Showing results by publisher "Soundings" in Historical Fiction

Rose McQuinn has agreed to help her neighbour, Mrs. Lawer, by delivering what she claims to be a family legacy to her only living relative. But Rose’s philanthropic journey takes a turn towards the dangerous when she herself is attacked on a train and Mrs. Lawer and her maid are found dead upon her return to Edinburgh. Investigating further, Rose finds links to Royal history, the theatre world, and her own home in Solomon’s Tower. Balancing the murder investigation along with her obligations to family and friends, Rose discovers ties that seem to reveal that the past has not completely left the present.

The year is 1861 and Inspector Faro is heading back to Orkney to enjoy some home comforts. However, his rest is disrupted when he is given an assignment from an old friend, Detective Superintendent Macfie. Macfie’s cousin-in-law, Dave Claydon, a champion swimmer, has drowned in mysterious circumstances. Was his death really an accident? Arriving in Orkney, Faro is met with rumours of missing artefacts, the myth of the seal king, a dead body, his first love, and a mother who is determined to find him a wife.

Blanche Longhurst is a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary, delivering Spitfires from factories to air bases around the country during World War Two. She believes herself to be safe from the direct conflict but during one routine trip, bad weather causes her to lose her bearings and projects her into activities that go against her sense of morality. She finds herself in another war, in another country where the anti-Nazi offensive is filled with subterfuge and personal betrayal.

Cambridge, 1924. Detective Inspector John Redfyre’s dog discovers a corpse in the graveyard adjoining St. Jude's College. An army greatcoat and wellworn boots suggest the dead man may have been a former soldier, though the empty bottle of brandy and a card bearing the words 'An Invitation to Dine' on the victim ring a discordant note. Even more unsettling is the autopsy, which reveals death by strangulation and unusual contents in the stomach from the man's last meal.

When Joanna Hart came into his office, enquiry agent Dan Markham thought it would be an easy case. All the blonde with red lips and swinging hips wanted was to know if her husband was unfaithful. But when the man is killed, Markham's involvement makes him suspect number one. As the evidence piles against him, he realises someone has set him up. In a deadly game, Markham has to battle to keep his client and himself alive.

The Hall family live under the brooding shadow of the Black Mountains, in the mining town of Hillsbridge. Charlotte, James and their seven children are independent spirits, united by strong family values. Living in a mining community is never easy, and when the shadow of impending war threatens, they must pull together to face the hardship to come. Can this close-knit family overcome whatever tragedy life throws at them?

When a woman is burned to death in Grandal Field in Devon, it seems like a case of mistaken identity. Until DI Wesley Peterson learns of a legend involving a French woman who burned to death there in the 13th century. And when he discovers that records of a previous excavation on the site have vanished, and that two archaeologists involved in that dig died in tragic circumstances, Wesley starts to investigate the possibility of a link between the legend and recent events.

Little Marcus Fallbrook was kidnapped in 1976 and, when he never returned home, his grieving family assumed the worst. Now, 30 years later, teenager Leah Wakefield has disappeared and DI Wesley Peterson has reason to suspect that the same kidnapper is responsible. As Wesley delves into the case, his friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, discovers a mystery of his own when he exhumes the dead from a local churchyard. A coffin is found containing one corpse too many and Neil believes it may be linked to a strange religious sect.

Elsie Weir is trying hard to keep her family together. Living in Kiltie Street tenement in Glasgow with her mother and little sister, Jessie, isn't easy - not least because her mother spends most days in a drunken stupor. But life gets harder still when their mother dies suddenly, leaving Jessie and Elsie broken-hearted. The future looks bleak, until their mother's estranged family deigns to take them in. But their relief is short-lived as it becomes clear the Mearns family have taken in the orphan sisters only for appearances, treating them cruelly behind closed doors.

In Victorian London, race-walking, or 'wobbles', is all the rage. So on a Monday morning in November 1879, the crowds gather for Islington's bizarre six-day endurance walking race. By Tuesday, one of the contestants is dead. Tetanus from a blister is assumed, but then there is a second death, and this time it's definitely murder. A bemused Sergeant Cribb from Scotland Yard is called in, along with Constable Thackeray, and they soon discover that something foul is at play.

