The truth she locked away will set another woman free...

Once in a lifetime a love story comes along to remind us that sometimes, in our darkest hour, hope shines a candle to light our way. Read THE LETTER by Kathryn Hughes, the Number One bestseller that has captured thousands of hearts worldwide. Perfect for fans of The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. 'A wonderful, uplifting story' Lesley Pearse

Join the hundreds of thousands of readers worldwide who have fallen in love with THE LETTER:

'An amazing, heartwrenching, unforgettable story'

'This beautiful story will bring tears and joy'

'Loved this story !! It kept me totally gripped although I was sobbing in places as well'

'A tale of love and hope with lots of twists and turns. A great story!'

Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home. Whilst going through the pockets of a second-hand suit, she comes across an old letter, the envelope firmly sealed and unfranked. Tina opens the letter and reads it - a decision that will alter the course of her life for ever...

Billy Stirling knows he has been a fool, but hopes he can put things right. On 4th September 1939 he sits down to write the letter he hopes will change his future. It does - in more ways than he can ever imagine...

THE LETTER tells the story of two women, born decades apart, whose paths are destined to cross and how one woman's devastation leads to the other's salvation.

A beautiful, page-turning and heartwrenching story of how hope can blossom in the ruins of tragedy and of the redeeming power of love. From No. 1 bestselling author of The Letter Kathryn Hughes.

* Winner Book of the Year in Prima magazine Big Book Awards *

'Storytelling at its finest with characters that come alive and a plot that dances with intrigue. An absolutely first-class read that does not disappoint' Prima

'A gripping read' Woman & Home

_______

Tara Richards was just a girl when she lost her mother. Years later when Tara receives a letter from a London solicitor its contents shake her to the core. Someone has left her a key to a safe deposit box. In the box lies an object that will change everything Tara thought she knew and lead her on a journey to deepest Spain in search of the answers that have haunted her for forty years.

Violet Skye regrets her decision to travel abroad leaving her young daughter behind. As the sun dips below the mountains, she reminds herself she is doing this for their future. Tonight, 4th June 1978, will be the start of a new life for them. This night will indeed change Violet's destiny, in the most unexpected of ways...

Just some of the five-star reviews from real readers for Her Last Promise...

'Hope rises from despair and new beginnings are forged in the most extraordinary and unexpected way. Kathryn Hughes delves deeply into the heart and soul of her characters, making them totally relatable...like friends you really care for. My addiction to this novel was total and uncompromising *****'

'Wonderful! First book I have read by Kathryn Hughes and will now read her previous stories. I loved it *****'

'Another great story from Kathryn Hughes *****'

'As always, a lovely story by Kathryn Hughes *****'

'I really enjoyed this book, especially the nostalgic 1970's descriptions *****''

* THE MEMORY BOX, THE NEW NOVEL FROM KATHRYN HUGHES, IS AVAILABLE NOW *

Read for free the first three chapters of Kathryn Hughes' new novel, THE SECRET, and discover for yourself why so many readers have lost their hearts to this book. Includes a letter from the author.

'Gripping' Good Housekeeping

'Have lots of tissues ready' My Weekly

'Emotional and intriguing. Keeps you guessing right to the end *****' People's Friend

Mary has been nursing a secret.

Forty years ago, she made a choice that would change her world for ever, and alter the path of someone she holds dear.

Beth is searching for answers. She has never known the truth about her parentage, but finding out could be the lifeline her sick child so desperately needs. When Beth finds a faded newspaper cutting amongst her mother's things, she realises the key to her son's future lies in her own past. She must go back to where it all began to unlock...The Secret.

What readers are saying about the gripping stories of Kathryn Hughes:

'Wonderful' Lesley Pearse on the No. 1 bestseller The Letter

'A beautifully told, tragic tale'

'One to tug on the heartstrings'

'A truly gorgeous story'

'Get set to be hooked'

'A page-turner from the very beginning'

'This is one of the BEST BOOKS I have ever read'

'I cried buckets of tears reading it'

We each of us strive for domestic bliss, and we may look to Delia and Nigella to give us tips on achieving the unattainable. Kathryn Hughes, acclaimed for her biography of George Eliot, has pulled back the curtains to look at the creator of the ultimate book on keeping house.

In Victorian England what did every middle-class housewife need to create the perfect home? ‘The Book of Household Management’. ‘Oh, but of course!’ Mrs Beeton would no doubt declare with brisk authority. But Mrs Beeton is not quite the matronly figure that has kept her name resonating 150 years after the publication of ‘The Book of Household Management’.

The famous pages of carefully costed recipes, warnings about not gossiping to visitors, and making sure you always keep your hat on in someone else’s house were indispensable in the moulding of the Victorian domestic bliss. But there are many myths surrounding the legend of Mrs Beeton. It is very possible that her book was given so much social standing through fear as she was believed to be a bit of an old dragon.

It seems though that Mrs Beeton was a series of contradictions. Kathryn Hughes reveals here that Bella Beeton was a million miles away from the stoical, middle-aged matron. She was in fact only 25 years old when she created the guide to successful family living and had only had five years experience of her own to inform her. She lived in a semi-detached house in Pinner with the bare minimum of servants. She bordered on being a workaholic, and certainly wasn’t the meek and mild little wife that her book was aimed at – more a highly intelligent and ambitious young woman. After preaching about wholesome and clean living, Bella Beeton died at the age of 28 from (contrary to her parent’s belief) bad hygiene. Kathryn Hughes sympathetically explores the irony behind Bella Beeton’s public and private image in this highly readable and informative study of Victorian lifestyle.

‘Victorians Undone is the most original history book I have read in a long while’ Daily Mail

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR • AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR

A groundbreaking account of what it was like to live in a Victorian body from one of our best historians.

Why did the great philosophical novelist George Eliot feel so self-conscious that her right hand was larger than her left?

Exactly what made Darwin grow that iconic beard in 1862, a good five years after his contemporaries had all retired their razors?

Who knew Queen Victoria had a personal hygiene problem as a young woman and the crisis that followed led to a hurried commitment to marry Albert?

What did John Sell Cotman, a handsome drawing room operator who painted some of the most exquisite watercolours the world has ever seen, feel about marrying a woman whose big nose made smart people snigger?

How did a working-class child called Fanny Adams disintegrate into pieces in 1867 before being reassembled into a popular joke, one we still reference today, but would stop, appalled, if we knew its origins?

Kathryn Hughes follows a thickened index finger or deep baritone voice into the realms of social history, medical discourse, aesthetic practise and religious observance – its language is one of admiring glances, cruel sniggers, an implacably turned back. The result is an eye-opening, deeply intelligent, groundbreaking account that brings the Victorians back to life and helps us understand how they lived their lives.

This highly praised biography is the first to explore fully the way in which her painful early life and rejection by her brother Isaac in particular, shaped the insight and art which made her both Victorian England’s last great visionary and the first modern.

An immensely readable biography of the 19th century writer whose territory comprised nothing less than the entire span of Victorian society. Kathryn Hughes provides a truly nuanced view of Eliot, and is the first to grapple equally with the personal dramas that shaped her personality – particularly her rejection by her brother Isaac – and her social and intellectual context. Hughes shows how these elements together forged the themes of Eliot’s work, her insistence that ideological interests be subordinated to the bonds between human beings – a message that has keen resonance in our own time. With wit and sympathy Kathryn Hughes has written a wonderfully vivid account of Eliot’s life that is both moving, stimulating and at times laugh-out-loud funny.