New Releases by Jill Paton Walsh

A PLAGUE - A VILLAGE - A LOCKDOWN 1665, Eyam, Derbyshire. ''Here I have set down all that I know of the Plague'' It is 1665 and Mall Percival is a shepherd girl living in a Derbyshire village. She tends her flock, spends time with her best friend and teaches her young suitor to read. But one day a parcel of patterns, meant for a new dress for the pastor''s wife, wings its way from London. The parcel carries an infection that spreads with horrifying speed. Herbal teas and open windows are the only defence against the sickness. Yet the villagers make a brave and selfless decision: to isolate themselves from the rest of the country. It is a lockdown that saves the neighbouring towns, but at heart-breaking cost to Mall''s world. Based on the true events of the village of Eyam, this is the story of a courageous sacrifice that saved Derbyshire and beyond from a deadly virus. *SHORTLISTED FOR THE WHITBREAD PRIZE* ''A pocket masterpiece'' Guardian Readers love A Parcel of Patterns ''I couldn''t put it down'' ''Brought me to tears too many times to count'' ''If you think social distancing is hard in the Coronavirus pandemic, read this wonderful novel based on the true story of the village of Eyam''

The eleventh book in Dorothy L Sayers'' classic Lord Peter Wimsey series, introduced by writer Jill Paton Walsh - a must-read for fans of Agatha Christie''s Poirot and Margery Allingham''s Campion Mysteries. When his sexton finds a corpse in the wrong grave, the rector of Fenchurch St Paul asks Lord Peter Wimsey to find out who the dead man was and how he came to be there. The lore of bell-ringing and a brilliantly-evoked village in the remote fens of East Anglia are the unforgettable background to a story of an old unsolved crime and its violent unravelling twenty years later. ''She brought to the detective novel originality, intelligence, energy and wit.'' P.D. James.

Lord Peter and Harriet return to the scene of their literate courtship to resolve an Oxford University dispute that is complicated by the disappearance of several prominent Fellows.

A re-issue of a forgotten favourite, FIREWEED is an evocative and unflinching story of wartime survival for younger readers Bill is a fifteen-year-old runaway evacuee, and he''s finding that surviving on the streets of London is pretty easy, thank you very much. He''s fed by a local cafe owner, he earns some cash as a barrow-boy in Covent Garden, and sleeping in the Underground air-raid shelters is cosy - if a bit smelly. Things get more complicated for Bill with the arrival of Julie. She''s a runaway too, and although she''s a bit posh, she''s just as determined as Bill to stay free of interfering parents and ''the social''. But although it''s fun for a while to duck Jerry missiles and camp out in bombed-out houses, the reality of living through the Blitz quickly begins to set in. Winter is coming, and Bill and Julie will discover that playing at being grown-ups can be a very dangerous game.... First published in 1969, and winner of the 1970''s Book World Festival Award, FIREWEED evokes a time of tin Spitfires, powdered eggs, warm woollen mittens and reading by firelight. Perfect for readers young and old, this book is a beautifully written classic, full of adventure, heroism and British wartime courage.

''An entertaining read'' - Sunday Times Why did Sir Julius Farran die? Hoping to attract a generous endowment, St Agatha''s College, Cambridge, invites the fabulously wealthy Sir Julius Farran to dine. The evening is a disaster for everyone except the college nurse, Imogen Quy, who Farran invites her to come and work for him. Imogen declines, but when Farran dies, suddenly and shockingly, she has to investigate. His death has left a large hole in his company accounts that could mean financial ruin for St Agatha''s. To save her beloved college, Imogen starts to cast her cool eye over the financier''s heirs, employees and enemies. What is right about the death of Sir Julius? What is wrong about it? And above all, why did it happen?

Jill Paton Walsh''s classic science fiction novel The Green Book is now available from Square Fish with a brand–new cover! Pattie and her family are among the last refugees to flee a dying Earth in an old spaceship. And when the group finally lands on the distant planet which is to be their new home, it seems that the four-year journey has been a success. But as they begin to settle this shiny new world, they discover that the colony is in serious jeopardy. Nothing on this planet is edible, and they may not be able to grow food. With supplies dwindling, Pattie and her sister decide to take the one chance that might make life possible on Shine.

