Love and Other Poisons

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A01=Lesley McDowell
affair
Author_Lesley McDowell
book club
booth
Category=FFH
Category=FV
eq_bestseller
eq_crime
eq_fiction
eq_historical-fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
feminist
historical fiction
lily
london
love
madeleine smith
murder
mystery
new york
scandal
scotland
scottish
true crime
women's fiction

Product details

  • ISBN 9781035411733
  • Weight: 260g
  • Dimensions: 128 x 198mm
  • Publication Date: 19 Mar 2026
  • Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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'A fascinating, forensic deep-dive' DENISE MINA

'Beautifully written, richly evoked and utterly gripping' EVA DOLAN

'A seductive tale of sex and death' SARA SHERIDAN


***

1857, Glasgow.
Madeleine Smith, a young socialite, is on trial for murdering her lover. The scandal shocks the world, with intimate letters published in newspapers. The jury can't decide - delivering a rare 'Not Proven' verdict. Madeleine walks free.

1927, New York.
Hollywood scout Harry Townsend believes he's found Madeleine, now an elusive widow living under a new name. Once a dazzling figure in bohemian London, she vanished in 1890.

Could this quiet woman really be the infamous Madeleine Smith?
She holds one last secret. Will Harry convince her to share it?

***

More praise for Lesley McDowell:
'Riveting - a clever portrait of a fascinating, flawed heroine.' THE TIMES
'An intimate and enlightening tale of one of Romanticism's forsaken muses.' SUSAN STOKES-CHAPMAN
'An absorbing, intoxicating page-turner about a woman who deserves to be remembered.' JENNIFER SAINT
'A must-read. McDowell brings to vivid, embodied life; a flirtatious, flawed woman fighting for her place in a man's world.' THE HERALD

Lesley McDowell's debut novel The Picnic came out in 2007. In 2010 she published Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th-Century Women Writers, which was shortlisted for the non-fiction prize at the 2011 Scottish Book Awards. Her second novel Unfashioned Creatures, about Mary Shelley's Scottish childhood friend, was published in 2013. Lesley was a literary critic for the Herald, Scotsman, Independent, TLS and others. She has a PhD on the work of James Joyce and has won three Creative Scotland writers' bursaries. Her third novel, Clairmont, is a historical retelling of the story of Lord Byron and the Shelleys from the perspective of his secret muse, Claire Clairmont. Love and Other Poisons is her fourth novel.

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