Publisher: FAIRLIGHT BOOKS

  • The Maiden of Florence

    The Maiden of Florence

    Florence, 1584. Rumours are spreading about the virility of a prince marrying into the powerful Medici family. Orphan Giulia is chosen to put an end to the gossip.

    In return she will keep her life – and start a new one with a dowry and her own husband. Cloistered since childhood and an innocent in a world ruled by men, Giulia reluctantly agrees, only to be drawn under the control of the Medicis’ lecherous minister. Years later, married and with a growing family, Giulia hopes she has finally escaped the legacy of her past.

    But when a threat arrives from a sinister figure from her youth, she must finally take control of events – and become the author of her own story. Based on true events and reminiscent of The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell, The Maiden of Florence gives a charismatic voice to a woman cast aside by history.

  • Bookshop Tours of Britain

    Bookshop Tours of Britain

    Based on her touring of bookshops, which she did over the three years since starting Fairlight, Louise Boland’s Bookshop Tours of Britain is a slow-travel guide to Britain, navigating bookshop to bookshop.

    Across 18 bookshop tours, the reader journeys from the Jurassic Coast of southwest England, over the mountains of Wales, through England’s industrial heartland, up to the Scottish Highlands and back via Whitby, the Norfolk Broads, central London, the South Downs and Hardy’s Wessex. On their way, the tours visit beaches, castles, head down coal mines, go to whiskey distilleries, bird watching, hiking, canoeing, to stately homes and the houses of some of Britain’s best-loved historic writers – and last but not least, a host of fantastic bookshops.