HISTORICAL
EITHNE FARRY
A LADY’S GUIDE TO FORTUNE-HUNTING
by Sophie Irwin
(HarperCollins £14.99, 352 pp) sopHiE irwin’s debut is delicious — frothy, gossipy and glamorous. A regency romance with Jane Austen and georgette Heyer as literary touchstones, it heads into the familiar world of georgian High society — on the trail of captivating, conniving heroine Kitty Talbot, who’s hunting for a very wealthy husband.
with shady antecedents, a broken engagement, a house full of sisters and a mountain of debts, Kitty is determined to use her irrepressible charm to save the family from financial and social ruin.
Accompanied by her prettiest sister, the poetical, priggish Cecily, Kitty heads to London to try her luck amid the moneyed elite. Against a glittering backdrop of balls and sumptuous suppers, Kitty snares affable, gullible Archibald de Lacy, but her plans are scuppered by the arrival of his brooding elder brother, Lord radcliffe, who is more than a match for clever Kitty . . .
LION by Conn Iggulden (Michael Joseph £20, 400 pp)
pACy and propulsive, Conn iggulden’s latest historical epic heads back to the battlefields and warships of the Ancient world for the first instalment of the story of pericles, the premier Athenian.
Crackling with energy, violence and stirring speeches, Lion chronicles power struggles, political machinations and the bloodthirsty ravages of up-close combat as meticulously trained persian immortals and spartan and greek hoplites, armed with fearsome spears and lethal stabbing knives, fight themselves into myth.
Alongside the carefully researched military strategy and its accompanying weaponry, iggulden delves into the personal motivations of his legendary characters — their hopes and fears, the friendships that form and founder and, in the case of persistent, proud pericles, strife on the home front, as his new wife contests territory with both her husband and his mother.
PRIVILEGE by Guinevere Glasfurd
(Two Roads £18.99, 352 pp) EigHTEEnTH-CEnTury France is a dangerous place: political turmoil is fermenting, the King is determined to suppress all opposition to his power, and his censor, gilbert, is mercilessly punishing the authors and readers of the texts that have been published without royal consent.
Headstrong delphine Vimond and ambitious Chancery smith largely ignore his advice and head on an increasingly reckless adventure as they attempt to discover the identity of d, a mysterious writer, whose provocative papers were accidentally smuggled into England.
glasfurd deftly, elegantly captures this volatile world of impoverished attic rooms and gilded literary salons, where ideas are incendiary and words have the power to kill.