Summer of Secrets
by Cora Harrison

When a murder is staged at magnificent Knebworth House, Victorian writer-sleuths, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins investigate.

August, 1856. Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens are spending the summer at Knebworth House, the magnificent Hertfordshire home of fellow writer Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton, where they are putting on a charity performance of one of Lord Edward’s most successful plays, The Lady of Lyon. But the dress rehearsal is disrupted by the discovery of a body lying in the centre of the stage, shot to death.

With everyone involved in the play coming under suspicion, the two writer-sleuths feel compelled to investigate. Their enquiries unearth a number of scandalous secrets lurking among the writers, artists and actors assembled at Knebworth. Secrets that stretch back more than twenty years. Secrets that will have devastating repercussions for the present.

Reviews

An entertaining new entry in Harrison’s enjoyable series starring fictional recreations of the two famous authors, with subtle humor, period ambience, skulduggery, larger-than-life characters, a clever plot, and a satisfying ending

Booklist

An inspired premise and compelling characters make the third in this series the best to date

Kirkus Reviews

Another strong entry in a series tailor-made for the Masterpiece crowd

Booklist on Winter of Despair

Superior plotting and characterization ... Fans of Harrison's Burren mysteries will be pleased

Publishers Weekly on Winter of Despair

A surprising conclusion, coupled with vivid characters, authentic period details, and a constantly zigzagging plot, makes this a good choice for fans of historical murder mysteries

Booklist on Season of Darkness

The Victorian atmosphere is thick enough to cut with a knife. The real triumph is Harrison's Dickens: sublimely conceited, short-tempered, self-dramatizing, often bombastic

Kirkus Reviews on Season of Darkness

Cora Harrison

Cora Harrison turned to writing historical fiction after she retired from teaching to live on a farm near the Burren in the west of Ireland. As well as the Reverend Mother series, she is the author of the ‘Mara’ series of Celtic mysteries, set in sixteenth-century Ireland, and the new Gaslight mystery series set in Victorian London.www.coraharrison.com

View author page

Editions

Summer of Secrets by Cora Harrison is available in the following formats

Hardback97807278903992nd March 2021145 X 223mm224$28.99
Hardback978072789039931st December 2020145 X 223mm224£20.99
Ebook97814483048991st February 2021N/A224$14.99
Ebook97814483048991st February 2021N/A224£7.99
Paperback978178029751429th November 2022140 X 215mm224$17.95
Paperback978178029751429th September 2022140 X 215mm224£12.99
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