Why a Booktrail?
1800s: Everyone has a secret… Only some lead to murder.
The House on Half Moon Street
What you need to know before your trail
A Victorian transgender coroner’s assistant must uncover a killer without risking his own future
Leo Stanhope is also an avid chess player; assistant to a London coroner; in love with Maria; and hiding a very big secret.
For Leo was born Charlotte, the daughter of a respectable reverend. But knowing he was meant to be a man – despite the evidence of his body – and unable to cope with living a lie any longer, he fled his family home at just fifteen and has been living as Leo: his secret known to only a few trusted people. But then Maria is found dead and Leo is accused of her murder. Desperate to find her killer and under suspicion from all those around him, he stands to lose not just the woman he loves, but his freedom and, ultimately, his life.
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
London
This London is dark, grim and certainly not the place for a transgender person!
The physical setting is one thing. Even in a simple journey home from the hospital, the smell and cold is clear:
I waved through the crowds in Trafalgar square, past poor Admiral Lord Nelson , stuck for ever on his column with out even a stoney-faced Hamilton for company and up Haymarket, dodging between the carriages at Charles Street……
..the town houses decayed into crooked tenements abutting the pavement, with bars over the windows and heavy locks on the doors.”
The sexual and personal another:The Brothel of Half Moon Street
Elizabeth’s Brafton’s brothel was on Half Moon Street, which ran between the lofty affluence of Mayfair and the ceaseless noise and bustle of Piccadilly. The house was set back from the pavement behind an iron railing squashed between grander buildings like a thin book on a shelf of fatter volumes”
“The girls did what they were paid to do, but they didn’t understand. Most attempted to treat me as a woman or just lay there in dumb confusion. One of two made an effort, working doggedly though their repertoire and crying out with pleasure rather as a news-seller cries out the title of his paper, with worthy intention but so much repetition it loses all meaning”
Streetview Maps
A) London - Half Moon Street
E) London - St James Park
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The House on Half Moon Street
Destination : London Author/Guide: Alex Reeve Departure Time: 1880s
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