The Household

The Household

2024 • 378 pages

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Average rating3.5

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From the Sunday Times bestseller and winner of the Women's Prize Futures Award, the captivating, highly anticipated new novel, inspired by real historical figures and events. In a quiet house in the countryside outside London, the finishing touches are being made to welcome a group of young women. The house and its location are top secret, its residents unknown to one another, but the girls have one thing in common: they are fallen. Offering refuge for prostitutes, petty thieves and the destitute, Urania Cottage is a second chance at life - but how badly do they want it? Meanwhile, a few miles away in a Piccadilly mansion, millionairess Angela Burdett-Coutts, one of the benefactors of Urania Cottage, makes a discovery that leaves her cold: her stalker of 10 years has been released from prison . . . As the women's worlds collide in ways they could never have expected, they will discover that freedom always comes at a price . . . The Household is the new novel from the award-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Familiars, The Foundling and Mrs England. Set against Charles Dicken's home for fallen women and inspired by real figures from history, it is Stacey Halls' most ambitious and compelling novel yet. PRAISE FOR STACEY HALLS 'Stacey Halls is a writer of great originality, great imagination and great sense of place. Atmospheric, intelligent, accessible, every novel is worth reading, then reading again and again' Kate Mosse 'The new Hilary Mantel' Cosmopolitan 'Outstanding. Haunting, compelling, atmospheric' Emma Stonex 'Utterly compelling. Menacing and marvellously written, this is hugely accomplished' Daily Mail 'Shimmers with menace... enticing and beautifully written' Sunday Express 'Jaw-droppingly brilliant. Exquisitely written, incredibly atmospheric, a masterclass in rising tension' Liz Hyder

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Stacey Halls has always been one of my favourite authors, and The Household may be her best yet. The atmosphere created is amazing, the characters, especially Martha and Josephine, are memorable, and the plot which mixes in fact with fiction, combine to make a first-rate novel.

December 17, 2023

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