Kate Mosse – The Map of Bones

A sweeping and epic story of adventure and courage, injustice and triumph, The Map of Bones by Kate Mosse is the sequel to the number one bestselling The Ghost Ship.

Olifantshoek, Southern Africa, 1688. When the violent Cape wind blows from the south-east, they say the voices of the unquiet dead can be heard whispering through the deserted valley. Suzanne Joubert, a Huguenot refugee from war-torn France, is here to walk in her cousin’s footsteps. Louise Reydon-Joubert, the notorious she-captain and pirate commander, landed at the Cape of Good Hope more than sixty years ago, then disappeared from the record as if she had never existed. Suzanne has come to find her — to lay the stories to rest. But all is not as it seems…

Franschhoek, Southern Africa, 1862. Nearly one hundred and eighty years after Suzanne’s perilous journey, another intrepid and courageous woman of the Joubert family — Isabelle Lepard — has journeyed to the small frontier town once known as Oliftantshoek in search of her long-lost relations. A journalist and travel writer, intent on putting the women of her family back into the history books, she quickly discovers that the tragedies and crimes of the past are far from over. Isabelle faces a race against time if she is not only going to discover the truth but escape with her life…

Painstakingly researched and beautifully told, The Map of Bones is the fourth — and final — novel of The Joubert Family Chronicles, following the bestselling The Burning Chambers, The City of Tears and The Ghost Ship.

Kate Mosse CBE FRSL is an award-winning novelist, playwright, performer, campaigner, interviewer and non-fiction writer. The author of ten novels and short-story collections, her books have been translated into thirty-eight languages and published in more than forty countries. Fiction includes the multimillion-selling Languedoc Trilogy (Labyrinth, Sepulchre, Citadel), The Joubert Family Chronicles (The Burning Chambers, The City of Tears, The Ghost Ship, The Map of Bones) and No 1 bestselling Gothic fiction including The Taxidermist’s Daughter and The Winter Ghosts. Her highly-acclaimed non-fiction includes An Extra Pair of Hands: A Story of Caring & Everyday Acts of Love and Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built the World, which inspired her one-woman theatre touring show.

A regular guest on radio and television for literature, Kate hosts the pre-show interview series at Chichester Festival Theatre and is a regular interviewer for literary and arts festivals including Letters Live, the Hay Festival, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the British Library and the Royal National Theatre. Her new podcast, The Matilda Effect, will be launched in summer 2024.

The Founder Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction – the world’s largest annual literary awards celebrating writing by woman – she is the founder of the global #WomanInHistory campaign and has her own monthly YouTube book show, Mosse on a Monday. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Kate is also an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Authors, a Visiting Professor of Contemporary Fiction and Creative Writing at the University of Chichester and President of the Festival of Chichester. In the broader arts, Kate is President of the Festival of Chichester, Patron of the Chichester Cathedral Festival of Flowers 2024, Vice-Patron of the Chichester Cathedral Platinum Music Trust and Patron of the Chichester Festival of Music, Dance and Speech. She is also an Ambassador for Parkinsons UK.

Kindly sponsored by the Thomas Hardy Society

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