My BOOKS
The Tisdall's - Tales From a Typical Victorian and Edwardian Family
A sweeping, multi-generational historical family saga set against the upheaval of the 20th century and World War 1, based on real people and real events.
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In late Victorian London, 32 Goldhawk Road stands at the centre of a thriving family business—and a family on the brink of unthinkable change.
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Beginning in the final years of Queen Victoria’s reign and carrying through World War One into the modern Jazz Age of the 1920's, The Tisdall's: Tales From a Typical Victorian and Edwardian Family follows the Tisdall family across seven tumultuous decades of transformation.
This novel takes you on an authentic time-travelling journey from 19th Century shop counters, theatrical music hall stage doors and profitable Edwardian businesses, to the devastation of trenches warfare in France, chasing The American Dream on the vast plains of Kansas and Colonial Army life in India, as the lives of the various members of The Tisdall Family's lives unfold in parallel with the birth of the modern world.
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This richly detailed novel explores:
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The changing role of women through suffrage, work, and independence
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The rise and fall of music hall, theatre, and early cinema
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The devastating personal cost of the First World War, from the Somme to Salonika
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Immigration, identity, and fractured loyalties between Britain and America
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Love, ambition, pride, and the long shadows cast by family secrets
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From Madge’s glittering ascent on the music hall stage, to Fred’s quiet heroism in the Royal Engineers, Kate’s fierce intellect and political awakening, and Bill’s troubled American dream, each life is rendered with compassion, depth, and historical authenticity.
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Inspired by real lives and events, The Tisdall's: Tales From a Typical Victorian and Edwardian Family is perfect for readers who love:
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Epic family sagas
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Historical fiction grounded in truth and depicting real people's lives and experiences.
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Stories written in the tradition of modern literary epics as a homage
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Novels about ordinary people caught in extraordinary times
This is a story about legacy and family—the things we inherit, the choices we make, and the stories that survive us.
JANE BLANKS AND THE WEIGHT OF HER NAME
Jane Blanks was tried twice before the law — once as a wife, and once as a mother.
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In early nineteenth-century Essex, respectability was fragile and silence was survival. When Jane married a man who turned out to be a serial bigamist, her private life became public spectacle, her name dragged through courtrooms and newspapers alike.
Years later, unmarried and pregnant again, she faced the parish once more — this time determined to tell the truth, whatever the cost.
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Jane Blanks and the Weight of Her Name is a novel of endurance rather than redemption. Based on real people and real events, it traces the long consequences of scandal, the quiet strength of female friendship, and the sustaining power of family loyalty in a world determined to punish women for men’s sins.
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Written in the tradition of Victorian Sensation Fiction and grounded in historical record, this is the story of a woman who refused to be silenced — and who lived long enough to outlast the judgement of her time.
