Beezy Marsh
Books
Books
Beezy Marsh is an international #1 and Sunday Times top-ten best-selling author who puts family and relationships at the heart of her writing.
She believes that ordinary lives are extraordinary and that is reflected in her novels featuring the hidden history of women. She is also an award-winning journalist, who has spent more than 20 years making the headlines in newspapers including The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and The Sunday Times.
Beezy began her career as a writer after graduating from Leeds University with a Joint Honours degree in English Literature and French. She was a Health Correspondent and Women’s Editor on The Northern Echo in the North-East, winning awards for her reporting, before moving to the Daily Mail where, as Health Correspondent, she was nominated for a National Press Award for her investigations. She relies on the same meticulous journalistic skills to research her historical fiction. One of her best-sellers spent six weeks in the Sunday Times U.K top ten book charts and she has had three Canadian top ten best-sellers, at one point holding the coveted #1 slot for nine weeks. She is married, with two sons, and lives in Oxfordshire with a never-ending pile of laundry.
Upcoming and current publications
QUEEN OF THIEVES (UK publication: Orion Aug 2021/ USA publication January 2023; William Morrow ).
This dynamic historical novel is steeped in female gangs and gritty thievery that can’t be ignored, perfect for fans of The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn and Counterfeit by Kirsten Chen.
Take yourself back in time to London, 1946. Gangland was a man's world. Or so they thought. The women knew different. The city struggles to rebuild itself after the devastation of the Blitz. Food is rationed, good jobs are scarce, and even the most honest families are forced to take a bit of ‘crooked’ just to survive.
Alice Diamond, the Queen of Thieves, rules over her all-female gang with a bejewelled fist. Her “hoisters” are expert shoplifters, the scourge of London’s posh boutiques and department stores. Their lucrative business stealing and fencing luxury goods always carries the threat of violence; Alice carries a razor, and has been known to use her heavy rows of diamond rings like brass knuckles.
Young Nell is a teenager from the slums, hiding a secret pregnancy and facing a desperately uncertain future when Alice takes her under her wing. Before long, Nell is experiencing all the dangers – and glamorous trappings – that come with this underworld existence. Alice wants Nell to be a useful weapon in her ongoing war against crime boss Billy Sullivan’s gang of rival thieves. But Nell has a secret agenda of her own, and is not to be underestimated. The more she is manipulated by both Alice and Billy, the more her hunger for revenge grows. As Nell embraces the rich spoils of crime and the seedy underbelly of London, will she manage to carve out her own path to unforeseen power and riches? Might she even crown herself the Queen of Thieves?
A tale of thievery, secrets, spies, and lies – QUEEN OF THIEVES is a deliciously addictive story of dark, gritty girl gangs and the lengths some go to for survival – and power
QUEEN OF CLUBS (UK publication: Orion October 2021).
The second in the gripping historical crime series about the all-female Forty Thieves gang of London's early twentieth century, QUEEN OF CLUBS descends into the seedy world of Soho's 1950s clubland, and a battle for power between old rivals, Alice Diamond and gangland Queen, Nell Kane, which proves blood isn't always thicker than water. Neither of the gangland matriarchs have reckoned on the disruptive and determined East End dancer Zoe, whose lust for luxury turns all their lives upside down.
It's London, 1957, and you've never had it so good.
Gangland Queen Nell has the perfect life of crime as a top shoplifter by day and a glamorous club owner by night. But a betrayal and a botched robbery suddenly reverse her fortunes... and her old rival, Alice Diamond, is hell-bent on taking her down.
After escaping a poverty-stricken childhood and the WW2 bombsites of the East End, nightclub dancer Zoe has more on her mind than settling scores for Alice. But the life of luxury Zoe craves comes at a terrible price. And when a vicious gang tightens its grip on Soho, all three women realise it pays to keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
When the fight to save your family becomes a fight for survival, there's no honour among thieves...
The second in a thrilling new crime saga series about a real-life gang girl from Sunday Times bestselling author Beezy Marsh, Queen of Clubs is perfect for fans of Sam Michaels, Martina Cole and Jessie Keane.
