Katie Hickman's writing explores themes of travel, culture, and human connection. Her prose is characterized by vivid descriptions of place and a profound insight into the inner lives of her characters. She masterfully weaves personal experience with broader societal observations, offering readers a compelling and reflective journey. Hickman's work invites contemplation on the complexities of the world and our place within it.
The extraordinary, dramatic story of the women of the American west: the women who crossed the plains and the mountains in covered wagons, the indigenous women living on the land, the women who came to work in the gold mining cities. Brave hearted women - an amazing cast of characters brought to life by this wonderful storyteller
An account of Katie Hickman's extraordinary year spent amidst the faded glamour of a Mexican travelling circus. Katie Hickman went to Mexico looking for magic. She found it in the circus - big top, clowns, elephant and all - where cheap, torn materials are transformed for a night into glittering illusion. Gradually adjusting to the harsh ways of the circus's nomadic lifestyle she soon became absorbed into this hypnotic new world. At first, as a foreigner, she was on the outskirts, but she soon became La Gringa Estrella, a performer in her own right and adopted sister to the Bell's family.
An extraordinary and illuminating book that tells the incredible stories of the first British women to set foot in India - 250 years before the Raj.
"The reverse of stuffy" is how one British reviewer characterized Katie Hickman's portrait of English diplomatic wives. Unstuffy it is. Hickman, whose writing is graceful and sprightly, describes the unusual and often difficult lives of Foreign Service spouses. Tracking these feisty transplants from the 17th century to the present, she shows how these very significant others coped with everything from tropical epidemics to kidnappings to small household budgets. Warm-weather reading.
‘Irresistible…history at its most human. Elegant and addictively readable.’ William Dalrymple
From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a haunting, magical story set in 17th century London, perfect for fans of Jessie Burton and Elif Shafak1611. Celia Lamprey looks out across the rooftops of Aleppo for the last time. After ten years living in the Orient, she and her husband, Paul Pindar, are setting sail for England - taking with them the legendary diamond, the Sultan's Blue, despite the curse that surrounds it. They arrive to find a country much changed; Bishopsgate, once surrounded by fields, is now a muddy thoroughfare choked with carriages - from which carpenters, gardeners and footmen descend, summoned to restore Pindar's great house to its former splendour. But all is not as it seems. Celia is frail, and the marriage childless. Between the couple lies a great, unspoken darkness. Now, as they await the arrival of Celia's friend Annetta from Venice, another woman, the alluring widow Frances Sydenham, becomes increasingly indispensable to the running of the household - and the happiness of its inhabitants.But who is this strange woman, and what are her real motives?Vividly evoking Jacobean society, The House at Bishopsgate is a sumptuous, richly woven story of marital secrets and sexual jealousy, from a master of historical fiction.
A tale of ancient alliances and intrigues, of forbidden love and dangerous secrets
Accompanying their spouses in the most extraordinary, tough, sometimes terrifying circumstances, this book is an account of the courageous and unusual women who have been the backbone of the foreign service. Women who struggled to bring their civilization with them. The book is illustrated with archive material, extracts from original letters between the women and their families at home, maps to show the routes they travelled and the places they were posted to and pictures of ephemera to evoke the lives they led. The chapters getting there; the posting; private life; embassy life; public life; and social life.
In a small town on the Italian coast, a mysterious woman washes ashore. She is crippled, mute, and clutches a bundle to her chest-a baby the townspeople insist is a real-life mermaid. It can only bring bad luck; they pay a troupe of acrobats to carry mother and child away. In the bustling trade center of Venice, merchant Paul Pindar is the subject of his colleagues' concern. Since his return from Constantinople, they have found him changed; raging over the loss of his beloved, Celia, he has gambled away his fortune at the gaming tables. But when a priceless blue diamond surfaces in the city, Pindar recognizes the opportunity to regain everything he has lost-including, perhaps, the woman he loves. A celebrated writer of history and travel books, Katie Hickman has always been a master of evoking time and place. With The Pindar Diamond, her follow-up to The Aviary Gate, she brings early-seventeenth-century Italy vividly to life, and also demonstrates her maturity as a novelist. A tale of love and avarice, with a touch of the mystical, The Pindar Diamond is rich with historical detail, and unfolds with urgency and grace. It is accomplished, wholly satisfying historical fiction.