The miner''s work is hard-they need pasties to keep them going. When Thomas shares his pasty with a small miner, he is rewarded with a wish. But soon, more miners appear and Thomas regrets his kindness-until he faces an even bigger problem...

Sometimes, Birdy watches her father row people across the dangerous sea, but when the wrinkled old woman asks to be ferried across, Birdy jumps in too. The woman tells Birdy that she has second sight, but Birdy isn''t sure she wants this special gift. However, soon she finds that looking twice at things can bring the most unexpected results . . . With an engaging story told in short chapters, and illustrations in black and white and colour on every double-page spread, this short novel is ideal for newly confident readers.

''Imogen Quy positively sparkles on the page as an amateur sleuth'' - Sunday Express What is the Summerfield secret? Biography is usually a safe profession. But more than one biographer has found that writing about the late mathematician Gideon Summerfield has nasty consequences. Consequences that can sometimes be deadly. Imogen Quy, the coolly competent nurse at St. Agatha''s College, Cambridge, first notices the pattern when her enthusiastic lodger Fran becomes the latest Summerfield biographer. Before she realises how deadly the Summerfield secret is, Fran''s life is in danger. And Imogen may be next . . .

In 1936, Dorothy L. Sayers abandoned the last Lord Peter Wimsey detective story. Sixty years later, a brown paper parcel containing a copy of the manuscript was discovered in her agent''s safe in London, and award-winning novelist Jill Paton Walsh was commissioned to complete it. The result of the pairing of Dorothy L. Sayers with Walsh was the international bestseller Thrones, Dominations. Now, following A Presumption of Death, set during World War II, comes a new Sayers-inspired mystery featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, revisiting his very first case. . . . It was 1921 when Lord Peter Wimsey first encountered the Attenbury Emeralds. The recovery of the gems in Lord Attenbury''s dazzling heirloom collection made headlines—and launched a shell-shocked young aristocrat on his career as a detective. Thirty years later, a happily married Lord Peter has just shared the secrets of that mystery with his wife, the detective novelist Harriet Vane. Suddenly, the new Lord Attenbury—grandson of Lord Peter''s first client—seeks his help to prove who owns the emeralds. As Harriet and Peter contemplate the changes that the war has wrought on English society—and Peter, who always cherished the liberties of a younger son, faces the unwanted prospect of ending up the Duke of Denver after all—Jill Paton Walsh brings us a masterful new chapter in the annals of one of the greatest detectives of all time.

Prince Dhutmose has commanded a splendid tomb to be built for his final journey to the Land of the Dead. Pepi''s father is to decorate it, but how can he paint the unimaginable - the Lions of the Horizon, the terrible gods Horus the Hawk and Sebek the crocodile, and Mertseger the deadly Winged Cobra? Pepi decides to find real-life models for his father, using his knowledge of secret names. In this enthralling, magically illustrated story, young readers can solve the secret names for themselves, using a simple hieroglyphics key to enter the mysterious world of ancient Egypt.

Sixty years after Dorothy L. Sayers began her unfinished Lord Peter Wimsey novel, Thrones Dominations, Booker Prize finalist Jill Paton Walsh took on the challenge of completing the manuscript---with extraordinary success. "The transition is seamless," said the San Francisco Chronicle; "you cannot tell where Sayers leaves off and Walsh begins." "Will Paton Walsh do it again?" wondered Ruth Rendell in London''s Sunday Times. "We must hope so." Jill Paton Walsh fulfills those hopes in A Presumption of Death. Although Sayers never began another Wimsey novel, she did leave clues. Drawing on "The Wimsey Papers," in which Sayers showed various members of the family coping with wartime conditions, Walsh has devised an irresistible story set in 1940, at the start of the Blitz in London. Lord Peter is abroad on secret business for the Foreign Office, while Harriet Vane, now Lady Peter Wimsey, has taken their children to safety in the country. But war has followed them there---glamorous RAF pilots and even more glamorous land-girls scandalize the villagers, and the blackout makes the nighttime lanes as sinister as the back alleys of London. Daily life reminds them of the war so constantly that, when the village''s first air-raid practice ends with a real body on the ground, it''s almost a shock to hear the doctor declare that it was not enemy action, but plain, old-fashioned murder. Or was it? At the request of the overstretched local police, Harriet reluctantly agrees to investigate. The mystery that unfolds is every bit as literate, ingenious, and compelling as the best of original Lord Peter Wimsey novels.

