Anne Glenconner, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Elly Griffiths and Phillippa Gregory
Lady in Waiting - Anne Glenconner (Non fiction)
From Maid of Honour at the Queen's Coronation to Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret, Lady Anne Glenconner is a unique witness to royal history, as well as an extraordinary survivor of a generation of aristocratic women trapped without inheritance and burdened with social expectations.
In this book, she exposes what life was like in her gilded cage, revealing the role of her great friendship with Princess Margaret, and the freedom she can now finally enjoy in later life.
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock - Imogen Hermes Gowar
One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah's ship for what appears to be a mermaid. As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock's marvel.
The Last Remains - Elly Griffiths
When builders renovating a cafe in King's Lynn find a human skeleton behind a wall, they call for DCI Harry Nelson and Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the nearby University of North Norfolk. The bones are identified as the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in the 1990s. Emily attended a course run by her Cambridge tutor. Suspicion falls on him and also on another course member - Ruth's friend Cathbad, who is still frail following his near death from Covid. Just when the team seem to be making progress, Cathbad disappears. The race is on - first to find Cathbad and then to exonerate him.
The Other Boleyn Girl - Phillippa Gregory
This historical novel is set in the court of King Henry VIII. Mary Boleyn attracts the attention of the young king and becomes his mistress. When he tires of her, she sets out to school her sister, Anne, as a replacement.
The White Princess - Phillippa Gregory
The beautiful eldest daughter of Edward IV, the young princess Elizabeth faces a conflict of loyalties between the red rose and the white. Forced into marriage with Henry VII, she must reconcile her slowly growing love for him with her loyalty to the House of York, and choose between her mother's rebellion and her husband's tyranny.