1. Quick links

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    May 17, 2023 by Lydia Syson

    Please order my books at your nearest independent bookshop or online at Bookshop Kindle editions available on Amazon.   You can also Buy MR PEACOCK’S POSSESSIONS here Buy LIBERTY’S FIRE here Buy THAT BURNING SUMMER here or here if you’re in the US Buy A WORLD BETWEEN US here or the iBook edition with extra features (music, interactive maps, photographs, …
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  2. MR PEACOCK’S POSSESSIONS

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    February 14, 2018 by Lydia Syson

    ‘an intelligent, beautifully written book about a dysfunctional family in a sinister paradise‘ (ANTONIA SENIOR in THE TIMES – BOOK OF THE MONTH & BOOK OF THE YEAR) ‘Powerful, intense and beautiful, this novel will stay with me for a long time.’ (HISTORICAL NOVEL REVIEW – editor’s pick for May) ‘Beautifully written, immaculately researched and powerfully …
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  3. LIBERTY’S FIRE

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    February 20, 2015 by Lydia Syson

    Liberty’s Fire has been nominated for the 2016 Carnegie Award and named a Telegraph ‘best YA book of 2015’. Paris, 1871.  Nearly 40 years after the events of Les Miserables, a new revolution is brewing. . . Though the Franco-Prussian war is over, life through the siege has been tough, and peace proves bitter.  On the edge of despair, Zéphyrine …
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  4. THAT BURNING SUMMER

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    August 30, 2013 by Lydia Syson

    A Book of the Year 2013 for The Independent and Lovereading Romney Marsh, July 1940. When invasion threatens, you have to grow up quickly. Sixteen-year-old Peggy has been putting on a brave face since the fall of France, not least for the sake of her anxiety-prone younger brother Ernest.  But now the enemy is overhead, and the …
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  5. A WORLD BETWEEN US

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    July 29, 2012 by Lydia Syson

    Highly Commended for Branford Boase Award 2013, longlisted for The Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize 2013, shortlisted for WeRead Book Award 2013, longlisted for UKLA Book Award 2014, nominated for the  CILIP Carnegie Medal, 2014.   Spain, 1936. Felix, a spirited young nurse, has run away from London to help the cause of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. But she …
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  6. DOCTOR OF LOVE: JAMES GRAHAM AND HIS CELESTIAL BED

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    July 28, 2012 by Lydia Syson

    Dr Graham set out to bring the sublime into the sex life of every married couple.  Widely considered the world’s first sex therapist, he guaranteed both ecstasy and fertility to the users of his infamous Celestial Bed, a contraption which harnessed all the most exciting developments of the Enlightenment. Electricity, magnetism, mind-altering gases and music …
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“A mesmerising portrait of a family unravelling” THE TIMES (Best historical fiction in 2018)

“Powerful, intense and beautiful” HISTORICAL NOVEL REVIEW

“This tense, evocative, richly-imagined novel conjures the voices of a strange time and place, and makes them universal” EMMA DARWIN

“Syson brings history alive” THE OBSERVER

Find out more…

Sources for MR PEACOCK'S POSSESSIONS

MPP: Q & A on The History Girls

MY FRIENDLY LOCALS: Independent bookshops in S E London

L'sF: Find out more about the history behind Liberty's Fire

L'sF: Meet the women of the Paris Commune

L'sF: Who were the pétroleuses?

L'sF: Communards in London: a guided walk

L'sF: Interview about writing Liberty's Fire with Rebecca Mascull

TBS: Ideas for further reading/viewing/visiting

TBS: Polish pilots in WW2

TBS: Fear of Flying

TBS: The Battle of Britain from below

TBS: Romney Marsh in poetry and fiction

TBS: Wartime spirit

TBS: Inspirational 40s films

AWBU: How to find out more about the Spanish Civil War

AWBU: Homage to Catalonia

AWBU: Spanish Civil War music

AWBU: The Army of Africa

AWBU: Black Americans in Spain

AWBU: Art & the Spanish Civil War

AWBU: The Cave Hospital

AWBU: The Battle of the Ebro 1

AWBU: The Battle of the Ebro 2

AWBU: Unburying the dead

BOOKSHOPS: Support your local!

FAMILY INFLUENCES: Rebels, romantics and wordsmiths

UKYAX QUIZ: Which character are you most like? Let me know!

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Events

21 March 2019: MR PEACOCK'S POSSESSIONS published in paperback

16 March 2019:King's Lynn Fiction Festival

19 October 2018:TAL Festival, Thame, Oxfordshire, with Anna Mazzola

2 August 2018:BBC Radio 4 Open Book 'Islands in Fiction' special

14 July 2018: Beacon Lit Festival - NEW VOICES

4 July 2018: Penzance Literary Festival

14 June 2018: Reading and Q & A at Review Bookshop, Peckham

17 May 2018: PUBLICATION DAY FOR MR PEACOCK'S POSSESSIONS

3 May 2018: Radio 2 Arts Show with Anneka Rice

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AABI author visits A WORLD BETWEEN US Battle of Britain Bibliography Book bloggers Cable Street Cave Hospital Competition Creative Writing CWISL David Lomon Days of Hope family history Franco historical fiction Historical YA history IBMT iBook International Brigade Memorial Trust International Brigades Jewish Socialist Kermadecs Len Crome Liberty's Fire Louise Michel Lydia Syson Marx Memorial Library Memory Mr Peacock's Possessions Ocean Sanctuary Paris Commune Paul Preston Raoul Island Reviews Richard Baxell Sir Peter Blake Trust Spanish Civil War Sydenham School That Burning Summer The History Girls UKYA writing competition WW2

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