Why am I passionate about this?

Like many readers, I am fascinated by strong creative women in the past and how their lives can inspire women today. As an academic, before my Creative Writing Diploma and transformation to a creative writer, I taught historical novels of many kinds. I now enjoy devising fascinating women whose lives have significant importance for today’s issues. To talk about my favourite historical figure Virginia Woolf, I have had invitations from galleries and universities around the world, including several in the US and Europe, as well as Brazil, Egypt, Israel, Mexico, and Norway. France Culture and Arte TV, and Turkey TRT Television also featured my writing. 


I wrote

Talland House

By Maggie Humm,

Book cover of Talland House

What is my book about?

The heroine is Lily Briscoe taken from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Set between 1900 and 1919 in picturesque…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Hamnet

Maggie Humm Why did I love this book?

Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, Hamnet is the poignant story of Agnes, Shakespeare’s wife, and her life in Stratford on Avon far away from Shakespeare and his London theatres. Agnes is a pioneering herbalist, but even her cures cannot save her son Hamnet from the plague sweeping England. Having written two historical novels, I am in awe of O’Farrell’s ability to recreate the whole texture of Agnes’s Elizabethan world so convincingly. The ending is a tour de force revealing why Shakespeare entitled Hamlet after his dead son.  

By Maggie O'Farrell,

Why should I read it?

41 authors picked Hamnet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 2021
'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times
'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell

TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.

On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?

Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.

Neither…


Book cover of The Joyce Girl

Maggie Humm Why did I love this book?

1928 Avant-garde Paris is buzzing with the latest ideas in art, music, literature, and dance. Lucia, the talented and ambitious daughter of James Joyce, is making her name as a dancer, training with some of the world's most gifted performers. When a young Samuel Beckett comes to work for her father, she's captivated by his quiet intensity and falls passionately in love. Her unrequited obsession leads to treatment by Carl Jung and finally an asylum. My books aim to bring alive women artists hidden from history, and The Joyce Girl creates a powerful portrait of an artist unable to fulfill her talent.

By Annabel Abbs,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Joyce Girl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Abbs has found a gripping and little-known story at the heart of one of the 20th century’s most astonishing creative moments, researched it deeply, and brought the extraordinary Joyce family and their circle in 1920s Paris to richly-imagined life.”—Emma Darwin, bestselling author of A Secret Alchemy and The Mathematics of Love

For readers who adored novels like The Paris Wife, Z, and Loving Frank, comes Annabel Abbs highly praised debut novel, where she spins the story of James Joyce’s fascinating, and tragic, daughter, Lucia. 

“When she reaches her full capacity for rhythmic dancing, James Joyce may yet be known as…


Book cover of Blood & Sugar

Maggie Humm Why did I love this book?

Winner of the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown Award, Blood & Sugar is a page-turner of a crime thriller set in London and Greenwich 1781. Captain Harry Corsham must discover why his old friend the abolitionist Tad Archer was murdered. Corsham’s quest may do irreparable damage to the slave trade. I live in Greenwich, much of which is unchanged architecturally since the eighteenth century. Walking the streets portrayed in the novel brings alive that world. Slave trade monuments are currently being taken down in the UK and US and Blood & Sugar depicts the beginnings of that emotional and necessary journey.

By Laura Shepherd-Robinson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Blood & Sugar as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A page-turner of a crime thriller . . . This is a world conveyed with convincing, terrible clarity'
C. J. Sansom

Blood & Sugar is the thrilling debut historical crime novel from Laura Shepherd-Robinson.

June, 1781. An unidentified body hangs upon a hook at Deptford Dock - horribly tortured and branded with a slaver's mark.

Some days later, Captain Harry Corsham - a war hero embarking upon a promising parliamentary career - is visited by the sister of an old friend. Her brother, passionate abolitionist Tad Archer, had been about to expose a secret that he believed could cause irreparable…


Book cover of The Architect's Apprentice

Maggie Humm Why did I love this book?

