There was no sign of Alice indeed, the other side of the bed appeared as if it had not been slept in, the sheets pulled tight and the thin pillow smooth, but Rowan thought she had felt someone next to her when she rolled over in the night.” “Rowan rubbed her eyes and blinked in the dim light of Prudence’s taper. She’s working in a man’s industry and no one will take her seriously. Mary-Louise Stephenson is an artist and designer who is struggling to build a career as a silk designer. She’s got a talent for brewing herbal concoctions that soon earn her a reputation. In the late 18th century, Rowan Caswell is a maid in the silk house. In the present, Australian teacher Thea takes up residence in the house to manage the first intake of female students for a nearby boarding school. Switching between POVs, we meet three women whose lives intersect with the mysterious Silk House in very different ways. Kayte Nunn’s The Silk House is scrumptious historical fiction set against the backdrop of the eighteenth-century silk trade. A length of fabric she weaves with a pattern of deadly flowers will have far-reaching consequences for all who dwell in the silk house. In London, Mary-Louise Stephenson lives amid the clatter of the weaving trade and dreams of becoming a silk designer, a job that is the domain of men. She is thrust into a new and dangerous world where her talent for herbs and healing soon attracts attention.

In the late 1700s, Rowan Caswell leaves her village to work in the home of an English silk merchant. She is to stay with them in Silk House, a building with a long and troubled past. The spellbinding story of a mysterious boarding school sheltering a centuries-old secret…Īustralian history teacher Thea Rust arrives at an exclusive boarding school in the British countryside only to find that she is to look after the first intake of girls in its 150-year history.

Kayte nunn the silk house