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Non-fiction to read if you love Bridgerton

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5 things you didn’t know about the women killed by Jack the Ripper

By the award-winning and Sunday Times bestselling author of THE FIVE

The French Lesson

Hallie Rubenhold is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling and Baillie Gifford prize-winning author of The Five, the Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. A renowned social historian whose expertise lies in revealing stories of previously unknown women and episodes in history, she is the author of The Covent Garden Ladies which was the inspiration behind BBC TV's 'Harlots'. Her biographical work, Lady Worsley's Whim, was dramatized by the BBC as 'The Scandalous Lady W'. Her most recent work of non-fiction, Story of a Murder, the wives, the mistress and Dr Crippen, will be published in March 2025. She has also written two acclaimed novels Mistress of My Fate and The French Lesson which give voice to the women written out by eighteenth-century literature. She lives in London with her husband. Meet her @HallieRubenhold

'A thrilling novel of female intrigue, betrayal and revenge. Read it!' LUCY WORSLEY 
'Dark and delicious' Red Magazine 
'Utterly gripping and highly relevant' SIMON SEBAG-MONTEFIORE 
_____________________ 
Fear your neighbour. Praise the Republic. Preach liberty. Hate monarchy. Speak in whispers. Trust no-one. 
 
Revolutionary Paris, 1792: As the city spirals into bloodshed, Henrietta Lightfoot a young Englishwoman runs for her life to the extravagant home of Grace Dalrymple, notorious courtesan to the aristocracy. 
 
But loyalties are tested when she befriends Grace's arch rival, a committed revolutionary and mistress of the most powerful man in France. Trapped in a terrifying game of wits between these two dangerous women, Henrietta is about to learn the most brutal lesson of her life. 
 
A tale of friendship and betrayal, The French Lesson is an eye-popping drama of power and manipulation, as the women written out of the French Revolution tell their own story of smarts and sacrifice. 
 
PERFECT FOR FANS OF HARLOTS and BRIDGERTON 
___________________ 
 
'A gleefully modern retelling of a juicy chapter in history' The Times 
'Rubenhold unfolds a complicated plot with great dexterity' Sunday Times

the book that inspired BBC2’s ‘Harlots’

The Covent Garden Ladies

Hallie Rubenhold is the Number One Sunday Times bestselling and Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction prize-winning social historian whose expertise lies in revealing stories of previously unknown women and episodes in history. By drawing upon a wealth of formerly unseen archival material and adding a full historical context to the victims' lives, The Five changes the narrative of these murders for ever. Rubenhold's books include Lady Worsley's Whim, dramatized by the BBC as 'The Scandalous Lady W', and Covent Garden Ladies: The Extraordinary Story of Harris's List, which inspired the ITV series 'Harlots'. She has also written two acclaimed novels of female intrigue, revenge and betrayal: Mistress of My Fate and The French Lesson. She lives in London with her husband.

The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

The Five

'THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER: Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London - the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper. 'Powerful and shaming' Guardian

FIVE STARS: At last, the Ripper's victims get a voice... An eloquent, stirring challenge to reject the prevailing Ripper myth.

How fitting that in the year when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, dignity is finally returned to these unfortunate women.

Professor Dame Sue Black, author of ALL THAT REMAINS

A Ripper narrative that gives voice to the women he silenced; I’ve been waiting for this book for years. Beautifully written and with the grip of a thriller, it will open your eyes and break your heart.

Devastatingly good. The Five will leave you in tears of pity and of rage.

Forests have been felled in the interests of unmasking the murderer, but until now no one has bothered to discover the identity of his victims. The Five is thus an angry and important work of historical detection, calling time on the misogyny that has fed the Ripper myth. . . This is a powerful and a shaming book, but most shameful of all is that it took 130 years to write.

By collating these five deeply affecting biographies ... Rubenhold has given these women the immortality that their murderer does not deserve.

Stupendous. The sort of work that keeps history vital.

IMOGEN HERMES GOWAR, author of THE MERMAID AND MRS HANCOCK

Fascinating, compelling, moving, The Five makes a fierce, passionate argument about the ethics of how we engage with murder. A brilliant,properly thoughtful, responsible piece of political writing.

‘Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly deserve to be thought of as more than eviscerated bodies on an East London street. This haunting book does something to redress that balance.

A highly readable work of rigorous scholarship that plunges the reader into the claustrophobic world of late 19th-century London... The story of these five women – Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly – is not one of death, but one of life.

Fascinating and hugely important book acts as a timely reminder of what happens when society ceases to care for its most vulnerable residents.

This confidently written book gives a rich insight into the world of the wretched in the late Victorian period. Rubenhold writes in a compassionate but unsentimental style…

An outstanding work of history-from-below … magnificent

Urges us to look beyond the familiar stories... The Five challenges the accepted view of the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper, and tells the untold stories of their lives.

THE FIVE has received deservedly rave reviews. It's gripping.

