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Wendy Wallace
Represented By: Ivan Mulcahy
Wendy Wallace writes novels exploring the lives of Victorian women.
Her first, The Painted Bridge, was set in a women’s asylum in Highgate in 1859. Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott prize, it won the 2014 Chambéry festival English first novel prize. Her second, The Sacred River, is set in Egypt in the early 1880s at a time of political and social turmoil. Both are published by Simon & Schuster in the UK and Scribner in the US.
She is the author of two non-fiction books, Oranges and Lemons: a year in the life of an inner city primary school (Routledge) and Daughter of Dust: growing up abandoned in the desert of Sudan (Simon & Schuster), the story of a courageous Sudanese woman championing children born outside marriage in a conservative Muslim society.
Her most recent novel, The Unforgetting – about a ghost who becomes a woman – was published in January 2020 by Orion Books, under the pen name Rose Black. She is writing a fourth historical novel, based on the true story of a 19th century English cult.
Wendy works with the Royal Literary Fund helping NHS staff and others with their writing. She lives by the sea, in Kent, with her husband.
Represented By: Ivan Mulcahy
Wendy Wallace writes novels exploring the lives of Victorian women.
Her first, The Painted Bridge, was set in a women’s asylum in Highgate in 1859. Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott prize, it won the 2014 Chambéry festival English first novel prize. Her second, The Sacred River, is set in Egypt in the early 1880s at a time of political and social turmoil. Both are published by Simon & Schuster in the UK and Scribner in the US.
She is the author of two non-fiction books, Oranges and Lemons: a year in the life of an inner city primary school (Routledge) and Daughter of Dust: growing up abandoned in the desert of Sudan (Simon & Schuster), the story of a courageous Sudanese woman championing children born outside marriage in a conservative Muslim society.
Her most recent novel, The Unforgetting – about a ghost who becomes a woman – was published in January 2020 by Orion Books, under the pen name Rose Black. She is writing a fourth historical novel, based on the true story of a 19th century English cult.
Wendy works with the Royal Literary Fund helping NHS staff and others with their writing. She lives by the sea, in Kent, with her husband.
Published Works
Author: Wendy Wallace
Genre: Fiction
Outside London behind a stone wall stands Lake House, a private asylum for genteel women of a delicate nature.
In the winter of 1859, recently-married Anna Palmer becomes its newest arrival, tricked by her husband into leaving home, incarcerated against her will and declared hysterical and unhinged. With no doubts as to her sanity, Anna is convinced that she will be released as soon as she can tell her story. But Anna learns that liberty will not come easily. The longer she remains at Lake House, the more she realises that — like the ethereal bridge over the asylum’s lake — nothing is as it appears. She begins to experience strange visions and memories that may lead her to the truth about her past, herself, and to freedom – or lead her so far into the recesses of her mind that she may never escape… Set in Victorian England, as superstitions collide with a new psychological understanding, this elegant, emotionally suspenseful debut novel is a tale of self-discovery, secrets, and a search for the truth in a world where the line between madness and sanity seems perilously fine.
“A haunting look at women's asylums in 1850s England...Wallace masterfully creates an atmosphere of utter claustrophobia and dread.”
- Publisher’s Weekly“Soft, intricate and languid with a twist in the tale. This is a mesmerizing first novel.”
- Viv Groskop, Red magazine“An emotionally charged gothic tale that will appeal to fans of the Victorian novels of Sarah Waters.”
- Bella“A decidedly Dickensian flavor infuses the novel, both in style and in emphasis on Victorian social issues, and its lively cast of supporting characters includes caricatures of evil as well as painfully nuanced portrayals of moral complexity…quite delicious.”
- Kirkus Reviews“Wallace's gothic debut immediately reminded me of Waters in the way she conjured claustrophobic Victorian society, and skilfully evoked the struggles women faced to find their own voice.”
- Ahlan!
Author: Wendy Wallace
Genre: Fiction
Harriet Heron’s life is almost over before it has even begun.
At just twenty-three years of age, she is an invalid, over-protected and reclusive. Before it is too late, she must escape the fog of Victorian London for a place where she can breathe. Together with her devoted mother, Louisa, her god-fearing aunt, Yael, and a book of her own spells inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Harriet travels to a land where the air is tinged with rose and gold and for the first time begins to experience what it is to live.
But a chance meeting on the voyage to Alexandria results in a dangerous friendship as Louisa’s long-buried past returns, in the form of someone determined to destroy her by preying upon her daughter.
As Harriet journeys towards a destiny no one could have foreseen, her aunt Yael is caught up in an Egypt on the brink of revolt and her mother must confront the spectres of her own youth.
Award-winning journalist and writer Wendy Wallace spins a tale of three women caught between propriety and love on a journey of cultural awakening through an exquisitely drawn Egypt. In prose both sumptuous and mesmeric, she conjures a sensibility akin to that of E M Forster and Merchant Ivory.
“It is the political and social unrest when it finally erupts that throws up The Sacred River’s biggest surprise”
- The Camden Review“Harriet is a wonderful character and I loved the way she grew and blossomed as a person over the course of the novel”
- SheReadsNovels“Exquisitely written. A haunting and mystical story of three women who search for freedom, whether in Victorian England or the tombs of ancient Egypt”
- Essie Fox, Author of The Somnambulist“I adored this book's unique setting. The minutiae of daily life in Egypt at the end of the 19th century were fascinating and masterfully woven into the story, never detracting from the action. The three women were distinctive and exquisitely drawn...The book is built on thorough research, but at its heart is character and an extraordinary setting. I wanted to buy my ticket for a Nile cruise the moment I had closed the last page.”
- Novelicious“A lush, original, and page-turning narrative.”
- Publisher’s Weekly
Author: Wendy Wallace
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Leila understands from early on that she is not part of normal Sudanese society.
Her parents are unable to care for her, so she is banished to a strict orphanage, along with children born outside marriage. At school, Leila and her best friend Amal are called ‘daughters of sin’. Her pretty sister, Zulima, is married off to a much older man, while the nannies say an abandoned girl is lucky to get an offer of marriage at all.
At the age of ten, both Leila and Amal endure female circumcision. Suffering appalling prejudice, and thought to bring the ‘evil eye’, Leila remains outgoing and brave and manages to get an education. She goes on to marry, have four children, and divorce, yet even grown up she continues to know the stigma of being abandoned.
Undaunted, Leila founds her own charity to help those shunned as outcasts. Yet her charity work makes her vulnerable in the ultra-conservative Islamic society of Sudan, but she continues to work tirelessly to dispel prejudice.
This beautifully written, graceful memoir perfectly evokes the heat and colour of the North African desert and tells of the true friendships that are born out of adversity.