Winchelsea

Imagine Daphne du Maurier crossed with Quentin Tarantino, and you will have some idea of just what a thrilling, bloody and heady ride this novel is -- TOM HOLLAND I was riveted. Winchelsea is a great read - terrific narrative drive, credible characters, and such an elegant creation of the backdrop in terms of both time and place -- PENELOPE LIVELY Winchelsea and its fierce young heroine swept me away on an irresistible tide of adventure, revenge, horror, love, smuggling and high drama on land and sea. What a brilliant idea to rework Moonfleet, but add some contemporary touches to the mix. Huge fun, superbly atmospheric and thoroughly enjoyable -- AMANDA CRAIG There's a wild piratical darkness to Winchelsea which is charged by the evocative and strange wilderness of its setting on the Romney Marshes. At its heart is a gripping tale: a life-and-death struggle, set in the eighteenth century yet vibrantly heightened by a sureness of visceral detail and a vivid depth of characterisation. This is historical drama on a deft and uproarious scale, and it makes for a breathlessly exciting and engaging read -- PHILIP HOARE What a story! What a heroine! What an adventure! Alex Preston sweeps you from scene to scene, surprise to surprise with all the deft theatricality and fluency of a modern Robert Louis Stevenson. I have rarely read anything so vivid or that makes the eighteenth century, with all its ambitions, terrors, desires and sheer juiciness, so grippingly alive. Huzzah! -- ADAM NICOLSON Beautifully told and expertly crafted, a moving and evocative tale of longing and belonging -- PETER FRANKOPAN Wilkie Collins, eat your heart out! The novel is so very impressive and so saturated with atmosphere and rich in mystery - it flows so freely, takes risks other novels might dodge, and transports us into an entirely different world. It is drenched in a love of place and history, and a perfect record of a hybrid life -- JONATHAN LEE Winchelsea is a remarkable act of literary time travel: dark and gripping and soaked in blood and salt water -- EVIE WYLD Praise for In Love and War: [R]ich and evocative . . . Powerfully affecting, ambitious in its scope, precise in its attention to detail and infused with a love for Florence and its motley eccentrics * * Observer * * Exhilarating . . . Preston's flair for recreating atmosphere and contemporary speech is immaculate * * Financial Times * *