Frances Osborne Books in Order

Osborne reconstructs her great-grandmother Lilla's life across colonial China, India, England and two world wars. A cookbook composed during near-starvation in a Japanese internment camp becomes a thread connecting food, memory and her determination to survive.

Drawing on family records, letters and diaries, Osborne traces her great-grandmother Idina Sackville from Edwardian society to Kenya's Happy Valley circle. Behind the affairs and public scandals, she explores a life shaped by restless desire, betrayal and heartbreak.

In London before the First World War, Grace hides her work as a housemaid from her family while her employer's daughter Beatrice embraces militant suffrage. Their choices and relationships draw the two women together as society changes around them.

Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb unfolds against Egypt’s struggle for independence. The excavation’s drama connects Carter and his patron, Lord Carnarvon, with a changing political world in which archaeology and colonial power are closely entangled.