LATEST TITLES

SEVEN DAYS OF US by Francesca Hornak, Piatkus, £12.99 (ebook £6.99)

A DYSFUNCTIONAL family forced into confinement together over Christmas... Francesca Hornak has hit upon an apt and familiar setting – with a twist – for a humorous and heartwarming page-turner.

Aid worker Olivia Birch returns from Africa, where she’s been treating people with a lifethreatening virus. Instructed to stay in quarantine in the family home for a week, along with her parents and sister Phoebe, it soon becomes apparent that more than one secret risks coming out while they are unable to escape each other.

Some reveals are predictable, but there are enough absorbing elements throughout to satisfy those with a hankering for romantic settings, endearing characters, and a few emotional flourishes.

As Hornak writes from the perspective of each character, there’s the underlying theme of how differently people handle both tense situations and relationships with their loved ones – making it a rather relatable festive read.

BLACK TUDORS: THE UNTOLD STORY by Miranda Kaufmann, Oneworld, £18.99 (ebook £11.27)

HISTORIAN and journalist Dr Miranda Kaufmann stumbled across an official letter from 1596, which alerted her to the fact that, despite previous assertions and assumptions, there were Africans living in Britain during Tudor times.

Black Tudors: The Untold Story sees her focus on revealing the lives and stories of 10 African Tudors – including John Blanke, who was Henry VII and Henry VIII’s royal trumpeter, and Diego, who sailed the globe with Sir Francis Drake.

You see into a world before Britain became disgustingly tangled up in the slave trade, when African men and women were free.

Kaufmann keenly asks why attitudes changed. A powerful and perceptive reassessment of a time that has too long been sidelined by popular historical storytelling.