The streets of Victorian London are clothed in shadows and secrets in Tessa Harris's gripping new mystery featuring flower seller Constance Piper ... London, July 1889. Eight months have passed since the horrific murder of Mary Jane Kelly. The residents of Whitechapel have begun breathing easy again—daring to leave windows open and walk about at twilight. But when old Alice McKenzie is found dead, throat slashed from ear to ear, the whispers begin once more: Jack the Ripper is back. Constance Piper, a flower seller with a psychic gift, was a friend to both women. With the supernatural help of her late mentor, Miss Emily Tindall, and her more grounded ally, police detective Thaddeus Hawkins, she uncovers links between the murders and a Fenian gang. The Fenians, committed to violence to further their goal of an independent Ireland, are also implicated in a vicious attack in which the Countess of Kildane's uncle was killed. Could the...

England: 1944 When psychologist Maddie Gresham is sent a mysterious message telling her to report to Trent Park mansion, she wonders how she will be helping the war effort from a stately home. Having signed the official secrets act, she soon finds captured Nazi generals are being detained at the house. Bugged with listening devices in every room, it's up to Maddie to gain the Nazis' trust and coax them into giving up information. When Max Weitzler, a Jewish refugee, also arrives at Trent Park with the same mission, Maddie finds herself trapped in a dangerous game of chess. The two met in Germany before the war, and Maddie's heart was his from the moment they locked eyes. The hope that Max had escaped the Nazi threat was her guiding light in the darkness of war. But Maddie has finally gained the trust of the Nazi officers at the house, and her love for Max must remain a secret. As Hitler's bombs destroy more and more English towns, it is up to Maddie to make one of the captured...

'So many twists and turns and I certainly didn't predict the ending. Five stars from me, I highly recommend this book.' NetGalley reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A secret big enough to destroy the Führer's reputation. . . January 1939: When Katja Heinz secures a job as a typist at Doctor Viktor's clinic, she doesn't expect to be copying top secret medical records from a notebook. At the end of the first world war, Doctor Viktor treated soldiers for psychological disorders. One of the patients was none other than Adolf Hitler. . . The notes in his possession declare Hitler unfit for office – a secret that could destroy the Führer's reputation, and change the course of the war if exposed. . . With the notebook hidden in her hat box, Katja and Doctor Viktor travel to Paris. Seeking refuge in the Shakespeare and Company bookshop, they hope to find a publisher brave enough to print the controversial script. But Katja is being watched. Nazi spies in Paris have discovered her plan. They will stop at...

'If you're a fan of WWII historical fiction [and] a courageous woman not willing to settle ... I would highly recommend The Tuscan Daughter' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A country at war. An impossible choice. A woman who will risk everything to be free. Tuscany, 1942: having moved from England to the beautiful city of Lucca before the outbreak of war, Lizzie Thornton adores her job as tutor to eight-year-old Cristo – despite the fact that his father, Count Antonio de Falco, is a notable fascist and supporter of Mussolini. Then war is declared, and Lizzie is suddenly regarded as an enemy in the country she loves so much. When new tutor Vincenzo Baldini arrives, Lizzie is exposed to a new secret world; Vincenzo is actually a member of the Italian resistance, running an anti-fascist propaganda magazine. Lizzie, desperate to be part of the fight, joins Vincenzo's unit, and soon she is head over heels in love. But when someone from her past reappears and threatens to overturn her new life, Lizzie must...

The smoke tingled in her nostrils. Acrid. Harsh. Lilli Sternberg's quickening heart sounded an alarm as she rounded the corner of the street. Lifting her gaze to the rooftops, she saw a roaring blaze of thick flames engulf the side of the building and join the stars to fill the black sky. Her father's shop was no more. Munich 1930 Lilli Sternberg longs to be a ballet dancer. But outside the sanctuary of the theatre, her beloved city is in chaos and Munich is no longer a place for dreams. The Nazi party are gaining in popularity and the threats to those who deviate from the party line are increasing. Jewish families are being targeted and their businesses raided, even her father's shop was torched. When Lilli meets Captain Marco Zeiller during a chance encounter, her heart soars. He is the perfect gentleman and her love for him feels like a bright hope under a bleak sky. But battle lines are being drawn, and Marco has been spotted by the Reich as an officer with great potential. A...

The brilliant anatomist Dr. Thomas Silkstone returns in Tessa Harris's vivid and compelling mystery series set in 1780s London. . .It is not just the living who are prey to London's criminals and cutpurses. Corpses, too, are fair game—dug up from fresh graves and sold to unscrupulous men of science. Dr. Thomas Silkstone abhors such methods, but his leading rival, Dr. John Hunter, has learned of the imminent death of eight-foot-tall Charles Byrne, known as the "Irish Giant," and will go to any lengths to obtain the body for his research.Thomas intends to see that Byrne is allowed to rest in peace. Yet his efforts are complicated by concern for his betrothed, Lady Lydia Farrell, who breaks off their engagement without explanation. When Dr. Hunter is implicated in the horrific murder of a young castrato, Thomas must determine how far the increasingly erratic surgeon will go in the name of knowledge. For as Thomas knows too well, the blackest hearts sometimes go...