Evoking the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, The Architect’s Apprentice depicts the boy Jahan’s magical life after he brings the first white elephant to the Sultan. Falling in love with Princess Mihrimah, Jahan must survive in a treacherous court. I was privileged to share a talk and book signing day with Elif Shafak in Hatchard’s, London in 2021 and learnt so much from this wonderful, empathetic author about her writing and historical recreations.

By Elif Shafak,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Architect's Apprentice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A dazzling and intricate tale from Elif Shafak, Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - chosen for the Duchess of Cornwall's online book club The Reading Room

'There were six of us: the master, the apprentices and the white elephant. We built everything together...'

Sixteenth century Istanbul: a stowaway arrives in the city bearing an extraordinary gift for the Sultan. The boy is utterly alone in a foreign land, with no worldly possessions to his name except Chota, a rare white elephant destined for the palace menagerie.

So begins an epic adventure that will see…


Book cover of Miss Austen: A Novel of the Austen Sisters

Maggie Humm Why did I love this book?

A #1 bestseller. 1840: After Jane Austen’s death, her sister Cassandra must find and destroy any letters which may reveal a darker side of Jane. An emotional novel about the lives and loves of Cassandra and Jane Austen. Miss Austen, like my book, takes a sideways glance at a famous writer (in my case Virginia Woolf) - and ingeniously tries to imagine literary lives, from a fresh perspective. It is so rare in novels to find a convincing central woman character (Cassandra) who is elderly. As a 76-year-old myself, I found Hornby’s depiction of the difficulties (and joys) of elderly life so truthful.

By Gill Hornby,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Miss Austen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Sunday Times bestselling novel, set to be a major TV drama
________________________
'You can't help feeling that Jane would have approved.' OBSERVER

'So good, so intelligent, so clever, so entertaining - I adored it.' CLAIRE TOMALIN
________________________
Throughout her lifetime, Jane Austen wrote countless letters to her sister. But why did Cassandra burn them all?

1840: twenty three years after the death of her famous sister Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury, and the home of her family's friends, the Fowles.

She knows that, in some dusty corner of the sprawling vicarage, there is a cache…


Explore my book 😀

Talland House

By Maggie Humm,

Book cover of Talland House

What is my book about?

The heroine is Lily Briscoe taken from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Set between 1900 and 1919 in picturesque Cornwall and war-blasted London, Talland House depicts Lily’s emotional journey in becoming a professional artist: her loves and friendships, mourning her dead mother, and solving the mystery of Mrs. Ramsay’s sudden and suspicious death. 

Talland House was shortlisted for many prizes including: Impress, Fresher Fiction, Retreat West, and Eyelands, and longlisted by the Historical Writers Association. Talland House was also one of the Washington Independent Review of Books ‘51 Favorite Books of 2020′, and 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist in Historical Fiction (post 1900s). 2021 Eric Hoffer Award Grand Prize Short List.

Book cover of Hamnet
Book cover of The Joyce Girl
Book cover of Blood & Sugar

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Book cover of Draakensky: A Supernatural Tale of Magick and Romance

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author

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What is my book about?

A murder. A wind sorcerer. A dark spirit.

On Draakensky Windmill Estate, magick and mystery rule. Sketch artist Charlotte Knight is hired to live on the estate while illustrating poetry under the direction of the reclusive spinster, and wind witch, Jaa Morland—who believes in ghosts. Charlotte quickly encounters the voice of a ghost and a sinister figure lurking in the shadows. 

Charlotte takes refuge in Marc Sexton, a charismatic local with knowledge of Celtic magick—who wears a silver wolf amulet around his neck. With his dark secrets of the Otherworld and his magickal powers, they delve into a world of…

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What is this book about?

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Sketch artist Charlotte Knight arrives on Draakensky to a bright opportunity. She is hired to illustrate the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke under the direction of Jaa Morland, the recluse spinster of Draakensky. Jaa, a believer in ghosts, instructs Charlotte to ‘draw the ghosts.’…


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