Despite being aimed at perhaps a slightly younger audience, fans of Mary Hoffman’s Stravaganti series will enjoy this debut novel.

The Queen Must Die is a fantastic (in both senses of the word) historical time-travel thriller. Katie Berger-Jones-Burg, only daughter of ageing pop starlet and serial divorcee, seeks refuge from her life and her mother’s strange ways in books, only to be sucked back in time to, of all places, Buckingham Palace, circa 1851, during the reign of Queen Victoria. Challenged by culture and protocol and lack of technology, there she becomes embroiled in a regicidal plot. And there I’ll leave it. Witty and very well researched, this is a great read!