Author Spotlight: Antonia Hodgson and "The Devil in Marshalsea"

 

Pub Date: June 10, 2014 | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | Formats: eBook, Paperback

Thrilling new historical fiction starring a scoundrel with a heart of gold and set in the darkest debtors’ prison in Georgian London, where people fall dead as quickly as they fall in love and no one is as they seem.

It’s 1727. Tom Hawkins is damned if he’s going to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a country parson. Not for him a quiet life of prayer and propriety. His preference is for wine, women, and cards. But there’s a sense of honor there too, and Tom won’t pull family strings to get himself out of debt—not even when faced with the appalling horrors of London’s notorious debtors’ prison: The Marshalsea Gaol.

Within moments of his arrival in the Marshalsea, Hawkins learns there’s a murderer on the loose, a ghost is haunting the gaol, and that he’ll have to scrounge up the money to pay for his food, bed, and drink. He’s quick to accept an offer of free room and board from the mysterious Samuel Fleet—only to find out just hours later that it was Fleet’s last roommate who turned up dead. Tom’s choice is clear: get to the truth of the murder—or be the next to die.

Praise for The Devil in the Marshalsea
"Hodgson...conjures up scenes of Dickensian squalor and marries them to a crackerjack plot, in her impressive first novel...Hodgson makes the stench, as well as the despair, almost palpable, besides expertly dropping fair clues. Fans of Iain Pears and Charles Palliser will hope for a sequel." --Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)

"The plot develops almost as many intricate turns as there are passages in the Marshalsea…Hodgson’s plotting is clever…the local color hair-raising." –Kirkus Reviews

"Satisfyingly twisty debut thriller...so well detailed that one can almost smell the corruption, and the irrepressibly roguish Tom makes a winning hero." —Booklist

"Historical fiction just doesn’t get any better than this. A riveting, fast-paced story…Magnificent!" —Jeffery Deaver, author of the bestselling The Kill Room and Edge

"Antonia Hodgson’s London of 1727 offers that rare achievement in historical fiction: a time and place suspensefully different from our own, yet real. The Devil in the Marshalsea reminds us at every turn that we ourselves may not have evolved far from its world of debtors and creditors, crime and generosity, appetite and pathos. A damn’d good read." —Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian and The Swan Thieves

"A wonderfully convincing picture of the seamier side of 18th-century life. The narrative whips along. Antonia Hodgson has a real feel for how people thought and spoke at the time—and, God knows, that’s a rare talent." —Andrew Taylor, author of An Unpardonable Crime and The Four Last Things

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About the Author
Antonia Hodgson is the editor in chief of Little, Brown UK. She lives in London and can see the last fragments of the old city wall from her living room. The Devil in the Marshalsea is her first novel.

For more information please visit Antonia Hodgson's website. You can also find her on Goodreads and Twitter.

The Devil in the Marshalsea Blog Tour Schedule
Monday, June 10
Review at Flashlight Commentary

Tuesday, June 11
Interview at Flashlight Commentary

Wednesday, June 12
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Monday, June 16
Guest Post & Giveaway at Let Them Read Books

Friday, June 20
Interview at Reading the Past

Monday, June 23
Guest Post at Kinx's Book Nook

Wednesday, June 25
Review & Giveaway at Book Nerd

Monday, June 30
Interview at Caroline Wilson Writes

Tuesday, July 1
Review at Mina's Bookshelf

Thursday, July 3
Review at A Bibliotaph's Reviews

Monday, July 7
Review & Giveaway at 100 Pages a Day

Tuesday, July 8
Review & Giveaway at The True Book Addict

Wednesday, July 9
Spotlight at Layered Pages

Friday, July 11
Review at Princess of Eboli
Spotlight & Giveaway at Historical Fiction Connection