Oxfordshire, 1947. Exhausted by the war and nursing a tragic secret, Kit Smallwood flees to Wickam Farm to recuperate. There she throws herself into helping set up a charity sending midwives to India. Then Kit meets Anto, a handsome, complicated but charming trainee doctor nearing the end of his English education, and she falls utterly in love. But when Anto informs his family that he is to return home with an English bride, his parents are appalled.

England, 1315. Famine and unrest spread across the country, and when Sir William Bradshaigh joins Adam Banastre’s rebellion against their overlord, the earl of Lancaster, things do not go to plan. Sir William is lucky to escape with his life after a battle at Preston and, as a wanted man, has no choice but to become an outlaw. Meanwhile the lands at Haigh are forfeit to the king and are given to Sir Peter Lymesey for a year and a day, and Lady Mabel Bradshaigh must make a hard choice if she is to protect her children and herself.

It was on the boar hunt that the Lady Joanna injured her arm – saving a nine-year-old page from the charging beast. And there – in the forest – there was no one to help her…other than the Hermit…He was like no other hermit she had ever seen – he was young, strong and dark – and vowed to silence. His name was Keren, but he was always called the Hermit…

Britain stands alone against the forces of Revolutionary France. A victorious French Army, led by the youthful Napoleon Bonaparte, is poised to invade Britain. And in his country's darkest hour, Captain Nathan Peake finds himself imprisoned by his own side on the Rock of Gibraltar - charged with treason. To prove his innocence Nathan must uncover the great deception that masks the French war aims. Is the great armada being assembled in Toulon bound for the shores of Great Britain - or Egypt?

1796: Nathan Peake, captain of the frigate Unicorn is sent with a small squadron to help bring Venice into an Italian alliance against the French. He establishes a British naval presence, harrying the French corsairs that swarm out of Ancona. While Nathan confronts the politics in Venice, his mission is further complicated by the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, Junot. Meanwhile, in Venice, French troops move into the city. Nathan learns that Bonaparte is negotiating a peace deal with the Austrians - Britain's only remaining ally. Worse, the Spanish are about to ally with the French.

Having been deceived by her father and her fiance, Jenefer Trevanion values honesty above all things. After losing her father and her home in a devastating fire, Jenefer supports herself by book-keeping for various businesses in the Cornish village of Porthinnis and acting as agent for the Guernsey merchants who supply local smugglers. But her independence appalls the village’s well-to-do families.

1904, London. Lydia Daye adores her husband John, but his secret government job means he is often away. She consoles herself with her small son, Adam, and the knowledge that John's salary allows them to live comfortably. Dolly Ellerway lives just two miles away, but in a different world. Pregnant, she is delighted when the father of her child says he'll marry her, even though he can barely afford it.

Damned by leprosy, Richard FitzEustace must leave his home and family forever. Condemned to shun the company of others he seeks a place of solitude where he can find forgiveness for sins committed in the Holy Land. One more family obligation remains: a secret promise to his grandmother that he will seek out her kinsman, Sir Robert de Lcy, and press her claim to his estate. Meanwhile, headstrong young Johanna FitzEustace, is distraught.

St Petersburg, 1879. A shot rings out in Palace Square. Cossack guards tackle the would-be assassin to the ground. In the mêlée no one notices a striking dark haired young woman in a heavy coat slip away from the scene. Russia is alive with revolutionaries. While Tsar Alexander II remains a virtual prisoner in his own palaces, his ruthless secret police will stop at nothing to unmask those who plot his assassination and the overthrow of the Imperial regime.

Evelyn Pendragon is spirited but lonely and largely ignored by her parents, whose attentions are taken up with her brother, Nicholas: the expected heir to the family’s Cornish estate and the one who will carry on the Pendragon name. Stifled by her aristocratic existence, Evelyn finds companionship in an unlikely place when she befriends Drake Vennor, an apprentice gardener on the estate. But when Evelyn’s life is thrown into turmoil by a tragedy, she realises just how much she has come to rely on Drake.