Tag Archives: Historical Fiction

Location, Location, Location: The Sicilian Secret.

Book Review, Guest Post, Location!, , , , , , , , , ,
Today, I am delighted to welcome the lovely Angela Petch to my blog as she discusses the location of her latest novel, The Sicilian Secret. Over to you, Angela …

I always feel readier to write if I know where exactly I am setting my characters. My latest book, published April 23rd, has Sicily as an important location. Luckily, I lived on this beautiful island in my 20s. Quite some time ago. So, a reminder was needed. In May last year my husband and I visited the south-eastern corner, to research where the allied landings had taken place on the night of July 9th to 10th 1943 in Operation Husky.


What a coincidence that fifty years ago I had lived only a stone’s throw from this beach when I was working for a construction company. Little did I realise that one day I would revisit this coastline, not to swim and waterski as in the past, but to gain a better picture of where my characters would land and do battle.


I had read about this event but I hadn’t understood how hard the terrain had been for troops to negotiate and some of my descriptions were altered afterwards. The cliffs were higher, the sea pounding onto tufa rock, sharp and treacherous underfoot. A very hostile environment. I took video footage for publicity but it was impossible to hear my words over the raging wind. James Holland in his excellent book, Sicily ’43, describes the “heavy swell” and choppy seas, how “vomit filled the flooded bottoms of the LCA.” (Landing craft). There was confusion in the darkness and standing on the cliffs in that buffeting wind made it so much easier for me to later revise my chapter.


Fortune smiled on this author when I had started to speak to a young Sicilian. Like us, he had been turned away from the footpath leading to the cliffs by an officious security guard. We chatted. I told him how disappointed I was; how I was writing a book partly set in World War Two and to my delight he opened the boot of his FIAT and produced several history books. He was passionate about the events of war along this particular corner of coastline. His grandfather had fought on that very night and his accounts had sparked a deep interest ever since.

‘We’ll wait a little until the guard has gone off duty and then I’ll take you to see the remains of the barracks and guns.”

Gold dust. He guided us down steps into bunkers, the walls still relatively clean after eighty years, some bearing lines of propaganda written by Mussolini’s men. There were bullet and shrapnel holes in the walls and all of a sudden my head was filled with the sounds and scenes of battle. Giovanni was invaluable to me that windy afternoon and we have remained friends.


Reading through my words for Carol’s blog, it sounds as if I have written a history book. Yes, there are real events woven into The Sicilian Secret, but the story is fictitious. It features the oldest story: of love. There is intrigue, loss and a mystery to solve. My characters may not have really existed but I hope they feel real to readers. They do to me and that is partly because I have set them in real locations.

Thank you so much for the wonderful post, Angela. Your characters certainly felt real to me and I am happy to share my review below. xx
About the book:


Italy, 1943. With war raging across the rugged cliffs and turquoise waters of his beloved Sicily, Savio’s pen scrawls desperately across the page. His letter must be sent in secret – or his life will be in terrible danger…

England, present day. Paige is devastated when her reclusive but beloved Aunt Florence dies – the only family she’s ever known. Inheriting her crumbling cottage, Paige finds an unfinished note. ‘I am sorry, Paige. It’s time to tell you everything. It all began in Sicily…’

Beside the note is a faded envelope – addressed to a woman called Joy – with an Italian postage stamp from 1943. The letter inside is made up of Roman numerals and snippets of sentences written in Italian. But who is Joy? Was someone sending a coded message? Paige is desperate to piece together the truth. But she soon discovers it will change everything she’s ever believed about her aunt, and her family history.

1943. Lady Joy Harrison may have grown up in a manor house, but she’s determined to fight for what’s right and use her fluent Italian to help the Allies. Breaking code on a long night shift, Joy reads a secret message that makes her wholebody shake. A dark-eyed young man she once loved is in terrible danger on the shores of Sicily. Was the message sent by him? And will she ever see him again – or will the war tear them apart for good?

An absolutely heartbreaking and stunning timesplit historical novel about how wartime secrets can stretch across the generations, and the incredible bravery of ordinary people in the darkest of times. Fans of The Nightingale, Fiona Valpy and Lucinda Riley will be captivated.

My review:

Angela Petch’s latest novel, The Sicilian Secret, intertwines the gripping narratives of a World War II romance and a family mystery discovered in the 1970s. I liked and became invested in the characters and felt compelled to read on as they navigated love, loss, and intrigue as the story unfolded.

