Head to the Scottish Highlands in the best Historical fiction out this month: The
The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona MacLean (Quercus £20, 528pp)
The Cromarty Library Circle is available now
It’s 1831 in the gossipy, close-knit port town of Cromarty on the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands, and the times they are a-changing.
Against a tumultuous backdrop – an encroaching cholera epidemic, farm evictions, political unease and the campaign to abolish British slavery in the Caribbean – MacLean’s fascinating characters go about their lives with such vividness that they leap off the page.
Broken-hearted, fragile Charlotte, unhappily married to the laird, looks for love; snippety Miss Elspeth keeps her flighty sister Anna in check, and the lovely, elderly Mr Fordyce sparks joy, in contrast to spoiled, villainous Fachie Hossack who spreads misery.
It’s a riveting portrait of a small community slowly transforming as the wider world begins to upend its old ways.
The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall (The Borough Press £18.99, 432pp)
War, womanhood and family bonds are the touchstones of this powerful debut about the Armstrong twins.
Inseparable as children, Theo – loyal, courageous and conflicted – and Tessa – fast, brave and reckless – are sundered by their own secrets and the demands of the outside world as the Second World War looms.
Theo joins the RAF but Tessa takes on a more covert role – dropping into occupied France as part of the Special Operations Executive to act as a courier for the Resistance.
It’s the emotional intensity – where love battles against tragedy and wrongdoing – that makes this so special.
Mrs Pearcey by Lottie Moggach (Phoenix £20, 416pp)
Mrs Pearcey is available now
THIS compulsive fourth novel by Moggach retells the story of a now forgotten murder in north London as seen through the eyes of intrepid Hannah Teale, a young woman who’s just become engaged to Cosmo, an ambitious journalist. The crime in question is the brutal slaying of a mother and her child by the enigmatic Mrs Pearcey, and Hannah finds herself morbidly fascinated by the murderess after a chance encounter with her.
Moggach makes much of the 1890s setting, with bustling London streets and nosy passersby, all enthralled by the speculation and scurrilous detail peddled by newspaper hawkers on every corner.
Hannah, unsure about her future, begins her own unsettling investigation – an uneasy endeavour that throws up as many questions as it answers.