Praise for Beezy's writing:
QUEEN OF CLUBS (Orion 2022)
'A gripping tale of betrayal, revenge and survival' - THE SUN
'A fast, atmospheric read, studded with startling betrayals' -THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
QUEEN OF THIEVES (Orion 2021/ William Morrow 2023)
'A colourful tale of love, lust, making good and revenge' - THE SUN
'Gripping from the first page, this amoral story should appeal to fans of Peaky Blinders' - THE LADY
'An entertaining and diverting read' - Library Journal (USA)
HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER (Pan Macmillan 2019)
'Marsh's books are filled with more secrets than the servants' kitchen at Downton Abbey' - THE TORONTO STAR
ALL MY MOTHER'S SECRETS (Pan Macmillan, 2018)
'A beautifully-penned story on the harshness of life and how hope survives' -THE SUN
'Absorbing... Marsh writes with novelistic flair' - THE DAILY MAIL
KEEPING MY SISTERS' SECRETS (Pan Macmillan 2017)
'A moving and bittersweet story' - THE SUN
MAD FRANK AND SONS ( Sidgwick & Jackson 2016)
'Reminiscing on days gone by, this compelling book is a fascinating look into gang history through the eyes of Frank Fraser and his two sons' - THE SUN
'Safely in the past, Fraser's story becomes nostalgic. This is an arresting portrait of a bygone era' - THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
Non-Fiction
| Publication Details | Notes |
|---|---|
KEEPING MY SISTER'S SECRETS 2017 Pan Macmillan | Born into a close-knit working class family in the slums of London’s Waterloo, Eva, Peggy and Kathleen are three remarkably different, but very loving sisters. Desperate to escape their violent father, they find different ways to survive. Beautiful Kathleen escapes into marriage with an abusive man, and during the horrors of the Second World War, falls in love again - this time with an American GI. Peggy, serious and studious, is appalled by conditions in the factories and becomes a communist, desperate to help her fellow workers. The rebellious sister, Eva, will do anything to protect her family - even if it means breaking the law to put dinner on the table. Living closely together, the sisters support each other through thick and thin - their story is a moving tale of unconditional love, the one constant in a changing world. |
HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER 2019 Pan Macmillan | When Annie marries Harry after years of heartache in a London slum she believes she's found her happy ever after. But the horrors of the Blitz soon threaten everything they hold dear. The terrible sights Harry witnesses as an air raid warden bring back traumatic memories of his time during the First World War. Suddenly Annie finds herself struggling to cope not only with life in wartime and two little children, but also with a husband who seems like a stranger. Kitty has always been protective of her little brother Harry. Hiding the scandal about their father from the world was the only way to survive as they were growing up in Newcastle. But when she discovers Harry too has a shocking secret, she is torn. Meanwhile Annie wonders why Harry refuses to discuss his life before their marriage and why she has never met his sister. Will the truth ever come to light? From the bombed-out terraces of London to the docks of Newcastle, Her Father's Daughter is Beezy Marsh's moving and poignant true story about the unbreakable bonds of family, and the power of love to heal the worst wounds. |
MAD FRANK AND SONS 2016 Sidgwick & Jackson | Drawing on exclusive final interviews with Frank, and with unprecedented access to his closest relatives, Mad Frank and Sons follows his rise from a small kid stealing to put food on the table to a feared and respected West End crime lord and head of a legendary gangland family. It includes the story of Frank's beloved sister, Eva, who was a top-class West End shoplifter, and his sons David and Patrick, who reveal in shocking detail the full extent of the family's network and the influences that shaped them. With sawn-off shotguns as toys, the Kray twins as family friends and a mother who urged them as teenagers to 'get out of bed and rob a bleedin' bank', it is little wonder that the Fraser boys were heavily involved in organized crime by the time they were in their twenties. Packed with new information, and featuring some of the most famous names in the London underworld, this is a fascinating slice of gangland history seen through the eyes of Frank Fraser and his two renegade sons. |
ALL MY MOTHER'S SECRETS 2018 Pan Macmillan | From the grimy streets of Acton and Notting Hill to the bright lights of the West End, Sunday Times bestselling author Beezy Marsh's All My Mother’s Secrets is a powerful, uplifting story of a young woman’s struggle to come to terms with her family’s tragic past. Annie Austin’s childhood ends at the age of twelve, when she joins her mother in one of the slum laundries of Acton, working long hours for little pay. What spare time she has is spent looking after her younger brother George and her two stepsisters, under the glowering eye of her stepfather Bill. In London between the wars, a girl like Annie has few choices in life – but a powerful secret will change her destiny. All Annie knows about her real father is that he died in the Great War, and as the years pass she is haunted by the pain of losing him. Her downtrodden mother won’t tell her more and Annie’s attempts to uncover the truth threaten to destroy her family. Distraught, she runs away to Covent Garden, but can she survive on her own and find the love which has eluded her so far? |