The author’s meticulous research shines through, enriching the narrative with immersive historical detail. The writing vividly captures the essence of war and the alluring charm of 1970s Sicily. The plot kept me engrossed from start to finish, though I wanted a little more insight into how things developed for the characters after the final chapter. (Perhaps I did not want to let the story go.)

The Sicilian Secret is a compelling dual-timeline novel with an engaging blend of romance and mystery. I greatly enjoyed it.

Discover more and purchase here | audio link.

About the author:

Published by Bookouture, Angela Petch is an award-winning writer of fiction – and the occasional poem.

Every summer she moves to Tuscany for six months where she and her husband own a renovated watermill which they let out. When not exploring their unspoilt corner of the Apennines, she disappears to her writing desk at the top of a converted stable. In her Italian handbag or hiking rucksack she always makes sure to store notebook and pen to jot down ideas.

The winter months are spent in Sussex where most of her family live. When Angela’s not helping out with grandchildren, she catches up with writer friends.

Angela’s gripping WWII novels set in Italy are published by Bookouture. While her novel, Mavis and Dot, was self-published and tells of the frolics and foibles of two best-friends who live by the seaside. Angela also writes short stories published in Prima and People’s Friend.

Discover more about Angela Petch and her writing here: Facebook | Twitter | website | Amazon | Instagram

Want a free romance read for the weekend? Download The Purrfect Pet Sitter free on Kindle today (26/4/24) available here.

Meet Three Characters from To The Wild Horizon.

Guest Post, Meet Three Characters, , , , , , , , ,
Today, I am delighted to welcome Imogen Martin to introduce three characters from her latest novel To the Wild Horizon. Over to you, Imogen …

Thank you for inviting me onto your blog Carol.

To The Wild Horizon is my second historical romance and came out in February. It is the story of the Oregon Trail: the pioneer journey from the Midwest to the Pacific coast. Whilst I did plenty of research to get the details right, at its heart this is a slow-burn romance. Here’s an introduction to three characters.

Grace Sinclair

Grace is brave, determined and resourceful. Her parents have died and the most important thing for her is to take her brother Tom to join their older brother who has settled in Oregon. While preparing to leave, Grace shoots her landlord in self-defence. Fearful that being arrested would leave Tom, a twelve-year-old with no-one to protect him, she decides to join the next train leaving town. As the army captain in charge will not let single women travel alone, she pretends to be married. Inevitably, this lie catches up with her.

I loved writing Grace. She has many of the characteristics I admire in a woman. She is hard working, prepared to endure hardship, and helps her fellow pioneers whenever she can. Importantly, she is brave enough to challenge male expectations about what a woman should and shouldn’t be. Grace has many skills: being able to handle a gun is one of the most important.

Captain James Randolph

Whilst Randolph may be tall, dark and handsome, there is no getting round the fact that he’s a misogynist. As the story progresses, the things that shaped his personality are revealed. Initially he’s furious that Grace has deceived him but she talks him into a deal that might let her travel further. He watches her each day in hope that she will fail, but instead begins to fall in love with her. High moral standards are important to Randolph, so he is troubled by his feelings, as he still believes she is a married woman.

Randolph is partly based on a historical figure Captain Randolph B Marcy (as my favourite romantic hero is Mr. Darcy, I thought the coincidence of the name was encouraging). Captain Marcy travelled the Oregon Trails many times and wrote an important book much used by pioneers: “The Prairie Traveler: a handbook for overland expeditions.”

I use images of actors when writing, and this shot of Tom Hughes playing Prince Albert helped me visualise Captain Randolph.

Jane Eliot

Jane is a shy young woman, aged 19. She has a beautiful older sister who sets her cap at Captain Randolph. Jane develops a relationship with Corporal Moore and this leads her to being attacked by an unknown man. Grace puts her own safety at risk in order to find out who the culprit is.

For much of the book, Jane lacks confidence and does not stand up for herself. One of the things I like most are characters who develop over time. In the end, Jane is crucial to the dénouement of the story.

Thank you for the great introduction to your characters, Imogen. I really like the sound of Grace Sinclair. x

About the book:

Missouri, 1846: In the frontier town of Independence the sound of a gunshot shatters the night. As the pistol drops from her hand and clatters to the ground, Grace knows she has no choice but to leave. Now.

