Historical fiction

London, 1861: Ten-year-old Nell belongs to a crew of mudlarks who work a stretch of the Thames along the Ratcliffe Highway. An orphan since her mother died four years past, leaving Nell with only broken dreams and a pair of satin slippers in her possession, she spends her days dredging up coals, ...

A princess enslaved becomes goddaughter to a queen. By the time she was seven years old, Aina had been born into life as an Egbado princess, witnessed the brutal killing of her entire family, and had been enslaved to a rival chieftain. With a death sentence hanging over her head, she would also f...

Early 1952. As a telephonist in the Royal Household, Helen Hill hears many private conversations on a daily basis. And whilst the sad death of King George preoccupies the minds of those around her, Helen is battling with some difficult family news alone. When she meets Jake, a dashing journalist,...

Almeyda, born on a Brazilian slave plantation, is seven when Father Tollinaire teaches her to read - though only the books that he allows, and only in the pronunciation he dictates. Like her mother, she becomes a house servant, spared the labour of the fields. But when the master offers the young...

Enter a world of prostitutes and samurais in 12th century Japan. Kozaisho, the fifth-daughter of a lowly farmer, feels her world shattering when she is sold by her father in exchange for land. Heartbroken, her one ray of light comes when a series of auspicious omens allows her to be trained as a ...

Summer 1914. A world on the brink of catastrophe. In London, 26-year-old Venetia Stanley - aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless - is having a love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of sta...

Shakespeare fed us the myth of the Macbeths as murderous conspirators. But now Val McDermid drags the truth out of the shadows, exposing the patriarchal prejudices of history. Expect the unexpected. A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three compan...

1338: England has declared war on France, and Jeanette of Kent, cousin to King Edward III, says goodbye to her family and travels overseas with the royal court for the first time. Once in Antwerp, she is captivated by talented household knight Thomas Holland, just as he in turn is powerfully draw...

It's 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is well and truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home, Isabel's life is as it should be: led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her b...

Bella is born into a life of comfort and privilege, with parents who adore her. They encourage her to travel and to speak her mind. But when she falls in love it reveals a long-buried secret at the very centre of her family. The layers of deception lead to tragedy, destroying all she holds so dea...