Are You Sitting Comfortably? February’s pick “The Queen of Fives” by Alex Hay
Welcome back to another series of Are You Sitting Comfortably, dearest readers. Our guest author for February is the fabulous Alex Hay. Those of you who’ve been following AYSC for a while, will know that Rebecca L and I were huge fans of Alex’s first book, The Housekeepers, which is a brilliant historical heist novel with an all-star cast – a black-market queen out to settle her scores, an actress desperate for a magnificent part and a seamstress dreaming of a better life. Not forgetting Mrs King, the housekeeper herself, of course. Well, if you love the sound of that or enjoyed reading it, you’ll be pleased to know that Alex has done it again and we can’t wait to share his latest novel with you. It’s another perfectly crafted high stakes caper that will have you up all night racing to finish it!
They whisper her name in every corner of town.
The lady with a hundred faces, a thousand lives.
Five moves, five days – for such are the rules of her game.
Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. You’re in for a thrill. The Queen of Fives is about to get your pulses racing, but will she come out on top?
Author Alex Hay brings all the twists and turns in his brilliant new novel, The Queen of Fives, where high stakes and high society meet alongside a fantastic cast of characters.
1898. Quinn Le Blanc, London’s most talented con woman, has five days to pull off the seemingly impossible: trick an eligible duke into marriage and lift a fortune from the richest family in England.
Having chosen her ‘mark’, Quinn turns her attentions to pulling off the greatest of all cons. Masquerading as a wealthy debutante, she is the jewel of the season. Her brilliant act opens doors to the grand drawing rooms and lavish balls of high society – and propels her into the inner circle of her target: the corrupt, charismatic Kendals.
The Duke is single, fabulously wealthy and therefore surely in want of a wife, his sister Tor, is defiantly unmarried and adverse to all the rules, and last but by no means least, their stepmother, and their stepmother, the mysterious Dowager Duchess.
The game has five distinct moves: The Mark; The Intrusion; The Ballyhoo; The Knot; and All In.
However, there’s more to this game than meets the eye and as Quinn spins in and out of their world, she becomes tangled in a dangerous web of love, lies and loyalty. The Kendal family all have secrets of their own, and she may not be the only one playing a game of high deception…
Quinn has five days to win the game of her life.
Join us on Thursday 6th February at 7pm on Instagram when we’ll be talking bloodthirsty ballrooms, dangerous debutantes and a whole gambit of savagery and skullduggery with author Alex Hay as he tells us all about how The Queen of Fives came about.