A brilliant and important book that will reshape how this case is studied - anyone interested in social history or the history of crime owes a debt to @HallieRubenhold

Becomes a passionate indictment of the true-crime genre, with its fixation on the minds of murderers and its shallow, glancing sympathy for the dead. Hard-edged and heartbreaking

Our fascination with true crime means we often focus on the perpertrator, such as Ted Bundy, rather than the victims. It's time to stop focusing on the killer and start remembering the victims: Polly, Annie, Catherine and Mary-Jane

Deeply researched portraits of the victims as they lived . . . A distinct story that has never been fully or truthfully told.

‘A stunning achievement of forensic research and authorly compasssion’

An Eighteenth-Century Tale of Sex, Scandal and Divorce

The Scandalous Lady W

First published with the title Lady Worsley’s Whim, read the book behind the major new BBC drama starring Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay)

It was the divorce that scandalised Georgian England... She was a spirited 
young heiress. He was a handsome baronet with a promising career in government. Their marriage had the makings of a fairy tale but ended as one of the most salacious and highly publicised divorces in history. 
 
For over two hundred years the story of Lady Worsley, her vengeful husband, and her lover, George Maurice Bisset, lay forgotten. Now Hallie Rubenhold, in her impeccably researched book, throws open a window to a rarely seen view of Georgian England, one coloured by passion, adventure and the defiance of social convention. The Worsley's story, their struggles and outrageous lifestyle, promises to shock even the modern reader.

A fabulous story and Rubenhold tells it beautifully

Hallie Rubenhold is in a league of her own. She keeps you glued to the very last page when, exhausted, exasperated and elated, you can at last put the book down and get yourself some sleep.... Nothing else in the genre is close to being this good

Hallie Rubenhold's account of the elopement is gripping but this is far more than an 18th-century bodice-ripper. Rubenhold combines narrative skill with historical expertise, and she traces the knife-edge that women walked between social success and public disgrace with subtlety and assurance

A well-researched account... Highly diverting tale

‘Deliciously lurid’ Sunday Times 
 
The Sunday Times bestselling author of The Five exposes the divorce that scandalised Georgian England. 
 
She was a spirited young heiress. He was a handsome baronet with a promising career in government. 
 
 Their marriage had the makings of a fairy tale but ended as one of the most salacious and highly publicised divorces in history. 
 
 For over two hundred years the story of Lady Worsley, her vengeful husband, and her lover, George Maurice Bisset, lay forgotten. Now Hallie Rubenhold throws open a window to a rarely seen view of Georgian England, one coloured by passion, adventure and the defiance of social convention. 
 
 Originally published with the title Lady Worsley's Whim.

By the bestselling author of THE FIVE: THE WOMEN KILLED BY JACK THE RIPPER

Harris's List of the Covent Garden Ladies

This is the book that inspired ITV'S hit drama HARLOTS.

By the bestselling winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2019 for THE FIVE: THE WOMEN KILLED BY JACK THE RIPPER 
 
This is the book that inspired ITV'S hit drama HARLOTS. 
 
If you ever wondered what Jane Austen's Mr Darcy and his fellows got up to on their numerous trips to London, here is the book they would certainly have carried around ... 
 
HARRIS'S LIST OF COVENT GARDEN LADIES was a bestseller in the Eighteenth Century, shifting 250,000 copoies in an age before mass consumerism. A 'guide book' published annually at Christmas, it detailed the names, attributes and 'specialities' of the capital's prostitutes. During its heyday (1759 -95) HARRIS'S LIST was the essential accessory for any serious gentleman of pleasure. 
 
Hallie Rubenhold has collected the funniest, rudest and most bizarre entries penned by Jack Harris, Pimp-General-of-all-England, into this fascinating and mischievous collection.

The Wives, the Mistress and Dr Crippen

Story of a Murder

The long-awaited new book by the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of THE FIVE, the feminist retelling of the historical true-crime story of infamous wife-murderer Dr Crippen in Edwardian England, brought to justice by an extraordinary group of musichall women.

BY THE AUTHOR OF MULTI-AWARD-WINNING #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER: THE FIVE, THE WOMEN KILLED BY JACK THE RIPPER 
 
An epic examination of the historical true-crime story of infamous wife-murderer Dr Crippen in Edwardian England, brought to justice by an extraordinary group of strong women 
 
'A unique combination of sleuthing, storytelling and compassion' Lucy Worsley 
 
'Fascinating. It's about time Belle became the hero of her own story' Val McDermid 
 
‘I couldn't put it down' Bonnie Garmus 
 
'I had my hand over my wide-open mouth' Rachel Joyce 
 
'Takes us beyond the world of Dr Crippen into the lives impacted by him and the society in which he moved. Terrific' Ian Rankin 
 
'Compelling to the very last page' Denise Mina 
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No murderer should ever be the keeper of their victim's story … 
 
On 1 February, 1910, vivacious musichall performer, Belle Elmore, suddenly vanished from her north London home, causing alarm among her circle of female friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild who demanded an immediate investigation. 
 
They could not have known what they would provoke: the unearthing of a gruesome secret, followed by a fevered manhunt for the prime suspect: Belle’s husband, medical fraudster, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen. 
 
Hiding in the shadows of this evergreen tale is Crippen’s typist and lover, Ethel Le Neve – was she really just ‘an innocent young girl’ in thrall to a powerful older man as so many people have since reported? 
 
