A magnificent novel that vividly evokes the atmosphere of a seventeenth century English country estate, and the seething intrigue of Rembrandt's Amsterdam where the population is in the grip of a fever of tulip trading. It is the Summer of 1636. In England botanist John Nightingale hides from his dangerous past at Hawkridge House, deep in the tranquillity of the countryside. In Holland, the population is gripped by a fever of speculation. Fortunes are gambled on the commodity markets, trading in spices, grain and even rare tulips. Blackmailed into leaving Hawkridge to join an elaborate money-making scheme in Amsterdam, a city of frenzied greed and luxury, haunted by the ever-nearer demons of his past, and falling in love with two very different women, John Nightingale must learn quickly the ways of the world.

Not exactly a sequel, but a novel written in parallel with the superb The Lady Tree, in other words sharing some of the same characters but entirely independent of the first book. Is there such a thing as a werewolf? Quicksilver is no horror story, but in its fabulously vivid recreation of 17th Century England and Holland, it portrays a young man suffering from lycanthropy – when a man believes himself to be a wolf. This was a time when medical science was undergoing vast changes and the discovery of the New World was yielding up all sorts of new plants and drugs, and Christie Dickason weaves a pulsating story of intrigue, adventure and romance around this extraordinary set of circumstances.

An epic love story set in the period of Music and Silence, for readers of Rose Tremain and Philippa Gregory. 1639. Zeal Beester, mistress of the rolling Hampshire estate of Hawkridge, is pregnant, unwed, and the King has banished her lover to the New World. The Puritan Praise-God Gifford will have her burnt at the stake for depravity. To save herself and the child, Zeal becomes the wife of Philip Wentworth, an ageing soldier and adventurer. But Philip's extraordinary tales of El Dorado only remind her of her exiled lover. As the chaos of Civil War approaches, Zeal begins to rebuild Hawkridge House as the Memory Palace and the secret map of her heart. Part maze, part theatre, part great country house, it enrages the Puritans and inspires in one twisted soul a hatred and envy that only death will satisfy. Should the King be killed, Zeal's lover may return only to find Zeal and the child in their graves...