Shadow Road's First Author Events!

We had a full house for the first of our exclusive author events presented in association with Fairacre Freddie Events: an intimate literary afternoon with acclaimed novelist, broadcaster, photographer, and travel writer Sandra Howard, who discussed her powerful World War II novel Love at War. 

Based on a true story, this sweeping tale is set in 1940, and follows Laura’s perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Uganda and beyond in pursuit of love, courage, and survival. It is a moving portrayal of one exceptional young woman’s resilience in the face of war.

Hosted in the warm and welcoming Shadow Road Studio in July, this exciting event featured a conversation between Sandra and actor/historical researcher Jeremy Preston, offering a rare insight into her writing process and the real-life story that inspired her seventh novel. We also enjoyed dramatic readings from Love at War by writer and audiobook narrator Carolyn Boyes, followed by a Q&A and a book signing in the garden sunshine!

Following all the fabulous feedback we received after this first literary event, we were then delighted to welcome ticketholders to join us for our second one in early October: Tea with Sandra Hempel, who spoke about her own newly-published book Controlling Women: The Untold Story of Britain's First Female Police Force. 

Sandra Hempel, a former Times journalist, has also written for The Guardian, the Daily Mail and other national media. Following her award-winning The Medical Detective, and BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, The Inheritor’s Powder, her latest work looks at the fascinating story of the first Women Police Volunteers...

Violence against women is out of control. Conviction rates for rape are so low that most survivors think it pointless to report, or later regret doing so. Ruthless trafficking gangs run the sex trade. Women have no confidence in the Metropolitan Police. The year is 1914.

As the First World War began, a group of British campaigners founded the Women Police Volunteers, hoping to protect the vulnerable both from crime and from patriarchal policing and justice. The movement’s pioneers included a militant suffragette who’d spent time behind bars, a moral purity activist, a blue-blooded radical, and a court reporter born in the workhouse to a single mother. Author Sandra Hempel follows their astonishing journey, through all of its troubling twists and turns.

Sandra, too, engaged in an animated conversation with Jeremy, and then answered questions from the audience, before signing books supplied by the fabulous (and independent!) Barnes Bookshop.

Huge thanks to both Sandras, to Jeremy, to Carolyn, to Sarah from Barnes Bookshop, and to my Dad, David King-Farlow, for running the refreshment stall so well! We're already looking forward to the next event...

Keep an eye on the Shadow Road TicketSource page to book & join us!