Ensconced in the woods of rural England, 1784, American anatomist Dr. Thomas Silkstone hunts for justice amid a maelstrom of madness, murder, and social upheaval...In the notorious mental hospital known as Bedlam, Dr. Thomas Silkstone seeks out a patient with whom he is on intimate terms. But he is unprepared for the state in which he finds Lady Lydia Farrell. Shocked into action, Thomas vows to help free Lydia by appealing to the custodian of her affairs, Mr. Nicholas Lupton. But when Silkstone arrives at the Boughton Estate to speak to Lupton, he finds that another form of madness has taken over the village...Sweeping changes to the Boughton Estate threaten to leave many villagers, who are rightfully angry, destitute. After a single shot rings out and a man dies in the woods, it appears that the desperate villagers have turned to murder to avenge their cause. But for Thomas, a post-mortem on the victim raises more questions than answers. Although he manages to save an...

In the first in a stunning new mystery series set in eighteenth-century England, Tessa Harris introduces Dr. Thomas Silkstone, anatomist and pioneering forensic detective. . .The death of Sir Edward Crick has unleashed a torrent of gossip through the seedy taverns and elegant ballrooms of Oxfordshire. Few mourn the dissolute young man—except his sister, the beautiful Lady Lydia Farrell. When her husband comes under suspicion of murder, she seeks expert help from Dr. Thomas Silkstone, a young anatomist from Philadelphia.Thomas arrived in England to study under its foremost surgeon, where his unconventional methods only add to his outsider status. Against his better judgment he agrees to examine Sir Edward's corpse. But it is not only the dead, but also the living, to whom he must apply the keen blade of his intellect. And the deeper the doctor's investigations go, the greater the risk that he will be consigned to the ranks of the corpses he studies. . .Advance...

Eighteenth-century anatomist Dr. Thomas Silkstone travels to the English countryside to unravel a tangled web of mystery, medicine, and murder—in this captivating new novel from Tessa Harris. . .A man staggers out of his cottage into the streets of Oxfordshire, shattering an otherwise peaceful evening with the terrible sight of his body shaking and heaving, eyes wild with horror. Many of the villagers believe the Devil himself has entered Joseph Makepeace, the latest victim of a "great fog" that darkens the skies over England like a Biblical plague. When Joseph's son and daughter are found murdered—heads bashed in by a shovel—the town's worst suspicions are confirmed: Evil is abroad, and needs to be banished.A brilliant man of science, Dr. Thomas Silkstone is not one to heed superstition. But when he arrives at the estate of the lovely widow Lady Lydia Farrell, he finds that it's not just her grain and livestock at risk. A shroud of mystery surrounds...

London's East End, 1888: When darkness falls, terror begins...The foggy streets of London's Whitechapel district have become a nocturnal hunting ground for Jack the Ripper, and no woman is safe. Flower girl Constance Piper is not immune to dread, but she is more preoccupied with her own strange experiences of late.Clairvoyants seem to be everywhere these days. Constance's mother has found comfort in contacting her late father in a séance. But are such powers real? And could Constance really be possessed of second sight? She longs for the wise counsel of her mentor and champion of the poor, Emily Tindall, but the kind missionary has gone missing.Following the latest grisly discovery, Constance is contacted by a high-born lady of means who fears the victim may be her missing sister. She implores Constance to use her clairvoyance to help solve the crime, which the press is calling "the Whitechapel Mystery," attributing the murder to the Ripper.As...

In Victorian England, flower seller Constance Piper goes searching for the truth behind a new rash of murders in London's East End . . . In November 1888, the specter of Jack the Ripper instills fear in every woman who makes her living on the streets of London. But there are other monsters at large, those who shun fame and secretly claim their victims from among the city's most vulnerable . . . Options are few for unmarried mothers in Victorian England. To avoid stigma, many find lodging with "baby farmers"—women who agree to care for the infant, or find an adoptive family, in exchange for a fee. Constance Piper, a flower seller gifted with clairvoyance, has become aware of one such baby farmer, Mother Delaney, who promises to help desperate young mothers and place their babies in loving homes. She suspects the truth is infinitely darker. Guided by the spirit of her late friend, Emily Tindall, Constance gathers evidence about what...

In 1780s London, American anatomist Dr. Thomas Silkstone is plunged into a swirling cauldron of sorcery, slavery, and cold-blooded murder . . .When the sole survivor of an ill-fated scientific expedition to Jamaica goes missing upon his return to London, Dr. Thomas Silkstone—entrusted with cataloging the expedition's New World specimens—feels compelled to investigate. There are rumors of a potion that has the power to raise the dead—and the formula is suspected to be in the private journal that has disappeared along with the young botanist.As Dr. Silkstone searches for clues to the man's whereabouts, he is drawn deeper into a dark and dangerous world of vengeance, infidelity, murder, and the trafficking of corpses for profit. Without the support of his beloved Lady Lydia Farrell—from whom he has been forcibly separated by law—he must confront the horrors of slavery, as well the very depths of human wickedness. And after a headless corpse is...

Within the mysteries of the body, especially those who have been murdered, 18th-century anatomist Dr. Thomas Silkstone specializes in uncovering the tell-tale clues that lead towards justice...Newly released from the notorious asylum known as Bedlam, Lady Lydia Farrell finds herself in an equally terrifying position—as a murder suspect—when she stumbles upon the mutilated body of Sir Montagu Malthus in his study at Boughton Hall. Meanwhile Dr. Thomas Silkstone has been injured in a duel with a man who may or may not have committed the grisly deed of which Lydia is accused. Despite his injury, Thomas hopes to clear his beloved's good name by conducting a postmortem on the victim. With a bit of detective work, he learns that Montagu's throat was slit by no ordinary blade, but a ceremonial Sikh dagger from India—a clue that may be connected to the fabled lost mines of Golconda. From the mysterious disappearance of a cursed diamond buried with Lydia's...