Tag: female sleuth

The Lost Girls is Published Today

Congratulations to Donna Gowland, whose page-turning historical mystery, The Lost Girls, is published today!

The Lost Girls is the second book in the Mary Shelley Investigations series: Gothic murder mysteries with a tenacious literary heroine working as a female sleuth.

1815, London

After triumphantly solving a murder case in Paris, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Percy Shelly return to London penniless.

As Percy is still married to his estranged wife, he and Mary are shunned from polite society for living together out of wedlock.

Isolated and trapped in squalid lodgings, Mary finds herself alone while Percy escapes to the tavern. But one evening when she goes looking for him, she stumbles upon a body.

She leaves to fetch help and when she returns the dead girl is gone…

When she receives a note from an old friend and discovers another girl is missing, Mary wonders if the crimes are connected.

What happened to the body? Was it taken by the murderer?

Can Mary and Percy come together to solve another tricky case…?

Sapere Books Sign a New Edwardian Series by Marilyn Todd

Following the success of her Julia McAllister Victorian Mysteries series, we are thrilled to announce that we have signed a new Edwardian series by Marilyn Todd.

Book 1 in the Julia McAllister Victorian Mysteries series

In Marilyn’s words:

“My terrific relationship with Sapere Books continues with the signing of my new series.

“This time it’s crime
In Edwardian time,
With a heroine sharper than lime.
They’re nail-biting thrillers,
And though she catches the killers
She don’t ’arf have a bloody good time.

“The world might have been changing fast back then, but not for women. They still had no rights, no vote, and men could still “chastise” them until 10pm, after which it constituted a noise violation. I wanted to give those women a voice, so I created a character who rips up the rule book by running a refuge for battered wives, funded by a gentleman’s club with a fleet of… Let’s call them exotic dancers. And quite frankly, neither she or I could be in better hands, thanks to the guidance, support and encouragement from this young, dynamic publishing house. Go Sapere!”

BAD BLOOD by Marilyn Todd

Marilyn Todd is the author of the Julia McAllister Victorian Mystery series: historical murder mysteries with a courageous woman sleuth embarking on traditional British private investigations in nineteenth-century London.

The case of the Lindbergh baby is infamous. In March 1932, he was snatched from his nursery, a ransom note left in his place, and although the money was paid, two agonising months passed without news. It was pure chance that his body was found, thrown or dumped just off the highway, suggesting he was killed almost immediately after his abduction.

I don’t know if it was because Charles Lindbergh was famous — the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic — but it struck me that all the sympathy for this horrific crime went to the father, rather than both parents. I desperately wanted to change that.

In Bad Blood — the third book in the Julia McAllister series — baby Thomas Forbes is also snatched from his nursery, and a ransom demand is left on the pillow. The difference here is that the money is never collected, and the baby never found. When, eight years later, his father is murdered, Julia’s heart breaks for the woman brought to her knees by these two tragedies. As an amateur sleuth, Julia determines to do whatever it takes to find Thomas.

But as I plotted the novel, I was drawn into other injustices of the era. Not just the social inequalities — class, race and religious divides feature regularly in my books — but also the impact of being a pawn in the marriage game among the powerful and the wealthy. I wanted to explore the misery that comes from being a strong woman trapped in a weak man’s world.

 

Click here to pre-order BAD BLOOD

Click here to learn more about the Julia McAllister Victorian Mystery Series