Martine Bailey
A life-long cooking enthusiast, Martine Bailey wrote An Appetite For Violets, a historical suspense novel inspired by eighteenth-century household books of recipes. As an amateur cook, Martine won the Merchant Gourmet Recipe Challenge and was a former UK Dessert Champion, cooking at Le Meurice in Paris. In pursuit of authenticity, she has studied with food historian Ivan Day and experienced Georgian food and fashion at first-hand with an historic re-enactment society.
Writing as Laura Bloom, she published The Wedding Diaries (2004), a bridal bestseller about the planning and celebration of her marriage. The Grown-Up Gap Year Diaries (2008) charted a round-the-world trip that included her mother’s birthplace, Java, Indonesia, and encounters with tribal groups on Flores and Sulawesi.
Martine lives in Cheshire, England and Auckland, New Zealand. In 2012 she had a Creative Arts Scholarship at Muriwai Earthskin near Auckland. She is married with one son.
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Books
A Taste for Nightshade
Manchester 1787. When budding young criminal Mary Jebb swindles Michael Croxon's brother with a blank pound note, he chases her into the night and sets in motion a train of sinister events. Condemned to seven years of transportation to Australia, Mary sends him a 'Penny Heart'-a token of her vow of revenge.
Two years later, Michael marries naïve young Grace Moore. Although initially overjoyed at the union, Grace quickly realizes that her husband is more interested in her fortune than her company. Lonely and desperate for companionship, she turns to her new cook to help mend her ailing marriage. But Mary Jebb, shipwrecked, maltreated, and recently hired, has different plans for the unsuspecting owners of Delafosse Hall.
A Taste for Nightshade is a thrilling historical novel that combines recipes, mystery and a dark struggle between two desperate women, sure to appeal to fans of Sarah Waters and Carolly Erickson.
(Thomas Dunne Books, January 2016)
An Appetite for Violets
"An Appetite for Violets is a feast of unique characters, suspense, passion, and delicious storytelling. Martine Bailey has served up a beautifully rendered, haunting tale told by an unforgettable heroine. A novel to devour yet savor." -Karen Harper, New York Times
Europe, 1773. Sharp-witted cook Biddy Leigh is reluctantly persuaded to leave England by her master’s untrustworthy young wife, Lady Carinna. Having promised to write down her adventures in her book of recipes, The Cook’s Jewel, Biddy grows intrigued by her fellow travellers’ secrets. In France she discovers her mistress is fleeing England because she is expecting a child that is not her poxed husband’s. As Carinna draws Biddy into her increasingly desperate scheming, she finds herself embroiled in a murderous conspiracy – and suddenly the secrets Biddy holds could be her ticket to a better life – or her downfall…
(Thomas Dunne Books, January 2015)