HISTORICAL | Daily Mail Online

There’s much fun to be had in this delicious debut by Hay, as a bunch of brave but undervalued servants plan a bold burglary

HISTORICAL

THE HOUSE KEEPERS 

by Alex Hay (Headline Review £16.99, 416pp)

There’s much fun to be had in this delicious debut by Hay, as a bunch of brave but undervalued servants plan a bold burglary.

The swanky House of De Vries on Park Lane is their intended target and their aim is to strip the gaudy mansion of everything, from the silver teaspoons in the kitchen drawers to the glittering chandeliers.

Money is an incentive, but the real motivation behind the audacious heist is slowly revealed.

The gilded house is hiding some very dark secrets, and dismissed housekeeper Mrs King and her loyal crack squad, which includes an aspiring actress, a gifted seamstress and an organisational genius, are determined to right the wrongs of the past, while committing the crime of the century.

Fast paced and inventive, it’s a rip-roaring tale of revenge and righteous restitution.

London fog, the smell of damp wallpaper in small rooms and Woodbine smoke evoke the mood in Moylan’s evocative second novel

73 DOVE STREET 

by Julie Owen Moylan (Michael Joseph £16.99, 400pp)

London fog, the smell of damp wallpaper in small rooms and Woodbine smoke evoke the mood in Moylan’s evocative second novel.

Set in post-war London, where bomb-shattered houses still stand, it looks at the lives of three damaged but highly resilient working- class women.

There’s nervy, anxious Edie Budd, who arrives at the titular boarding house clutching a small, broken suitcase and a big wad of money, and who’s on the run from a dangerous past — unspooled in vivid, tense flashbacks —while facing a blank future.

Fellow lodger Tommie, of ‘sharp wits and weary eyes’, loves the seedy Soho nightlife and a man who doesn’t love her back, while redoubtable landlady Phyllis is still reeling from a past sorrow.

Psychologically astute and emotionally absorbing, this is a heartfelt read.

Dedicated to ‘the women who fell victim to the 1645-7 East Anglian witch-hunt’, Meyer’s mesmerising debut heads to the claustrophobic rural community of Cleftwater, where lives are hardscrabble, neighbours are suspicious and the sea tries to encroach on the land

THE WITCHING TIDE 

by Margaret Meyer (Phoenix £16.99, 336pp)

Dedicated to ‘the women who fell victim to the 1645-7 East Anglian witch-hunt’, Meyer’s mesmerising debut heads to the claustrophobic rural community of Cleftwater, where lives are hardscrabble, neighbours are suspicious and the sea tries to encroach on the land.

When a stranger arrives – the sinister Silas Makepeace – the careful lives of the inhabitants are upended as he carries out his plan to rid the village of evil.

At his behest, innocent women are accused of witchcraft and tortured in the hope of extracting a confession.

Forced into helping Makepeace search for the devil’s mark, midwife, healer and herbalist Martha Hallybread turns to her troubled mother’s witching doll in an attempt to turn the tide of their fates, but instead invites danger ever closer.

Bleak, beautiful and enraging, it’s a haunting story of persecution and the abuse of power.