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A tale of revenge and piracy, ranging from the smugglers’ tunnels of the south coast to the battlefield of Culloden, Winchelsea is an electrifying story of vengeance and transformation.

Join Alex Preston as he discusses his remarkable book.

Partly inspired by the lives of soldier Hannah Snell and pirate Anne Bonny, Winchelsea is both a page-turning, swashbuckling adventure story and a meticulously researched look at gender and sexuality in the 18th century.

This is historical fiction at its best: Winchelsea reads like a Sunday night drama, with a fast-paced plot, pulse-quickening romance and a brilliant female lead.

Venue: Dunmow Library, 47 White Hart Way, Great Dunmow, CM6 1FS

Tickets: £8 / £7 concessions (Students, Under 27s and Jobseekers)

Date and time: Tuesday 28th June, 7.00pm

Box Office: Book online or via Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

Winchelsea by Alex Preston

The year is 1742. Goody Brown, saved from drowning and adopted when a baby, has grown up happily in the smuggling town of Winchelsea. Then, when Goody turns sixteen, her father is murdered in the night by men he thought were friends.

To find justice in a lawless land, Goody must enter the cut-throat world of her father’s killers. With her beloved brother Francis, she joins a rival gang of smugglers. Facing high seas and desperate villains, she also discovers something else: an existence without constraints or expectations, and a taste for danger that makes her blood run fast.

Winchelsea is an electrifying story of vengeance and transformation; a rare, lyrical and transporting work of historical imagination that makes the past so real we can touch it.

Praise for Winchelsea

“Terrific narrative drive, credible characters, and such an elegant creation of the backdrop in terms of both time and place” Penelope Lively

“This is historical drama on a deft and uproarious scale, and it makes for a breathlessly
exciting and engaging read.” Philip Hoare

About the Author

Alex Preston is an award-winning author of three novels: This Bleeding City, The Revelations and In Love and War, and the non-fiction title, As Kingfishers Catch Fire. He reviews books for the Observer’s New Review, Financial Times and Spectator, and also writes regularly for the Telegraph, the Economist and Harper’s Bazaar. Alex is co-founder of the Corfu Literary Festival and Patron of Oxford Literary Festival.

You can follow Alex on Twitter @ahmpreston

Photo of Alex Preston © Eva K Salvi