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.

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.

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.

HISTORICAL

NOTHING LEFT TO FEAR FROM HELL 

by Alan Warner (Polygon £10, 128pp)

Alan Warner, of Morvern Callar fame, heads back into Scottish history to the aftermath of the bruising Battle of Culloden, April 1746, as Edward Charles Stuart — Bonnie Prince Charlie, Italian aristocrat and pretender to the throne of England, Ireland and Scotland — takes flight to the remote islands of the Hebrides.

Routed and rootless, dismayed at the sight of sacked crofts and butchered animals, but unable to connect the destruction with his own provocative presence in the country, Warner’s midge-bitten, melancholy Charlie is a wonderfully contradictory character.

By turns funny and furious, raucous and rueful, Warner unravels this story of abject failure with winning aplomb, as the Bonnie Prince dons the disguise of an ‘Irish hooley’ and bestrides the marshy, heathery ground in a skirt, philosophically musing on his lot while he waits for his rescue.

RIVERS OF TREASON 

by K.J. Maitland (Headline £22, 432pp)

K.J. Maitland’s third Daniel Pursglove novel heads into familiarly dangerous territory.

As ever, dashing Daniel is caught up in a complex web of plots and counter-plots, including his on-going pursuit of the mysterious Gun Powder plotter Spero Pettinger, the thwarting of a further attempt on the life of King James at an elaborate royal masque and his own personal mission — revealing the identity of a ruthless killer who recreates the gallows mark that graces Daniel’s neck.

Brimful of malice, machinations and gruesome deaths, this is a shadowy novel of spies and double-agents, underworld brothel keepers and religious dissenters, where nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted.

It makes for an exciting, conspiratorial read, even if the bigger picture remains as obscure to the reader as to the puzzled Pursglove.

THE LONDON SÉANCE SOCIETY 

by Sarah Penner (Legend £14.99, 288pp)

Lenna Wickes is attempting to put aside scientific reasoning in favour of mysterious mediumship under the tutelage of the alluring Vaudeline D’Allaire — a student-teacher relationship that seethes with sexual tension.

Renowned for her skill in channelling the spirits of murder victims so they can disclose the identity of their killers, Lenna is hoping that Vaudeline will discover the truth behind the violent deaths of her beloved younger sister, Evie, and also Mr M.Volckman, president of the London Séance Society — the last at the behest of the officious Mr. Morley, vice president of the Department of Spiritualism.

But as the story progresses, heading from a ruined chateau on the outskirts of Paris to London’s West End, Lenna and Vaudeline find themselves embroiled in a sinister, far-reaching scheme that threatens their safety, in this gloriously gothic, delightfully atmospheric slice of Victoriana.

HISTORICAL  

THE MAIDEN 

by Kate Foster (Mantle £14.99, 384pp)

The Maiden is the Scottish precursor to the French guillotine, a deadly piece of machinery designed to behead the guilty.

It’s very much in the mind of Lady Christian Nimmo, who has been convicted of murdering her uncle by marriage, the libidinous laird James Forrester, and sentenced to death.

This much is historical fact, but debut author Kate Foster expands the slender facts of the case into something exceptional — a tense, thrilling investigation, with a decidedly feminist slant.

Foster recreates the Edinburgh of 1679 with great aplomb. A mucky, malodorous place, where a man’s sexual proclivities are a given and a woman’s are judged immoral, as revealed by the testimony of fierce Christian and the irrepressible Violet, a prostitute, who’s all too familiar with Forrester, the world and its ways.

SPARROW 

by James Hynes (Picador £16.99, 464pp)

Sparrow is ‘a twiggy-limbed, knock-kneed boy treading as softly as he can’ through the rowdy streets of New Carthage in Spain.

He’s a slave with an unknown past, a harrowing present and a future that already looks bedimmed to his curious eyes, as he takes in his surroundings — the kitchen, the tavern and the upstairs brothel, which is his home and the site of his captivity.

‘A product of rape, murder, bastardy. . . I am the empire in a nutshell’, his fellow prostitutes — ‘the wolves’ — are both protective and pragmatic about his fate: his life will indeed be abusive, violent and unpredictable.

They offer companionship and a kind of stability, until manipulative Melpomene takes matters into her own hands — and with murderous consequences. It’s a bleak and brutal story, vividly told by Hynes, who has created a truly unforgettable character in the resilient Sparrow.

THE RED BIRD SINGS 

by Aoife Fitzpatrick (Virago £16.99, 336pp)

This stunning debut opens on a sweltering day in the Greenbrier County Circuit Court in 1897, where blacksmith Trout Shue is on trial for the murder of his wife Zona, three months after their marriage.

Based on a true story and meticulously researched, Fitzpatrick unspools an uneasy shimmering tale of coercive control, spiritualism and staunch friendship.

It’s a brilliant take on Southern Gothic, honing in on the central suffocating relationship, the mysterious death of Zona and a local population who side with the accused.

Add in an unconventional mother, Mary Jane, who believes she can channel her departed daughter’s spirit, and an obstinate, feminist best friend, Lucy, who’s determined to bring the truth to light whatever the personal cost, and you have a novel that simmers with suspense and suspicion.

. . . are you reading now?

The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, a memoir about the year following the death of her husband, during which her only daughter was critically ill in hospital.

It’s a meditation on love and loss, threaded with recollections from family life across the decades.

I’ve just finished Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, which involves a pandemic, but focuses on the human stories.

I loved it — beautiful writing, strong characterisation and a killer premise.

. . . would you take to a desert island?

If there’s a fair prospect of rescue, I’ll take the latest Sally Hepworth. Her suspense novels are always funny, clever, twisty and genuinely unputdownable.

If, however, I’m going to be stuck on the island for ever, I’d be inclined to take something by which to remember humanity in all its light and shade.

The complete works of Shakespeare would be a good option, with the added bonus that it can be read aloud.

. . . first gave you the reading bug?

The first non-picture book I can remember owning was The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. I read it from front to back, then started again. At the time I lived in a wooden stilt house by a rainforest, so it seemed possible I might discover my own Faraway Tree, full of fairy folk, if I searched hard enough.

. . . left you cold?

I used to feel a duty to finish every book, but reading shouldn’t be a sufferance and my to-be-read pile is now so large I’m using it as a bedside table.

• Homecoming by Kate Morton is published by Pan Macmillan, £20.