Having read to her own grandchildren for years, she’s written an upcoming story for youngsters, Iron Robin (her first children’s book since 1985’s Journey To The Volcano), featuring Richard Jones’s beguiling illustrations. Tremain rarely disappoints, and she is on form here, telling a fascinating story with her unique style that engages from start to finish. Subtitled ‘A Tale of Revenge’, the narrative moves back and forth in time between Lily’s early years spent with a foster family, her time at the London Foundling Hospital and her subsequent employment at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium. Cruel nurses are one thing, but to make one of them particularly perverted gives it all an unnecessary gothic twist. things stood out when I first noticed this book, foremost my daughters middle name is Lily so that actually caught my eye, not just the name but the fact it’s a short, sharp title for a book which intrigued me, I also loved the vivid colours on the book cover, it’s very pleasing on the eye.

The audience in their finery are so held by the drama that they have mostly forgotten which tiaras or mantillas or feathers they are wearing. Her big secret isn’t really a secret at all, as it’s fairly clear who she’s murdered and why long before we’re told. But apart from my little memoir [she’s referring to her searingly candid 2018 work Rosie: Scenes From A Vanished Life], they wouldn’t find much of my life. This experience would inform her 2005 short story ‘The Beauty Of The Dawn Shift’, about a former DDR watchtower guard who treks eastwards after the collapse of Communism, adrift “in a moral and an absolute sense”.

In the event it doesn’t and if this were a piece of music I’d describe it as ending in a very gentle but hopeful major key with the dynamic at a tender mezzo piano. Thus Tremain’s fictional Lily is blissfully content on a farm in Suffolk with people who love her for six years. We’re told right at the beginning that Lily is a murderer and as the book progresses we can guess the victim. Lily’s start in life has love and kindness which contrasts so sharply with the inhuman cruelty that is the lot of orphans at this time. A film adaptation of her 2016 novel The Gustav Sonata (an ode to friendship, set in post-WWII Switzerland) is also in development.

Although the narrative is well plotted overall, there are some extraneous episodes which felt like padding – a trip, for example, to Kensal Green cemetery that leads nowhere, a plot line that simply fizzles out.

The worst thing about Coram Hospital to any common sensible, decent 21 st century person who has ever been responsible for children is that the babies were sent to foster homes – often quite kind and loving ones. She is an excellent central protagonist, she bears and wears the scars, she’s courageous in her rebelliousness at the orphan, she’s very brave, has a deep conscience and a long memory of that early love especially from Nellie. Tremain’s natural curiosity and love of travel seem directly channelled into her fictional narratives. For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve reissued a number of classic nature and historical novels.

I think I’m completely torn between wanting the things that a country life can offer, but also liking London hugely, still having a place and many friends there. Or she goes back to Rookery Farm where she lives the rest of her life pretty much the same as it used to be - with everyone around and full of love. Restoration also inspired an Oscar-winning 1995 film adaptation, starring Robert Downey Jr and Ian McKellen. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.

Had Lily taken over the wig emporium, built her own business, or made a roaring success of herself in America, there would at least be the lesson that adversity can lead to opportunity and progress. Eventually, because of her excellent sewing skills, as taught by her foster mother Nellie, Lily is given a place at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium, where she is highly regarded for her skills, but nobody knows that Lily has a secret, something that could seal her fate with the gallows! There was a whole section during which Lily tries to find out if a certain woman is her mother, but she has no reason to believe she is.