In this inspiring and deeply moving story of love, courage and endurance, a young woman on the run from the law sets off on a desperate journey of survival on the treacherous Oregon Trail.

This unputdownable and heart-wrenching historical novel shows the true strength and resilience of a woman’s heart, even when she has everything to lose and the odds are stacked against her. Fans of Kristin Hannah, Amy Harmon and Olivia Hawker will lose themselves in To the Wild Horizon.

What readers say about To the Wild Horizon:

“Incredible!!!!!” Reader review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“One of my favourite reads of the year. I absolutely loved it. A heartwarming, enticing, and intriguing tale of courage, love, compassion and resilience. This story will keep you on edge until the very last page.” Reader review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“I absolutely loved this book. I couldn’t put it down. I couldn’t fall asleep because I had to know what was going to happen next. Incredible… I loved every second.” Reader review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Publisher: Storm Publishing
Publication date: 7.2.2024

Link to purchase: To the Wild Horizon.

About the author:

Imogen Martin writes sweeping, historical fiction. Her first two novels are set in nineteenth century America.

As a teenager, she took the Greyhound bus from San Francisco to New York. Over those three days of staring out of the window at the majestic mountains and endless flat plains, stories wound themselves into her head: tales of brooding, charismatic men captivated by independent women.

Since then, she has worked in a coffee-shop in Piccadilly, a famous bookstore, and a children’s home. She has run festivals, and turned a derelict housing block on one of the poorest estates in the UK into an award-winning arts centre.

During 2020 Imogen was selected by Kate Nash Literary Agency as one of their BookCamp mentees, a mentorship programme designed to accelerate the careers of promising new writers.

Married with two children, Imogen divides her time between Wales and Sardinia.

Discover more about Imogen and her work: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

You can also visit Imogen’s website and join her monthly newsletter. (Sign up to get a FREE map of the Oregon Trail you can look at while reading.)

Location, Location, Location with Angela Petch.

Guest Post, Location!, Writing & Reading, , , , , , , , , ,
It is always a pleasure to have my lovely writing friend Angela Petch as a guest on my blog, so I couldn’t resist inviting her along to talk about the setting of her latest novel, The Girl Who Escaped. Over to you, Angela …

All my novels, bar one, are set in Italy. I love this beautiful country and am fortunate to live in eastern Tuscany for six months each summer. The setting is very important in all my stories and the way my characters interact with their locations is a way of delving into their personalities and anchoring them to a backdrop. “Everybody has to be somewhere,” said Spike Milligan.

I think it’s better to drop details in little by little rather than describing at length: as if the reader is noticing aspects of the setting from the corner of his or her eye.

Panorama of Urbino.

My latest book, The Girl who Escaped, is set mainly in Urbino, a compact Renaissance city in Le Marche region. I know it quite well because my Italian mother-in-law is from Urbino and I married in a tiny hamlet just outside the city.

Revisiting the hamlet of Castel Cavallino, where we married. 

Nevertheless, I still felt the need to walk about with my notebook and camera to record details.

Writing beneath the twin towers of Urbino’s palace.

The young heroine in my new book is Jewish and about to be sent away from her beloved birthplace to a camp. She has already suffered under Mussolini’s racial laws and denied her university place to study medicine. How to describe the places she will miss?

This is an excerpt from Chapter Six, when Devora is struggling to look after her twin brothers on her own, as her parents have been sent to an internment camp. Their children were born in Italy and so are exempt – at this moment – from being sent away, not being deemed “foreign Jews”.

“She was alone up at the Fortezza, the wind keener than in the city centre, cold air nipping at her cheeks. The clouds over the mountains were heavy with more snow, not unusual in the spring, and she swung her arms back and forth across her chest to warm her body. And then she threw her head back and screamed, howling at the sky like a wild animal, no longer able to contain her anger and frustration. On the rise opposite, the twin towers that had always seemed to her like an illustration from a book of fairy tales now looked menacing: portals to Hell, holding bands of evil, fascist warriors bent on destroying the hopes and dreams of her family: first her father’s livelihood, next her brothers’ schooling, her own medical studies and social life all snatched away simply because they were considered different and undesirable. ‘Idioti, all of you,’ she screamed over and over, her words snatched by the cold breeze.”

