Book description
 And what was I, a mere printer, doing sweeping up my silk skirts
on Jermyn-street, you might ask? Well, if you know anything about our
city, I'm sure you can guess â London, 1820: George IV is to be
crowned King at last. But will his estranged wife Caroline be allowed
to join him as Queen? The city is in turmoil, as her radical
supporters rally to her cause and threaten to overturn the government.
Into this tumultuous world is thrown Nell Wingfield, a gutsy
seventeen-year-old printer of political pamphlets. Nell has recently
returned home after a six-month absence that she would rather not
explain. After her mother's death, she was duped into working at one
of the  Houses of the Quality', the brothels on St James's, turning
tricks with men at the heart of the English establishment. When one of
them Â- a key protagonist in the plot to keep Caroline from the throne
Â- was found dead in his bed, it was time for Nell to leave. But, back
on Cheapside, she finds that the family print shop, far from providing
a sanctuary, has become a hotbed of dangerous radical activity. Nell's
troubles, it seems, have only just begun... The Harlot's Press is a
gripping historical drama, in which St James's and Cheapside, royalty
and the rabble become thrillingly entangled as Nell fights for
survival.
Helen Pike lives in Guildford and Oxfordshire. Â She is a history
graduate of Oxford and holds an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck.
This is her debut novel, and was in part inspired by her history
teaching at Guildford High School.
