Set in 1790’s Covent Garden this book whisks you back to a bygone era. The narrator’s colourful slang and confident I’ll-tell-you-how-it-really-is, makes the story sparkle off the page.
Cat Royal is an orphan who lives at the back of the theatre in Drury Lane. She mingles with the high and low of society – from the actors onstage to the lords and ladies in the stalls to the barrow boys in the grimy marketplace. The tale is packed with local colour and authentic detail. And of course there is a gripping diamond mystery. What more could you want?
Julia Golding grew up on the edge of Epping Forest. After reading English at Cambridge, she joined the Foreign Office and served in Poland. Her work as a diplomat took her from the high point of town twinning in the Tatra Mountains to the low of inspecting the bottom of a Silesian coal mine. On leaving Poland, she exchanged diplomacy for academia and took a doctorate in the literature of the English Romantic Period at Oxford. She then joined Oxfam as a lobbyist on conflict issues, campaigning at the UN and with governments to lessen the impact of conflict on civilians living in war zones.
Married with three children, Julia now lives in Oxford and works as a freelance writer.