While my husband’s grandparents were alive, we stayed with them in Urbino but last year, we rented a small apartment in the old quarter and I spent hours tramping about the city to soak in the atmosphere.  We met the caretaker of the synagogue and she invited us back to her home and she shared more information about the war with us, which made its way into the book.

Me in her library. She is also a writer and was full of useful information.

If a writer can manage to visit the places they write about, it helps so much when painting the scenes. Visiting a location can help bring alive the imagination.

About The Girl Who Escaped:

Italy, 1940. The girl sobs and rages as her father tells her the terrible news. “Italy is entering the war alongside Germany. Jews are to be arrested and sent to camps. We have to be ready.”

As fascists march across the cobbled piazzas and past the towered buildings of her beloved home city, twenty-year-old Devora’s worst fears come true. Along with her Jewish parents and twin little brothers they are torn away from everything they love and sent to an internment camp huddled in the mountains. Her father promises this war will not last long…

When they are offered a miraculous chance of escape by her childhood friend Luigi, who risks everything to smuggle vital information into the camp, the family clambers under barbed wire and races for the border. But Devora is forced to make a devastating choice between saving a stranger’s life and joining her parents. As shots fire in the moonless night, the family is separated.

Haunted by the question of whether they are dead or alive, all Devora can do for their future is throw herself into helping Luigi in the Italian resistenza in the fight for liberty. But posing as a maid for a German commander to gather secret intelligence, Devora is sure she sees her friend one night, in a Nazi uniform…

Is Devora in more danger than ever? And will her family ever be reunited – or will the war tear them apart?

An absolutely devastating but ultimately uplifting historical novel about how love and hope can get us through the darkest times. Perfect for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Rhys Bowen and Soraya M. Lane.

Purchase here.

Thank you so much for the wonderful insight, Angela. The Girl Who Escaped is my current read and I am greatly enjoying it. xxx

Discover more about Angela Petch’s novels: The Tuscan House | The Postcard From Italy |  A Tuscan Memory |The Tuscan Girl | The Tuscan Secret |

And, while not based in Italy, don’t forget Angela’s wonderful charity novel, Mavis and Dot. All proceeds from this novel go to vital research into Cancer.

About the author:

Published by Bookouture, Angela Petch is an award-winning writer of fiction – and the occasional poem.

Every summer, she moves to Tuscany for six months, where she and her husband own a renovated watermill which they let out. When not exploring their unspoilt corner of the Apennines, she disappears to her writing desk at the top of a converted stable. In her Italian handbag or hiking rucksack, she always makes sure to store a notebook and pen to jot down ideas.

The winter months are spent in Sussex, where most of her family live. When Angela’s not helping out with grandchildren, she catches up with writer friends.

Angela’s gripping WWII, Tuscan novels are published by Bookouture. While her novel, Mavis and Dot, was self-published and tells of the frolics and foibles of two best friends who live by the seaside. Angela also writes short stories published in Prima and People’s Friend.

You can discover more about Angela Petch and her writing here: Facebook | Twitter | website | Amazon | Apricot Plots

A Sense of Setting with Angela Petch.

Guest Post, , , , , , , ,

Welcoming Angela Petch to my blog as she shares the settings from The Postcard From Italy, her latest historical novel, released this week. 

Over to you, Angela …

In Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg states: “When you are not writing, you are a writer too.” 

My senses are constantly on alert and if a setting captivates me, I will use it. This happened in Puglia three years ago. I was enchanted by this beautiful region in southern Italy. As it was also where an uncle, my mother’s only brother, had been based with the RAF for a while during World War Two, I was further driven to use it as the background for a new book. Sadly, my uncle’s plane was shot down but I imagined Uncle Billy into a story where he survived.

The Apulian coastline around the Gargano peninsula, full of hidden coves, is where I had him arrive in The Postcard from Italy. He washes up like the driftwood and sea glass that my heroine scavenges. But she didn’t expect to find human flotsam.

I haven’t been faithful geographically: I’ve selected features that do not truly belong in Gargano and used artistic licence to transpose them. So, the trabucchi – or fishing platforms: strange wooden structures, have been moved further down the coast, but I absolutely needed them for my book.

Similarly, the characteristic conical stone buildings called trulli needed to appear in my story.

They are generally further inland, but I wanted my heroine to live in one. An ordinary stone house would not do.

In his chapter ‘What are you looking at?’ from The Creative Writing Course book edited by Paul Magrs and Julia Bell, he writes:

“As writers, we really need to slow down a little, take stock, and really think about why our direction is drawn in this direction or that.”

