With warm and artful prose this is a story richly realised and sympathetically imagined, making THE HOUSEHOLD undoubtedly my favourite novel written by Stacey Halls so far, whose writing goes from strength to strength. I loved it.
Susan Stokes Chapman, Sunday Times bestselling author of Pandora
This novel is the very definition of unputdownable. I loved every one of the women connected to Urania Cottage. Original, engrossing and so true to life. My favourite Stacey Halls novel yet.
Louise Hare
I devoured The Household by Stacey Halls. Meticulously researched and thoroughly entertaining, I was struck most of all by its hopefulness: about forgiveness, friendship, the choices we make and the opportunity for a second (or third) chance. This is undoubtedly Stacey Halls' best novel yet – I can't wait to see what she writes next.
Elizabeth Macneal, bestselling author of THE DOLL FACTORY
London, 1847. In a quiet house in the countryside nearby, the finishing touches are being made to welcome a group of young women. The house and its location are 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 ten years has been released from prison, and she knows it’s only a matter of time before their nightmarish game resumes once more.
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 Dickens’ home for fallen women and inspired by real figures from history, it is Stacey Halls’ most ambitious and captivating novel yet.
Stacey Halls was born in Lancashire and worked as a journalist before her debut The Familiars was published in 2019. The Familiars was the bestselling debut hardback novel of 2019, won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards Debut Book of the Year. Her novels The Foundling and Mrs England were also acclaimed Sunday Times bestsellers. Mrs England was further longlisted for the Portico Prize, the Walter Scott Prize and won the Women’s Prize Futures Award.
