It's felt like ages, even though it's actually only 22 months since my last novel was published, but I'm so excited to be back and telling you about my latest novel, Beneath a Starless Sky.
I first started writing it 30 years ago when when I read an article in the Sunday Times magazine about an unusual auction Sotheby’s was holding at an English country house that was hailed as the ‘sale of the century’. Up for grabs were not only vintage cars and items from Cartier and Faberge, but several dozen fabulous evening gowns and pairs of shoes. Most intriguing of all was the identity of the mystery owner of all these luxurious objects. It was reported Dorothea Allen was a reclusive millionairess who died without leaving a will or any known next of kin, but even more tantalising was the fact that she had defaced all the existing photographs of herself in an effort, it was supposed, to disguise her past.
As you might suppose, my imagination was immediately fired by the story and the rumours that inevitably accompanied it at the time. Who was this woman? What did she have to hide? Was she a spy or perhaps a Jew who’d escaped Nazi Germany?
In pre-Google times the press was full of speculation and the wild rumours rumbled on for years until the woman’s real – and rather less exciting – background was revealed. Nevertheless, for me, the seed of a story was already sown and I was happy to run with my own more fanciful, but nonetheless, historically credible, version of events.
This story is, undoubtedly, very different from my Silkstone and Piper mysteries. There's a lot less gore and a lot more romance, but there's also an element of mystery and you'll, hopefully, be kept on the edge of your seat as we follow my heroine Lilli into the lion's den in Nazi Germany.
It's on NetGalley now and available from Dec 9 on Kindle. I do hope you enjoy it.Beneath a Starless Sky