Drowning Rose

'No one writes about life quite like Marika Cobbold; no one combines light and dark, humorous and profound, joyous and sorrowful quite so expertly' Guardian, Readers' Books of the Year 'Cobbold handles profound and delicate themes with a ceramicist's lightness of touch' Daily Mail It is winter in London. Eliza Cummings, a ceramics restorer at the V&A Museum, is leaving work when she receives an unexpected phone call. Standing in the haze of the Christmas lights she hears a voice which draws her back twenty-five years - to the tragic death of her best friend. But why does Rose's father want her to visit him? Why now? And why is he killing her with kindness when they both know that he blames her for what happened to his daughter? Grief and guilt cast terrible shadows, but as this beautifully wrought story unfolds and the scene shifts from London to the fairy tale landscape of the Swedish countryside - and back in time to Eliza's school days - we learn that generosity, humour and friendship can smooth over and restore even the most broken lives, and that some secrets just can't be kept hidden...

To commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the end of the Civil War, Diversion Books is publishing seminal works of the era: stories told by the men and women who led, who fought, and who lived in an America that had come apart at the seams. For those who did not die on the battlefield, but who were instead taken prisoner, the Civil War presented an even more intense version of hell. Prison conditions were abysmal, and the prisoners frequently died of starvation and disease. These accounts of prison escapes show what desperate men will do, fleeing unequivocal peril to land behind enemy lines, struggling to get back to their own side and live to fight another day. Searing and difficult, this account puts readers into the minds of men at the precipice, willing to risk death for freedom.

As the Civil War ground on, an underground Unionist movement flourished in the heart of the Confederacy, led by an unlikely leader. Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy and well connected member of Richmond’s elite, risked everything to help save the Union, skillfully directing this clandestine group and becoming General Ulysses S. Grant’s spy in Richmond. Surrounded by a cadre of “slaves” secretly freed and working with her at the risk of their lives--and hers--Lizzie becomes a pivotal character in the narrative that reveals the complexity and horror of war and the possibility of ultimate redemption. Based on an incredible true story, Lizzie's War revolves around a number of elements: the intrigue involved in Elizabeth’s double life, her scheme to plant a former slave as her spy in the Jefferson Davis home, her secret romance with a Union prisoner, the dangerous work and conspiracies entailed in running a spy network for the Federal Government in the Confederate capital, terrifying flights to freedom engineered by Elizabeth for escaped prisoners and slaves, and ongoing Confederate surveillance, investigations and arrests of Unionists.

Northern sympathizer in the Confederate capital, daring spymaster, postwar politician: Elizabeth Van Lew was one of the most remarkable figures in American history, a woman who defied the conventions of the nineteenth-century South. In Southern Lady, Yankee Spy, historian Elizabeth Varon provides a gripping, richly researched account of the woman who led what one historian called "the most productive espionage operation of the Civil War." Under the nose of the Confederate government, Van Lew ran a spy ring that gathered intelligence, hampered the Southern war effort, and helped scores of Union soldiers to escape from Richmond prisons. Varon describes a woman who was very much a product of her time and place, yet continually took controversial stands--from her early efforts to free her family's slaves, to her daring wartime activities and beyond. Varon's powerful biography brings Van Lew to life, showing how she used the stereotypes of the day to confound Confederate authorities (who suspected her, but could not believe a proper Southern lady could be a spy), even as she brought together Union sympathizers at all levels of society, from slaves to slaveholders. After the war, a grateful President Ulysses S. Grant named her postmaster of Richmond--a remarkable break with custom for this politically influential post. But her Unionism, Republican politics, and outspoken support of racial justice earned her a lifetime of scorn in the former Confederate capital. Even today, Elizabeth Van Lew remains a controversial figure in her beloved Richmond, remembered as the "Crazy Bet" of Lost Cause propaganda. Elizabeth Varon's account rescues her from both derision and oblivion, depicting an intelligent, resourceful, highly principled woman who remained, as she saw it, true to her country to the end.