New Titles, late Spring 2022
Blow-Ins, a novel by Crysse Morrison
It's the end of the 20th century and Blair's England is thriving - especially in the affluent south. And where could be a more delightful place to settle than the South-West, with the mellow elegance of Bath and the rural vista of its rivers, woods, and fields? People have owned and worked this land throughout centuries, before planes or pesticides, but to the migrant 'blow-ins' it's a peaceful backwater: internet entrepreneurs, ex-hippy wanderers, nature-loving city-dwellers, they've blown here like tumbleweed to follow their dreams in this painterly paradise. But life is not like art... May 2022, 267pp, paperback, £9.95, ISBN 978-1-914407-33-8
Two Blackberry Lane, a novel by Alison Clink
Six people with unconnected lives all make the same house in Blackberry Lane their home. From newly-wed Peggy with her film-star looks who lives in Two Blackberry Lane just after the end of World War Two, through the decades to reflective poetess, Chloe, whose family convert the property in the twenty-first century. Six stories of love, loss, hopes and dreams, jealousy, greed and the occasional strawberry flan. These compelling characters play out their lives within the walls of this cottage in the deepest Somerset countryside. But are their histories linked in more ways than they will ever know? May 2022, 289pp, paperback, £10.95, ISBN 978-1-914407-24-6
Mother and Murderer: The Sad True Tale of Rebecca Smith, by Sally Hendry
Rebecca Smith, from Bratton near Westbury in Wiltshire, southern England, was the last woman in Britain to be hanged for infanticide of her own baby. She suffered her punishment at Devizes. But this unassuming woman who attended chapel and prayed night and morning, had poisoned not just one but eight of her babies. Her crime shocked and puzzled Victorian Britain. So why did she do it? Historian and journalist Sally Hendry delves into the nineteenth century to unpick Rebecca's story, looking at everything from domestic violence through to the unspeakable agonies of death by arsenic poisoning. Victim or villain? You decide. May 2022, 117pp, illustrated paperback, £9.95, ISBN 978-1-914407-34-5
Fatal August, by Sue Boddington
Novel set in Wiltshire against the febrile atmosphere of the Civil Wars, which describes a wealth of local characters, their relationships and divided loyalties. Published by Hobnob for the author, formerly librarian of Calne, who is well known in the local literary scene. April 2022, 358pp, paperback, £8.95, ISBN 978-1-914407-35-2