My Maiden Lane series takes place in 1730s London, a world teaming with the sounds of church bells and hoof beats, violins and castrati opera singers, the shouts of street hawkers and the murmur of political intrigue. Coffee shops were bustling centers of gossip and news, at night you could find entertainment at the theater, opera, or pleasure gardens, and everywhere the streets were crammed with people, carriages, horses, sedan chairs, and the odd flock of sheep going to slaughter. The poor lived cheek by jowl in dirty, crammed tenement buildings in the East End and St. Giles, scratching out a living by begging, prostitution, or thievery. At the same time the very rich strolled their gilded homes in silks, velvets, and fabulously embroidered brocades, intent upon flirtation and intrigue.

From guttersnipes to dukes, gin-shop sellers to the daughters of earls, Dragoon captains to Thames river pirates, the Maiden Lane series embraces everything about this fabulous time in London’s history.

Welcome to Maiden Lane!