Alison Rattle

Fifteen-year-old Queenie escapes from the squalid slums of nineteenth-century London and becomes a maid for the respectable Waters sisters but soon realises that something is very wrong with the dozens of silent babies being 'adopted' into the household. Meanwhile, sixteen-year-old Ellen falls in love with her cousin Jacob, but when he betrays her, she is once again at the mercy of her cold-hearted father.

The Quietness

Sixteen-year-old Marnie lives in the idyllic coastal village of Clevedon. Despite being crippled by a childhood exposure to polio, she seems set to follow in her mother's footsteps, and become a "dipper", escorting fragile female bathers into the sea. Her life is simple and safe. But then she meets Noah. Charming, handsome, son-of-the-local-Lord, Noah. She quickly develops a passion for him - a passion which consumes her. As Marnie's infatuation turns to fixation she starts to lose her grip on reality, and a harrowing and dangerous obsession develops that seems certain to end in tragedy. Set in the early Victorian era when propriety, modesty and repression were the rule, this is a taut psychological drama in which the breakdown of a young woman's emotional state will have a devastating impact on all those around her.

The Madness

"Amelia Dyer: Angel Maker tells the true story of a "kind", "homely" and "motherly" nurse who made a living by strangling unwanted babies to death. Born into a respectable working-class family, Amelia joined a nationwide network of women who pursued an "occupation which shuns the light". Amelia became adept at her trade, sidestepping the authorities for almost three decades and even initiating her own daughter into her nefarious profession." "Using hospital, prison and police archives, census records, contemporary newspaper reports and Dyer's own correspondence, authors Alison Rattle and Allison Vale reconstruct her life. Here, for the first time, is the full story of this ordinary woman who became a monster."--BOOK JACKET.

The Woman who Murdered Babies for Money

Amelia Dyer, Angel Maker

Alice Angel has known only a life of rules, restriction and punishments as she strays from the rigid path of Victorian proprietary that her mother has set out for her. A constant disappointment to all but her doting father, she longs for the day that she might break free from the stifling atmosphere of her mother's rule. After a chance encounter with a charming stranger, Alice sees her opportunity to run. She escapes to join the Agapemonites in their Abode of Love, where ex-Reverend Henry Prince rules his isolated colony of women as their Beloved. Prince ignites a passion in Alice that she never knew existed, and she dares to think she might be free at last. But as Alice becomes more deeply drawn into the life of Prince's strange religious sect, secrets are revealed that seem to hint at a darker nature lurking behind the man's charm. Instead of freedom, is Alice in fact more trapped, alone and in danger than ever before?

The Beloved

Battersea, 1961: London is just beginning to enter the swinging sixties. The world is changing--but not for 16-year-old Violet. She was born at the exact moment Winston Churchill announced Victory in Europe--an auspicious start, but now she's just stuck in her family's fish and chip shop dreaming of greatness. And it doesn't look like fame and fortune are going to come calling anytime soon. Then she meets Beau. Beau's a Rocker--a motorcycle boy who arrives in an explosion of passion and rebellion. He blows up Violet's grey little life, and she can't believe her luck. But things don't go her way for long. Joseph, her long-lost brother, comes home. Then young girls start going missing, and turning up murdered. And then Violet's best friend disappears too. Suddenly life is horrifyingly much more interesting. Violet can't believe its coincidence that Joseph turns up just as girls start getting murdered. He's weird, and she feels sure he's hiding something. He's got a secret, and Violet's got a dreadful feeling it might be the worst kind of secret of all.

V for Violet

History's Most Famous Raving Royals

Mad Kings & Queens

Escape from a bullying mother takes one young woman to an even more dangerous place. Alice Angel has known only a life of rules, restriction and punishments as she strays from the rigid path of Victorian proprietary that her mother has set out for her. A constant disappointment to all but her doting father, she longs for the day that she might break free from the stifling atmosphere of her mother's rule. After a chance encounter with a charming stranger, and a final incident with her family that sees her condemned to the madhouse, Alice sees her opportunity to run and grasps it with both hands. She escapes to join the Agapemonites in their Abode of Love, where ex-Reverend Henry Prince rules his isolated colony of women as their Beloved. Prince ignites a passion in Alice that she never knew existed, and she dares to think she might be free at last. But as Alice becomes more deeply drawn into the life of Prince's strange religious sect, secrets are revealed that seem to hint at a darker nature lurking behind the man's charm. Instead of freedom, is Alice in fact more trapped, alone and in danger than ever before?

Allison Vale

A frank and fascinating history of forty of Europe’s most loony, deluded, and downright dangerous monarchs. In Mad Kings & Queens co-authors Alison Rattle and Allison Vale reveal a legion of kings and queens who have abused the pedestal of power in spectacular style. The respectability of the royal position is well and truly tossed aside by the whimsy and wanton depravity of these mad European monarchs, including: The queen who murdered her husband with a red-hot spit. The bloodthirsty monarch who impaled tens of thousands of his subjects. The vampiric ruler who bathed in the blood of young women. The king of excess who beheaded his wives. Mad Kings and Queens explores seven hundred years of royal eccentricity, detailing a catalogue of madness and exploring the finer intricacies of royal breeding that lay at its root.

Alex Woolf

Five Hundred and One Things You Should Have Learned About... History

501 saker du borde ha lärt dig om historia

Mr. Renny's paintings are so good that they almost appear real. But no one seems to pay them any attention-until a strange man offers to make everything that Mr. Renny paints come to life. First there's the painting of the apple, which Mr. Renny can now eat. Then there's a huge hotdog, a new car, a cruise liner... Mr. Renny paints himself a life of luxury-until his friend Rose comes to ask if she can buy one of his paintings. But he doesn't have any real paintings left! The spell must be broken-and soon! A book containing subtle references to the work of Belgian surrealist Ren Magritte, the illustrations are full of clever and amusing details.

Alison Rattle

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