In this epic examination of one of the most infamous murders of the twentieth century, prizewinning social historian Hallie Rubenhold gives voice to those who have never properly been heard – the women. 
 
Featuring a carnival cast of eccentric entertainers, glamorous lawyers, zealous detectives, medics and liars, STORY OF A MURDER is meticulously researched and multi-layered, offering the reader an electrifying snapshot of Britain and America at the dawn of the modern era. 
________ 
 
'Does for the Crippen Murder case what THE FIVE did for the victims of Jack the Ripper. Forensic research and insistent sympathetic writing. I loved it' PROFESSOR DAVID WILSON, BBC 1, The Crime Squad

Unbelievably addictive - I defy you to put it down! Written with Rubenhold's completely unique combination of sleuthing, storytelling and compassion.

I lapped it up! Whip-smart, brilliantly atmospheric, completely addictive. I loved the music hall artistes and had my hand over my wide-open mouth at the audacity of the press. And it is not solely about a murder - though I was filled with admiration for the forensic level of research. It’s also about all the bit part players - the dustbin man who notices an unusual amount of rubbish, the boarding house owner who notices something not quite right about the father and son at the table in the corner, and the world they came from. I can’t recommend it more: I will be thinking about it for a very long time.

A fascinating debunking of the myth-making that surrounds Crippen and Le Neve. Putting Belle and her cohort of strong independent women front and centre is long overdue! It's about time Belle became the hero of her own story

'Painstaking research, married to a novelist's instinct for storytelling, make each new book by Hallie Rubenhold a gripping and educational adventure for the reader. STORY OF A MURDER takes us beyond the infamous Dr Crippen to the lives impacted by him, the society within which he moved, and the public's appetite to be shocked and scandalised. It's terrific'

Nothing but praise for Rubenhold’s exhaustive research and arresting story line. I couldn’t put it down

A fantastic read: the story of the women killed by Dr Crippen and how a raggle-taggle band of variety theatre ladies fought for their friend. Crammed with fascinating social history and detail, STORY OF A MURDER is compelling to the very last page

Story of a Murder does for The Crippen Murder case what The Five did for the crimes committed by Jack the Ripper. With forensic research and insistent, sympathetic writing, it re-tells the story of the murder of Belle Elmore in January 1910 and places her at the centre of the narrative, rather than the story, explanation or motivation of her killer. As Rubenhold states, “no murderer should ever be the keeper of their victim’s story” and yet for too long Crippen has been allowed to explain what happened to Belle and for just as long we have been too willing to accept his version of events. True crime comes in all shapes and sizes – from the pile it high and sell it cheap, the sensational and tabloid, to true crime that holds a mirror up to our values, sensibilities, and culture and thankfully Story of a Murder is an exemplary addition to this latter category. To put it bluntly, I loved this book and I know that you will too.

Emeritus Professor David Wilson, Birmingham City University

Rubenhold deftly maintains fidelity not only to facts, distinguishing between what can and cannot be certain and proved, but also to narrative intrigue, somehow creating suspense despite decades of extensive journalistic coverage and study of her subject. But Rubenhold’s true mark as a narrator of historical true crime is reinforced in this work by her continued loyalty to the women whose characters and stories have been flattened and overshadowed by journalists’ assumptions, their killers’ fame, or the simple fact of their victimhood.

When Hallie Rubenhold picks up her pen, history comes to life. As in so many forensic cases, the perpetrator is placed in the limelight and the victim in the shadows. Hallie Rubenhold shines a light into those corners and gives the victims the stage they so rightly deserve.

With astonishing depth of research and a finely attuned instinct for entrancing detail, Rubenhold reconstructs the wider truth surrounding a true crime, while composing an indelible portrait of a society on the brink of modernity. An awe-inspiring and truly gripping read

Rubenhold's historical detective work will keep you horrified, fascinated and enraged. Another triumph from a masterful storyteller

Lindsey Fitzharris, author of THE BUTCHERING ART

Hallie Rubenhold

Perfect fiction for fans of BBC TV's hit series BRIDGERTON and HARLOTS 
 
'A remarkable picture of a fascinating age' Daily Express 
'A full-blooded historical' Independent 
_____________________ 
My tale is not for the faint of heart. 
 
Born illegitimate in eighteenth-century England, the scandalous Henrietta Lightfoot gives us her version of the truth about her criminal life in this delicious coming-of-age. 
 
Fleeing her childhood home for the big city, Henrietta is now swimming in the London underworld of rakes, rogues, sharks, pimps and courtesans - she quickly sees that true liberty is a man's privilege. 
 
What must Henrietta do to survive in a world designed for men? 
 
Gripping, twisty, shocking, MISTRESS OF MY FATE illuminates the dark lives of the women written out by the masters of eighteenth-century literature. Vibrant and full-blooded, it is an irresistible picaresque story for our times 
 
'Two parts Lizzie Bennett and Tom Jones's Sophia Western to one part Moll Flanders' INDEPENDENT 
 
'Combines extraordinary bawdiness with silky sophistication' DAILY EXPRESS

Hallie Rubenhold

Mistress of My Fate

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