Historical Fiction Archives

River East, River West

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE STANFORDS FICTION WITH A SENSE OF PLACE AWARD 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025
FINALIST FOR THE MAYA ANGELOU BOOK AWARD 2024
LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2025

Shanghai, 2007: feeling betrayed by her American mother’s engagement to their rich landlord Lu Fang, fourteen-year-old Alva begins plotting her escape. But the exclusive American School – a potential ticket out – is not what she imagined.

Qingdao, 1985: newlywed Lu Fang works as a lowly shipping clerk. Though he aspires to a bright future, he is one of many casualties of harsh political reforms. Then China opens up to foreigners and capital, and Lu Fang meets a woman who makes him question what he should settle for…

A mesmerising reversal of the east–west immigrant narrative set against China’s economic boom, River East, River West is a deeply moving exploration of race, identity and family, of capitalism’s false promise and private dreams.

The Secret Christmas

December, 1653, England. The Puritan parliament has outlawed the celebration of Christmas and while shops must stay open every day, the theatres have been forced to close their doors.

The Hawthorne family have been allowed to return to their ancestral home, Measham Hall, just in time for Christmas. This is only after Sir Nicholas Hawthorne has reluctantly agreed to take an oath of loyalty to the Commonwealth. When a theatre troupe begging alms turn up on their doorstep, the family’s Catholic traditions of hospitality and charity dictate they must welcome the strangers in, despite the risks involved. These magical and exuberant guests transform Christmas at Measham Hall into a secret celebration, filled with theatrical performances, music and bountiful banquets, much to the delight of the children, William and Alethea.

This festive prequel to The Master of Measham Hall is a delightful tale of a small rebellion and sows the seed for decisions William and Alethea will make in years to come.

The Prisoner of Measham Hall

1690. England is in crisis – the new protestant King William III has embarked on wars in France and Ireland, inflation is rampant and the price of corn is causing riots.

At Measham Hall, Sir William Hawthorne faces a predicament of his own: his loyal steward has died, and he must find another. His problems appear to have been solved when the charming Mr Goodwyn arrives with a mysterious letter of recommendation and takes up the post. But soon, to the rest of the household’s dismay, Goodwyn appears to have both Sir William and the estate dancing to his tune.

Meanwhile, Sir William’s heir, Nicholas, is in Ireland fighting against the Williamite troops. But Nicholas is playing a dangerous game as double agent, risking both his love and his life. When one battle is over, he must return to Measham Hall to fight another and defeat an old foe in a new guise or lose Measham Hall forever…

Eliza Mace

In the first of a thrilling new Victorian detective series, Eliza Mace, on the cusp of adulthood, is battling for her independence. Stuck in a crumbling manor house in the Welsh borders in the 1870s, she is thwarted by powers that conspire to protect, control and deceive her. But when her father goes missing in mysterious circumstances, Eliza’s determination to uncover the truth is unstoppable.

Joining forces with the charismatic new police constable, Dafydd Pritchard, she sets out to solve the case, but that’s no easy task. Her father has run up debts in town and beyond, and there are many who bear him a grudge. As she searches for evidence, Eliza exposes dark secrets that threaten to tear her world apart…

Sinners of Starlight City

FROM INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR ANIKA SCOTT

Madame Mystique is a performer extraordinaire, come to work her scandalous magic at the glittering 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Of African American and Sicilian heritage, Mystique – aka Rosa Mancuso – and her fellow performers move on the margins. Her ambiguous status serves a hidden vendetta: she awaits the arrival of Paolo Amanta, the dashing pilot sent by Mussolini to dazzle spectators with a phenomenal air show.

Back in Sicily, Paolo’s band of young Fascists had murdered her relatives as the old Mafia families were swept from their palazzi with unsparing brutality. Rosa is fixed on revenge. Then her estranged cousin, Mina, comes to the Fair, begging her help to face down their American family. Sinners of Starlight City is an immersive story of injustice, retribution and redemption that asks: who decides who we are and where we belong?

The Messenger of Measham Hall

For Nicholas Hawthorne, the Catholic heir to Measham Hall in Derbyshire, subterfuge is part of everyday life. But there are deeper and darker secrets even than his family’s outlawed religion: why is his father, Sir William, so reclusive? What became of his mother, and his aunt Alethea? And who fatally betrayed his cousin Matthew?

Nicholas is determined to find out, but as England slides towards invasion by the Protestant forces of Prince William of Orange, he becomes entangled in conspiracies within King James’s court – and soon learns that both truth and love come at a high price.

Hester

A dazzlingly inventive tale of troubled legacies, desire and unsung power, inspired by The Scarlet Letter.

Glasgow, 1829: Isobel, a young seamstress, and her husband Edward set sail for New England, in flight from his mounting debts and addictions. But, arriving in Salem, Massachusetts, Edward soon takes off again, and Isobel finds herself penniless and alone.

Then she meets Nathaniel, a fledgling writer, and the two are instantly drawn to each other: he is haunted by his ancestors, who sent innocent women to the gallows during the Salem witch trials – while she is an unusually gifted needleworker, troubled by her own strange talents. Nathaniel and Isobel grow ever closer. Together, they are dark storyteller and muse; enchanter and enchanted. But which is which?

The Ten Thousand Things

In the turbulent final years of the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Meng is a minor bureaucrat in the government of the Mongol conquerors. He is also an extraordinarily gifted artist whose paintings capture the infinite expanse of China’s natural beauty. But an empire in turmoil is not a place or time for sitting still. On his journeys across the realm, Wang encounters fellow master painters, a fierce female warrior known as the White Tigress who recruits him as a military strategist, and an unprepossessing young Buddhist monk who rises from beggary to extraordinary heights.

John Spurling’s award-winning The Ten Thousand Things seamlessly fuses the epic and the intimate with the precision and depth that the real-life Wang Meng brought to his art.

Black Butterflies

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILBUR SMITH PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2023

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Sarajevo, spring 1992. Each night, nationalist gangs erect barricades, splitting the diverse city into ethnic enclaves; each morning, the residents – whether Muslim, Croat or Serb – push the makeshift barriers aside.

When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. Reluctant to believe that hostilities will last more than a handful of weeks, she stays behind while the city falls under siege. As the assault deepens and everything they love is laid to waste, black ashes floating over the rooftops, Zora and her friends are forced to rebuild themselves, over and over. Theirs is a breathtaking story of disintegration, resilience and hope.

The Complete Fairy Stories of Oscar Wilde

‘Triumphs of the imagination’ Stephen Fry

The treasured fairy tales of Oscar Wilde in a stunning gift edition featuring exquisite illustrations by the celebrated artist Philippe Jullian with an afterword by Wilde’s son, Vyvyan Holland. For nearly 150 years, the classic fairy stories of Oscar Wilde have been cherished by readers of all ages. Rediscover all nine of the stories first published in The Happy Prince and other stories (1888) and A House of Pomegranates (1891).

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