The Winston Graham Historical Prize
By The Bookshop in Helston
The Winston Graham Historical Prize
By The Bookshop in Helston
The Winston Graham Historical Prize shortlist is here!
The prize is award in memory of Winston Graham, author of the Poldark series, and celebrates historical fiction with a powerful sense of place. Organised by the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro, the dedicated reading committee from across Cornwall and the chair of judges, Charlotte Hobson, read through over 70 submissions published between March 2022 and September 2024, from prominent publishing houses across Britain
The Midnight News: The gripping and unforgettable novel as heard on BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime
Jo Baker
£9.99 £9.49Paperback to be published 11 April 2024 It is 1940 and twenty-year-old Charlotte Richmond watches from her attic window as enemy planes fly over London. Still grieving her beloved brother who never returned from France, she is working hard to keep her own little life ticking over: holding down a dull typist job at the Ministry of Information, sharing gin and confidences with her best friend Elena, and dodging her difficult father. She has good reason to keep her head down and stay out of trouble. She knows what happens when she makes a nuisance of herself. On her way to work she often sees the boy who feeds the birds - a source of unexpected joy amidst the rubble of the Blitz. But every day brings new scenes of devastation, and after yet another heartbreaking loss Charlotte has an uncanny sense of foreboding. Someone is stalking the darkness, targeting her friends. And now he is following her. She no longer knows who to trust. She can't even trust herself. She knows this; her family have told so her often enough. As grief and suspicion consume her, Charlotte's nerves become increasingly frayed, and soon her very freedom is under threat.
The Midnight News: The gripping and unforgettable novel as heard on BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime
Jo Baker
£16.99 £16.14It is 1940 and twenty-year-old Charlotte Richmond watches from her attic window as enemy planes fly over London. Still grieving her beloved brother who never returned from France, she is working hard to keep her own little life ticking over: holding down a dull typist job at the Ministry of Information, sharing gin and confidences with her best friend Elena, and dodging her difficult father. She has good reason to keep her head down and stay out of trouble. She knows what happens when she makes a nuisance of herself. On her way to work she often sees the boy who feeds the birds - a source of unexpected joy amidst the rubble of the Blitz. But every day brings new scenes of devastation, and after yet another heartbreaking loss Charlotte has an uncanny sense of foreboding. Someone is stalking the darkness, targeting her friends. And now he is following her. She no longer knows who to trust. She can't even trust herself. She knows this; her family have told so her often enough. As grief and suspicion consume her, Charlotte's nerves become increasingly frayed, and soon her very freedom is under threat.
Music in the Dark
Sally Magnusson
£9.99 £9.49Paperback to be published 25 April 2024 Jamesina Ross is long finished with men. But one night a stranger seeking lodgings knocks on the door of her tenement flat. He doesn't recognise her, but she remembers him at once. Not that she plans to mention it. She has no intention of trusting anyone enough to let herself be vulnerable again. A lifetime ago, growing up in a Highland glen, Jamesina Ross wrote songs about the land and the kin who had worked it for generations. But her music was no match for the violence her community faced in the Highland Clearances. Jamesina has borne the disfigurements of that day ever since, on her face and inside her head. Her lodger thinks that if she would only dare to open the past, she might have the chance of a future. This is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away. A beautiful exploration of unlooked-for love in later life, its contrariness and its awkward, surprising joys, this is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away. 'Wonderful and moving' CLARE CHAMBERS, author of Small Pleasures 'Utterly absorbing.' THE SUNDAY POST
Music in the Dark
Sally Magnusson
£16.99Jamesina Ross is long finished with men. But one night a stranger seeking lodgings knocks on the door of her tenement flat. He doesn't recognise her, but she remembers him at once. Not that she plans to mention it. She has no intention of trusting anyone enough to let herself be vulnerable again. A lifetime ago, growing up in a Highland glen, Jamesina Ross wrote songs about the land and the kin who had worked it for generations. But her music was no match for the violence her community faced in the Highland Clearances. Jamesina has borne the disfigurements of that day ever since, on her face and inside her head. Her lodger thinks that if she would only dare to open the past, she might have the chance of a future. This is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away. A beautiful exploration of unlooked-for love in later life, its contrariness and its awkward, surprising joys, this is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away. 'Wonderful and moving' CLARE CHAMBERS, author of Small Pleasures 'Utterly absorbing.' THE SUNDAY POST
Nothing Left to Fear from Hell: Darkland Tales
Alan Warner
£10.00 £9.50A battle lost. A daring escape. A long walk into obscurity. The ultimate failure. In the aftermath of the disastrous Battle of Culloden, a lonely figure takes flight with a small band of companions through the islands and mountains of the Hebrides. His name is Charles Edward Stuart: better known today as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He had come to the country to take the throne. Now he is leaving in exile and abject defeat. In prose that is by turns poetic, comic, macabre, haunting and humane, multi- award-winning author Alan Warner traces the frantic last journey through Scotland of a man who history will come to define for his failure. 'Written in carefully crafted prose .. . this reimagining of Charles Edward Stuart's escape from Culloden is a triumph“ THE SCOTSMAN
The Whalebone Theatre
Joanna Quinn
£9.99 £9.49This is the story of an old English manor house by the sea, with crumbling chimneys, draping ivy and a library full of dusty hardbacks. It's the story of the three children who grow up there, and the adventures they create for themselves while the grown-ups entertain endless party guests. This is the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, fiercely determined to do things differently. But as the children grow to adulthood, another story has been unfolding in the wings. And when the war finally takes centre stage, they find themselves cast, unrehearsed, into roles they never expected to play. They raised themselves on stories. Now it's time for them to write their own... 'A tour de force' SARAH WINMAN, author of Still Life 'One of those big chunky stories that swallows you whole' THE TIMES