Mother of all battles for Boudicca:  BOUDICCA'S DAUGHTER by Elodie Harper, SIX WEEKS BY THE SEA by Paula Byrne, CAIRO GAMBIT by S. W. Perry

THERE’S dazzle and danger in Harper’s take on the charismatic revolutionary Boudicca and her daughter Solina, who’s caught up in a morally complex world of Roman-conquered Britain.

A proud Iceni warrior, Solina finds herself on the horns of a dilemma; her druid father wants to cooperate with the occupiers, her mother wants a war. When Solina and her sister Bellenia are brutalised by Roman soldiers, it’s Boudicca’s vision that wins out, with violent consequences for all.

There’s a raw energy to Harper’s storytelling that shows the bloody realities of battle, and how the freedoms of Solina’s earlier life are trammelled when she is enslaved by Roman legate Paulinus.

‘ONE of the questions I am most frequently asked about Jane Austen is, “Did she ever fall in love?” ’ says Austen scholar Byrne.

Inspired by a snippet of gossip revealed by Jane’s sister Cassandra – hinting at a seaside romance between Jane and a handsome young man – Byrne heads to 1801 Sidmouth, in the company of the Austen sisters, their brother Frank, his best friend, the dashing Captain Parker, and attractive lawyer Samuel Rose.

Alongside the formal balls, informal bathing, pompous clergymen, witty repartee and earnest conversation, Byrne introduces more serious subjects including slavery and the abolition movement. But the real fun is spotting Austen’s observations and characterisations, which Byrne has woven through her tantalising tale.

SAVVY secret agent Harry Taverner returns in a new thriller from Perry, best known for his Elizabethan Jackdaw Mysteries. Taverner plays second fiddle to the capricious Primrose (Prim) who heads to pre-war Egypt on the trail of her missing father, the duplicitous oil executive and amateur archaeologist Archie Nevenden, whom she hasn’t seen for 15 years.

But the Cairo of 1938 is a complicated place to be, and the intrepid Prim is soon mired in conspiracy, doubledealing and violence. Deftly plotted, with compelling characters, Perry captures a menacing political situation in this fastpaced, danger-filled novel.