Charlotte Betts

    Here are some ideas to open your Book Club discussion on The Fading of the Light but do make up your own questions, too. Find out how to set up your own book club here   Were you surprised to find how constrained women’s lives were in the 1900s? What are the advantages and disadvantages…

The end of the 19th century was a time of change. Science, art, politics and society were reshaped by emerging new theories and challenges to tradition. One of the more dramatic changes was to the increasing opportunities becoming available to women in a world dominated by men.

‘I don’t mind praying to the Eternal Father but I must be the only man in the country afflicted with an eternal mother.’ Edward VII as the Prince of Wales

Welcome to guest author Deborah Swift, who writes here about her new book The Poison Keeper. Over to you, Deborah! My main character Giulia Tofana was supposed to have caused the deaths of 600 men in 17th Century Italy. To find out why, I had to research women’s lives at the time and find out…

I was completely swept away into the shadowy and dangerous world of Giulia Tofano in Renaissance Italy.