with the Metropolitan police, Alice is no stranger to sick minds. But this case is worse than anything she's seen before, and the killer...

Clare Riordan and her son Mikey are abducted from Clapham Common early one morning. Hours later, the boy is found wandering disorientated. Soon after, a pack of Clare's blood is left on a doorstep in the heart of the City of London. Alice Quentin is brought in to help the traumatised child uncover his memories - which might lead them to his mother's captors. But she swiftly realises Clare is not the first victim - nor will she be the last. The killers...

Through the Churchills' 'wilderness years' in the 1930s, to Clementine's desperate efforts to preserve her husband's health during the struggle against Hitler, Sonia Purnell presents the inspiring but often ignored story of one of the most important women in modern history.

Hyderabad, India. 1798. Beatrice Sinclair, a grieving young widow facing financial destitution, has travelled from Hampshire to Hyderabad to visit her brother, an employee of the British East India Company. There, she is astonished to discover that he has married a beautiful Indian girl and lives with his wife's extended family in a dilapidated palace, the Jahanara Mahal - famed for the theft of a fabled diamond many years ago. As an outsider in an...

Klara Mortimer never really knew her mother, Sadie, a former model, who left when she was just six years old. All she has is a handful of stories, passed down from the father who raised her. Klara tells herself she has long ago come to terms with her mother's disappearance from her life, but then she receives a note and key which lead her to a garage, full of the remnants of her mother's past, and to the diary she kept all those years ago. Within...

A guide to the world of the heroines, heroes and villains featured in Georgette Heyer's historical novels written in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as an overview of the history, culture, society and politics of the period Heyer wrote about.

The year is 1140 and England is torn by the strife of civil war. After her village is raided, Catrin is rescued by Oliver Pascal and taken to Bristol Castle. There she meets Ethel, who offers to teach her the art of midwifery.

Bombs were falling all over Britain... For one young Londoner in a children's home - Queenie Clapton - it might have been the end of the world. Yet swiftly evacuated Queenie, along with the other children taken up by the Waifs and Strays Society, escaped the shattered streets. Instead, she found herself invited into the stately home of Dorothy Peyton, a recently widowed Lady in Waiting. There, under the formidable guidance of Matron Bailey, Queenie...