Helena Woulfe, the daughter of a wealthy Exeter nobleman leads a privileged life, however, when rebellion sweeps the West Country, her family is caught in its grip. After Monmouth’s bloody defeat in battle at Sedgemoor, Helena sets off for Somerset to find the three missing members of her family. With the Woulfe estate confiscated by the crown, Helena and her younger brother Henry hope the anonymity of the capital city will be more forgiving to the children of a convicted rebel. However, Helena finds her search for security and respectability in London are threatened by someone who wishes harm to a traitor's daughter.

Born in London, Anita Davison connected with the history of that city at a young age. When the rest of the school trip were throwing the contents of their lunch boxes at each other, Anita imagined men in high white wigs, flared long coats and heeled shoes coming out of coffee houses, climbing into sedan chairs on the cobbles in Paternoster Row, where Christopher Wren was lowered down the outside of St Paul's Cathedral in a basket.

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Anita Davison knows her 17th century stuff, and brings to vivid life her characters in that time frame. By the time I'd finished reading this novel, I felt I'd been there, in the countryside as Helena looks for members of her family through the broken bodies and stench of blood that are the realities of war, and as she tries to keep safe along the narrow, crowded lanes of London.

FY Emerson