Ace, king, knave - Maria McCann

Behind doors is another story. Behind doors you can do what you like.

Sophia
- rational, demure, and hiding a 'little weakness' - has recently
married the charismatic Mr Zedland. But Zedland has secrets of his own
and Sophia comes to suspect that her marriage is not what it seems.

In
cramped rooms in Covent Garden, Betsy-Ann shuffles a pack of cards. A
gambler, dealer in second-hand goods, and living with a grave robber,
her life could not be more different to Sophia's - but she too discovers
that she has been lied to.

As both women take steps to discover
the truth, their lives come together through a dramatic series of
events, taking the reader through the streets of 1760s London: a city
wearing a genteel civility on its surface and rife with hypocrisy,
oppression and violence lurking underneath.