Ann Swinfen Books in Order

A thoughtful study of fantasy in English and American literature since 1945. Swinfen looks at how the genre works, why it matters, and what separates it from realist fiction.

During one long day in June 1994, Natasha Devereux's family gathers to celebrate fifty years of St Martin's. Beneath the festivities lie old love, family crisis, financial strain, and news from the past that changes everything.

On a Northumberland beach, a Hungarian exile and a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage form an unexpected friendship. Their impulsive journey to Hungary forces both to confront memory, love, and the lives they have been avoiding.

War photographer Tirza Libby retreats to a Scottish island, but memories of a childhood summer in wartime Maine refuse to let her go. To move forward, she must face the family history and loss she has buried for decades.

A standalone novel about the private damage war leaves behind. Swinfen focuses on loyalty, grief, and the strain on ordinary lives when public conflict reaches deep into the home.

In old age, Mariam looks back on her youth in Roman-occupied Judaea and the path that led her to follow her brother Yeshua. It is a human, ground-level retelling of a story readers think they know.

A frightened boy trapped in a world of violence crosses paths with a man living as an outsider. Their meeting is brief, but it opens the possibility of trust in a place shaped by fear.

Twelve-year-old Jody McPherson lies on her grandfather's porch, angry that no one will tell her why she cannot walk in the woods. When the adults keep dodging the question, she decides to make her own plan.

London's great Bartholomew Fair is already on edge when unpaid soldiers threaten disorder. Then Kit Alvarez uncovers a strange band of Italian puppeteers, missing gunpowder, and a plot far more dangerous than simple mischief.

Pierre Lamotte is poor, Raoul Legros is rich, and each watches the other across the edge of his land. This short story traces how jealousy and resentment can warp two ordinary lives.

In the seventeenth-century fens of East Anglia, outside money and drainage schemes threaten a remote community's land and way of life. Swinfen turns that struggle into a tense story of survival, greed, and resistance.

With Spain threatening invasion, Walsingham's network spreads across Europe and Kit Alvarez is sent into danger again. Missions in Amsterdam and a great sea battle pull her into one of Elizabethan England's defining crises.

After the Armada, England strikes back with an expedition to Portugal, and Kit Alvarez returns to the country she fled. Official missions collide with private hopes as she searches for news of the family she lost.

As violinist Miriam begins to play in a Paris concert hall, the scent of oranges pulls her back into memory. Music and exile meet in this brief story of flight from a Russian pogrom and the past that still lives on.

A short tale built around a hidden secret and the hold the past can keep over the present. Swinfen leans into atmosphere, memory, and the unease that comes when old truths begin to surface.

England, 1586. Refugee physician Christoval Alvarez is forced into Sir Francis Walsingham's secret service, where code-breaking and treason hunting may be the only way to stop a plot against Queen Elizabeth.

In the bitter cold of 1648, the fenlanders' fight for their land grows more desperate. A search for an old charter may save their rights, if enemies do not silence them first.

In Elizabethan London, a kidnapped five-year-old heiress exposes how vulnerable children can be, rich or poor. Kit Alvarez joins forces with actors and child beggars alike as the search leads into the city's harshest corners.

England in late 1648 is sliding toward ruin as Cromwell's power grows. While John Swynfen is imprisoned for his politics, Anne Swynfen must protect her family and estate through violence, hunger, and deep uncertainty.

A missing English agent in Muscovy sends Kit Alvarez on a perilous mission disguised as medical duty. Storms, pirates, brutal winter, and murderous court politics make the journey as dangerous as the search itself.

A riot in Southwark opens onto a darker summer of plague, fear, and unrest in 1592 London. As playhouses close and hatred of refugees grows, Kit Alvarez must navigate a city turning dangerous from every side.

When Nicholas Elyot finds a young scholar dead in the River Cherwell, the case looks like suicide. Evidence of murder soon points elsewhere, and his search for answers puts both his family and his livelihood at risk.

Novice Emma Thorgold vanishes from Godstow Abbey, and the search spreads across Oxfordshire. Nicholas Elyot and Jordain Brinkylsworth want to save her, but Emma's stepfather seems determined to keep darker truths hidden.

Back from Muscovy, Kit Alvarez finds her hospital post gone and takes work copying plays for James Burbage's company. Then actors are attacked, men are murdered, and missing plays hint at a deeper conspiracy.

Nicholas Elyot leaves Oxford to help with the harvest on his cousin's farm, but a deer hunt ends in sudden death. When blame falls on a boyhood friend, Nicholas must look past old loyalties to find the real killer.

Court rivalries between the Earl of Essex and Robert Cecil turn vicious, and Christoval Alvarez is pulled into the fallout. As intrigue hardens into injustice and a rigged trial, even the innocent are left in real danger.

St Frideswide's Fair brings money, crowds, and old resentments to Oxford. When a Flemish merchant is attacked and an English traitor is murdered, Nicholas Elyot must uncover the crimes hidden behind the bustle of the fair.

Accidents at the building works of Queen's College soon look like sabotage, then something worse. With a missing student, an intruder, and murder in the air, Nicholas Elyot must untangle a deadly plot close to home.

Nicholas Elyot heads into the country for Christmas, expecting only a hard winter journey. When traveling troubadours are attacked and outlaws start asking dangerous questions, a festive visit turns into a tense hunt for the truth.