AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4
A SPECTATOR BEST OF THE YEAR - AS CHOSEN BY REVIEWERS
The year is 1742. Goody Brown, saved from drowning and adopted when just a babe, has grown up happily in the smuggling town of Winchelsea. But when she turns sixteen, her father is murdered by men he thought were friends.
In a town where lawlessness prevails, Goody and her brother Francis must enter the cut-throat world of her father’s killers in order to find justice. Facing high seas and desperate villains, she discovers what life can be like without constraints or expectations, developing a taste for danger that makes her blood run fast.
Goody was never born to be a gentlewoman. But what will she become instead?
Genre: Historical
A SPECTATOR BEST OF THE YEAR - AS CHOSEN BY REVIEWERS
The year is 1742. Goody Brown, saved from drowning and adopted when just a babe, has grown up happily in the smuggling town of Winchelsea. But when she turns sixteen, her father is murdered by men he thought were friends.
In a town where lawlessness prevails, Goody and her brother Francis must enter the cut-throat world of her father’s killers in order to find justice. Facing high seas and desperate villains, she discovers what life can be like without constraints or expectations, developing a taste for danger that makes her blood run fast.
Goody was never born to be a gentlewoman. But what will she become instead?
Genre: Historical
Praise for this book
"Winchelsea and its fierce young heroine swept me away on an irresistible tide of adventure, revenge, horror, love, smuggling and high drama on land and sea. What a brilliant idea to rework Moonfleet, but add some contemporary touches to the mix. Huge fun, superbly atmospheric and thoroughly enjoyable." - Amanda Craig
"Imagine Daphne du Maurier crossed with Quentin Tarantino, and you will have some idea of just what a thrilling, bloody and heady ride this novel is." - Tom Holland
"Wilkie Collins, eat your heart out! The novel is so very impressive and so saturated with atmosphere and rich in mystery - it flows so freely, takes risks other novels might dodge, and transports us into an entirely different world. It is drenched in a love of place and history, and a perfect record of a hybrid life." - Jonathan Lee
"I was riveted. Winchelsea is a great read - terrific narrative drive, credible characters, and such an elegant creation of the backdrop in terms of both time and place." - Penelope Lively
"Winchelsea is a remarkable act of literary time travel: dark and gripping and soaked in blood and salt water." - Evie Wyld
"The adventures of a wild, cross-dressing teenage girl and a bloodthirsty smugglers' gang in eighteenth-century Sussex. Goody Brown is an unforgettable character and her story utterly gripping." - Sofka Zinovieff
"Imagine Daphne du Maurier crossed with Quentin Tarantino, and you will have some idea of just what a thrilling, bloody and heady ride this novel is." - Tom Holland
"Wilkie Collins, eat your heart out! The novel is so very impressive and so saturated with atmosphere and rich in mystery - it flows so freely, takes risks other novels might dodge, and transports us into an entirely different world. It is drenched in a love of place and history, and a perfect record of a hybrid life." - Jonathan Lee
"I was riveted. Winchelsea is a great read - terrific narrative drive, credible characters, and such an elegant creation of the backdrop in terms of both time and place." - Penelope Lively
"Winchelsea is a remarkable act of literary time travel: dark and gripping and soaked in blood and salt water." - Evie Wyld
"The adventures of a wild, cross-dressing teenage girl and a bloodthirsty smugglers' gang in eighteenth-century Sussex. Goody Brown is an unforgettable character and her story utterly gripping." - Sofka Zinovieff
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Used availability for Alex Preston's Winchelsea