I use details that attract me to embellish my stories and to, hopefully, attract my readers too. Some might know Puglia really well and query my geography, just as some people do not like abstract art or a painter’s individual interpretations.

My husband and I have stayed twice in a particular B & B which I adore. The owner, Isabella, only has two rooms and I’d love to return (11) B&B Alla Canale, Guest House sul mare – Vasto – CH alone for a writing week when I can afford to. Hidden down a dirt track, it sits on the cliffs with an infinity view over the sea. The sunsets are spectacular and I feel emotional even thinking about it.  I used this setting for a particularly poignant part of the story.

Similarly, a converted masseria (fortified farmhouse) typical of the area is my main Apulian setting, which appears both in the past and contemporary timelines. I changed very little of the quirky décor and unusual details and I needed this setting to reflect a sense of mystery. Discover more here: Home – Masseria Barone Gambadoro.

I wrote The Postcard from Italy during both lockdowns, when we were unable to travel, but I travelled vicariously back there whilst writing. I hope my readers will lose themselves in my settings and escape for a while.

More about The Postcard from Italy:

Italy, 1945. ‘Where am I?’ The young man wakes, bewildered. He sees olive trees against a bright blue sky. A soft voice soothes him. ‘We saw you fall from your plane. The parachute saved you.’ He remembers nothing of his life, or the war that has torn the world apart… but where does he belong?

England, present day. Antique-shop-owner Susannah wipes away a tear as she tidies her grandmother’s belongings. Elsie’s memories are fading, and every day Susannah feels further away from her only remaining family. But everything changes when she stumbles across a yellowed postcard of a beautiful Italian stone farmhouse, tucked away in Elsie’s dressing table. A message dated from World War 2 speaks of a secret love. Could her grandmother, who never talked about the past, have fallen for someone in Italy all those years ago?

With Elsie unable to answer her questions, Susannah becomes determined to track down the house and find a distraction from her grief. Arriving at what is now a crumbling hotel by the sparkling Italian sea, she feels strangely at home. And after an unexpected encounter with handsome wine waiter Giacomo, she can’t tell if it’s his dark eyes or his offer to help solve her mystery that makes her heart race.

Together they find a dusty chest tucked in a forgotten corner of the building. The white silk of a World War 2 parachute spills out. And the Royal Air Force identity tag nestled in the folds bears a familiar name…

With Giacomo by her side, and before it’s too late for her grandmother, can Susannah discover the truth behind a shocking wartime secret at the heart of her family? Or will it tear her apart?

Discover more about Angela Petch’s novels: The Tuscan House | The Postcard From Italy |  A Tuscan Memory |The Tuscan Girl | The Tuscan Secret |

And, while not based in Italy, don’t forget Angela’s wonderful charity novel, Mavis and Dot. All proceeds from this novel go to vital research into Cancer.

Thank you so much for the wonderful post, Angela. It is always a pleasure to have you on my blog. xx

About the author:

Published by Bookouture, Angela Petch is an award winning writer of fiction – and the occasional poem.

Every summer she moves to Tuscany for six months where she and her husband own a renovated watermill which they let out. When not exploring their unspoilt corner of the Apennines, she disappears to her writing desk at the top of a converted stable. In her Italian handbag or hiking rucksack she always makes sure to store notebook and pen to jot down ideas.

The winter months are spent in Sussex where most of her family live. When Angela’s not helping out with grandchildren, she catches up with writer friends.

Angela’s gripping, WWII, Tuscan novels are published by Bookouture. While her novel, Mavis and Dot, was self-published and tells of the frolics and foibles of two best-friends who live by the seaside. Angela also writes short stories published in Prima and People’s Friend.

You can discover more about Angela Petch and her writing here: Facebook | Twitter | website | Amazon | Apricot Plots

Meet three characters from The Forgotten Maid.

Book Review, Guest Post, , , , , , , ,

I am delighted to welcome my good friend, Jane Cable, as my first guest for 2022. Jane joins me to introduce three characters from her novel, The Forgotten Maid. 

THE DANIELL FAMILY –  BLENDING FACT AND FICTION by Jane Cable.

As soon as I decided the main character in my 1815 timeline for The Forgotten Maid was a ladies’ maid I needed a family to place her in. A wealthy family with a kind mistress – the conflict in the story was going to be hard enough without her working for a witch!