An English boy, shipwrecked, hungry, and lost, finds his way into the court of Constantine where he is interpreted as a symbol of good luck and, as such, ordered to be kept always near the king.

A novel of the effects of Communism on the lives of ordinary people in the aftermath of World War II chronicles fifty years in a small Eastern European town.

Deemed "one of the greatest mystery writers of this century" by the Los Angeles Times, Dorothy L. Sayers first captivated readers nearly seventy years ago with her beloved sleuths Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane in the novel Stong Poison. In Busmans''s Honeymoon, her last completed Wimsey/Vane novel, Lord Peter and Harriet culminated their partnership with marriage. Now Thrones, Dominations, Sayers'' uncompleted last novel, satisfies the vast readership hungry to know what happened after the honeymoon. Here award-winning author Jill Paton Walsh picks up where Sayers left off, bringing Wimsey and Vane brilliantly to life in Sayers'' unmistakable voice. Readers and reviewers are rejoicing at the return of this delightful sleuthing couple--as adept at solving a baffling murder mystery as they are a balancing the delicate demands of their loving union.

A grandmother tells her grandson what life was like when she was as little as he is now.

"Once a year cousins Madge and Paul visit Goldengrove, their grandmother''s idyllic Cornish home. But one year as Summer turns to Autumn and as they are drawn from childhood to maturity, their seemingly indomitable grandmother turns to Winter, and the precious moments of innocence begin to be leached away... Years later Madge, now living at Goldengrove, reflects on her own grandchildren and the events and revelations which disturbed the tranquill idyll that was her childhood. With wisdom and understanding, Jill Paton Walsh creates memorable mood-music for the ebb and flow, calm and storm of changing lives and in so doing has formed a lasting tale of innocence and beauty. An extremely good story, marvellously told. As the story gathers momentum, the deeply understood characters, the golden atmosphere, the small change of everyday pleasures and ageless tragedies are all put over with such newly seen immediacy and such controlled mastery that the reader is carried along like a surf rider on the crest of a wave, knowing it must soon break'' Times Literary Supplement ''Written with an intensity of feeling and care, with a Woolf-like awareness of the instant''s sensation: a story

From the Booker Prize shortlisted author of Knowledge of Angels, this novel is of two interwoven stories worked around the theme of Mozart''s Cosi Fan Tutte, which explores love and infidelity.

Pat and his friend John both know the risks they are running in taking a boat across the Channel in the spring of 1940. But they also know they have to do something to help the British soldiers stranded in Dunkirk.

Just before the Reformation, a feral child raised by wolves and a shipwrecked atheist are discovered by local inhabitants on a remote Mediterranean island. Their simultaneous appearance becomes both an omen and a challenge to church authorities to prove that humankind is born with the knowledge of angels. At once a mystery, an adventure tale, and a medieval fable, "Knowledge of Angels" is a hauntingly poetic masterpiece.

When Connie comes to play she uses her imagination.

Although Grandma has seen many wonderful sights around the world, none compare to the wonder of her bouncy, growing, "heaven-and-earthly" granddaughter Madeleine.

After helping her father rescue the survivors of a shipwreck on the coast of England in 1838, Grace Darling finds her quiet life crumbling around her as she is unwillingly fashioned into a national hero.

James''s difficulty in adjusting to a new school and life in the Fens is further complicated by the request of an elderly neighbor to find his lucky piece, a task which puts James in some danger.