Laura Shepherd-Robinson is the award-winning, Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author of three historical novels. Her books have been featured on BBC 2’s Between the Covers and Radio 4’s Front Row and Open Book. Her fourth novel, The Art of a Lie, will be published in Summer 2025.
Her latest novel, The Square of Sevens, was a Sunday Times and USA Today bestseller, a Pick of the Month on Amazon US, an Indie Next pick, and a Book of the Year in the Sunday Times and the Guardian. It was also shortlisted for the Fingerprint Awards Best Historical Crime Novel; the Goldsboro Glass Bell; and was longlisted for the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year.
Blood & Sugar, her first novel, won the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown and the Specsaver’s Debut Crime Novel award, was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month, and a Guardian and Telegraph novel of the year. It was also shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and the Sapere Historical Dagger; the Amazon Publishing/Capital Crime Best Debut Novel; and the Goldsboro Glass Bell; and longlisted for the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year.
Her second novel, Daughters of Night, was a Book of the Year in the Times, the i, and the Guardian. It was also shortlisted for the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year, the Goldsboro Glass Bell, the Capital Crime Fingerprint Historical Novel Award and the Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown; and longlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger.
Laura was born in Bristol in 1976. She has a BSc in Politics from the University of Bristol and an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics. She worked in politics for nearly twenty years before re-entering normal life to complete an MA in Creative Writing at City University. She lives in London with her husband, Adrian.
The Square of Sevens – out now in paperback
‘My father had spelt it out to me. Choice was a luxury I couldn’t afford. This is your story, Red. You must tell it well …’
From the debauchery of Bartholomew Fair to the grandest estates in Georgian London, this page-turning slice of period crime follows a fortune teller on a perilous quest to discover the truth about her late mother.
A richly immersive panorama. . . With its twists and turns and revelations of those lies that bind and truths that rend asunder, this story is a deep pleasure to read
Sunday Times
Buy The Square of Sevens: Waterstones | Hive | Amazon
US Readers: Buy The Square of Sevens: Barnes & Noble | Amazon
Daughters of Night – out now in paperback
Lucia’s fingers found her own. She gazed at Caro as if from a distance. Her lips parted, her words a whisper: ‘He knows.’
From the brothels and gin-shops of Covent Garden to the elegant townhouses of Mayfair, Daughters of Night follows Caroline Corsham, as she seeks justice for a murdered woman whom London society would rather forget . . .
I would gamble what’s left of my virtue on Daughters of Night being the best historical crime novel I will read this year.
The Times
Buy Daughters of Night: Amazon | Waterstones
Blood & Sugar – out now in paperback
London, 1781. An investigation into a gruesome murder on the Deptford Docks leads to a dark secret that could change the very core of British society…
A page-turner of a crime thriller . . . This is a world conveyed with convincing, terrible clarity.
C. J. Sansom
Buy Blood & Sugar: Amazon | Waterstones
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