Now I do like the historical background to my stories to be as authentic as possible, so I thought I would choose a real family. The good and great of Cornwall had been made wealthy on the back of copper and tin mining (think Poldark!) so there were plenty of likely candidates. (Note to Jane from Carol, I am always thinking Poldark! ;-))

I almost fell across the Daniells. A few years before I had been to an exhibition at Trelissick House, their former country home, which is now a National Trust property. And there I’d learnt most of their wealth had come from a copper mine called Wheal Towan, which was very close to where we were then based. When I started to write The Forgotten Maid I wanted to set it in exactly that area, and the connection was screaming at me to be recognised.

Researching the Daniell family tree was not difficult. Ralph and Elizabeth had married young, when Elizabeth was nineteen, and proceeded to have 16 children spread over the next 22 years, although of course not all of them made it to adulthood. Therefore in 1815 I was able to reconstruct the family precisely in terms of who was married and who was left at home. In that respect the book is entirely factual.

But how do you learn about someone’s character? The answer is that you don’t, although the Daniells were generous with local causes and I found out about Elizabeth’s visits to help the destitute miners from the local parish records, so they were real enough.

Elizabeth is my main Daniell character. Middle-aged, comfortable with herself, loving yet strict with her children and still very much in love with Ralph. She is delighted to find a French maid who is actually French (particularly in the provinces most just pretended to be) and values Therese’s skills. She is kind, almost motherly to her and trusts her implicitly, and Therese repays her with loyalty and faithfulness.

But someone has to disrupt this domestic harmony and the perfect candidate from history was Mary, the Daniell’s sixteen year old daughter. Sixteen was just the age to come out into society and I decided Elizabeth didn’t want a London season for her daughter if she could help it. The queen was ill, so there seemed to be little point as there would be no court presentation, and with one daughter married and living a long distance away, she liked the idea of a local husband for Mary.

Mary was a wonderful character to create. I needed her to be both loveable and charming, but with a real wilful, and even spiteful, streak when she does not get her own way. And of course, going out and about in Truro society she inevitably meets an unsuitable man and will stop at nothing to try to marry him, which has very unfortunate consequences for Therese.

My third Daniell is Ralph himself. Businessman, father, husband. A solid voice of reason. His is a small part, and mostly at the end, but I hope the enduring love story between him and Elizabeth shines through.

The Forgotten Maid blurb

In 2015 Anna Pritchard arrives on the wild and rugged north Cornwall coast to supervise the build of a glamping site. The locals hate the idea and she finds herself ostracised and isolated, so she volunteers at Trelissick, a stately home that was the country estate of the affluent Daniell family in the Regency era. The more time she spends steeped in its history, the more past and present begin to collide.

In 1815, in the aftermath of Waterloo and grieving for her brother, French army seamstress Therese Ruguel arrives in Cornwall as lady’s maid to Elizabeth Daniell. Although her mistress is welcoming, not everyone in the household takes kindly to a foreigner with strange ways who speaks little english. Who can Therese trust? Because her very life could depend upon her making the right decision.

What became of Therese? Can Anna unearth the ghosts of the past? And has she finally found a place where she belongs?

The Forgotten Maid is a beautiful dual timeline romance set in Cornwall between the Poldark era and the present day. It is the first book in the Cornish Echoes dual timeline romantic mystery series.

Thank you, Jane. I greatly enjoyed The Forgotten Maid and getting to know your characters. Here is my review: 

I enjoyed this dual timeline novel set in the present and early nineteenth century, Cornwall. As you might expect from Jane Cable whispers of the past are intertwined with the present. I was captivated by the protagonists in both time periods and their stories, though I was particularly intrigued by Thérèse (the forgotten maid). I was drawn to her character and hoped her strength would prevail over the increasing difficulties she faced. In the present day, however, it was Anna’s love interest who fascinated me. I enjoyed getting to know and understand him more as the story progressed. Cornwall past and present are brought to life by the author’s evocative descriptions of the setting. The Forgotten Maid is an intriguing, captivating read.

About the author:

Jane Cable moved to Cornwall in 2017 and The Forgotten Maid is her first novel set in the county. She also writes contemporary women’s fiction under the name of Eva Glyn.

Discover more about Jane and her work, here: Facebook | Twitter | website | Apricot Plots | Sister Scribes .