Alison Rattle – författare

A gripping, moving and haunting Victorian drama from a debut authorWhen fifteen-year-old Queenie escapes from the squalid slums of nineteenth-century London, she has no idea about the dangers of the dark world she is about to become embroiled in. Initially thrilled at being taken on as a maid for the seemingly respectable Waters sisters, Queenie comes to realise that something is very wrong with the dozens of strangely silent babies being ''adopted'' into the household.Meanwhile, lonely and unloved sixteen-year-old Ellen is delighted when her handsome and charming young cousin Jacob is sent to live with her family. She thinks she has finally found a man to fall in love with and rely on, but when Jacob cruelly betrays her she finds herself once again at the mercy of her cold-hearted father. Soon the girls'' lives become irrevocably entwined in this tension-filled drama. THE QUIETNESS is a novel of friendship and trust in the darkest of settings.

A thrilling Victorian tale of dangerous obsession and betrayalSixteen-year-old Marnie lives in the idyllic coastal village of Clevedon. Despite being crippled by a childhood exposure to polio, she seems set to follow in her mother''s footsteps, and become a ''dipper'', escorting fragile female bathers into the sea. Her life is simple and safe. But then she meets Noah. Charming, handsome, son-of-the-local-Lord, Noah. She quickly develops a passion for him - a passion which consumes her. As Marnie''s infatuation turns to fixation she starts to lose her grip on reality, and a harrowing and dangerous obsession develops that seems certain to end in tragedy. Set in the early Victorian era when propriety, modesty and repression were the rule, this is a taut psychological drama in which the breakdown of a young woman''s emotional state will have a devastating impact on all those around her.

Escape from a bullying mother takes one young woman to an even more dangerous place.Alice Angel has known only a life of rules, restriction and punishments as she strays from the rigid path of Victorian proprietary that her mother has set out for her. A constant disappointment to all but her doting father, she longs for the day that she might break free from the stifling atmosphere of her mother''s rule. After a chance encounter with a charming stranger, and a final incident with her family that sees her condemned to the madhouse, Alice sees her opportunity to run and grasps it with both hands. She escapes to join the Agapemonites in their Abode of Love, where ex-Reverend Henry Prince rules his isolated colony of women as their Beloved. Prince ignites a passion in Alice that she never knew existed, and she dares to think she might be free at last. But as Alice becomes more deeply drawn into the life of Prince''s strange religious sect, secrets are revealed that seem to hint at a darker nature lurking behind the man''s charm. Instead of freedom, is Alice in fact more trapped, alone and in danger than ever before?

Battersea, 1961. London is just beginning to enter the swinging sixties. The world is changing - but not for sixteen-year-old Violet. She was born at the exact moment Winston Churchill announced Victory in Europe - an auspicious start, but now she''s just stuck in her family''s fish and chip shop dreaming of greatness. And it doesn''t look like fame and fortune are going to come calling anytime soon. Then she meets Beau. Beau''s a rocker - a motorcycle boy who arrives in an explosion of passion and rebellion. He blows up Violet''s grey little life, and she can''t believe her luck.But things don''t go her way for long. Joseph, her long-lost brother, comes home. Then young girls start going missing, and turning up murdered. And then Violet''s best friend disappears too. Suddenly life is horrifyingly much more interesting. Violet can''t believe its coincidence that Joseph turns up just as girls start getting murdered. He''s weird, and she feels sure he''s hiding something. He''s got a secret, and Violet''s got a dreadful feeling it might be the worst kind of secret of all . . .

For most people the details of the American Revolution, the history of Thanksgiving and the Battle of the Alamo are sketchy at best. However, help is at hand as Remember the Alamo? contains all the American history you learnt at school and promptly forgot, and perhaps some things that you were never taught in the first place. Broken down into easily digested bite-sized chunks, this book will teach you the basics of over 150 key events from Columbus to Nixon and from cowboys to cosmonauts. Remember the Alamo? assumes no other knowledge of world history and doesn't contain anything but the most salient points so that anyone can become clued up on the history of one of the world's most developed nations. Concise and informative, yet entertaining and engagingly written, Remember the Alamo? contains everything you will ever need to know about the United States.