Books
Susan Bounty
Holland became fascinated with the period when England was a republic, ruled by a Puritan Parliament determined to make the country more Godly.
At the centre of the story is one of the great enigmas of English history, Oliver Cromwell, who is torn between the new order and his loyalty to the men he loved, the soldiers and former soldiers of his army.
Parliament’s new morality laws are used by the rich and powerful to suppress dissent as demand increases for greater political and religious freedom following the Civil War.
Susan Bounty was an eighteen-year-old girl who falls foul of one of the new morality laws, with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Benjamin Squirrell and the Hadleigh Workhouse
Hadleigh in the English rural county of Suffolk located its workhouse inside the town’s guildhall for more than 250 years.
The town’s parish poor, like those everywhere in Britain and Ireland, depended on the workhouse master and mistress.
But what if the masters were cruel, greedy and corrupt?
Sarah, Ben, Amy and Daisy and the other inmates were at the mercy of Daniel Ward.
Barbary Slave
Holland’s first novel was inspired by the struggle for power in the Mediterranean between the Ottomans in the east and the Christian powers in the west.
Barbary corsairs from North African ports like Algiers and Tunis seized captives from European ships and daring raids on coastal settlements.
Corsairs seeking captives to sell into the Ottoman Empire ventured out into the Atlantic, northwards to the southern coasts of England and Ireland.
Said and Khaled, two young men in Algiers, seek their fortune as corsairs.
Laura, Callum, Jack, and Mary are amongst those who become entwined in this action-packed story.
1656
The sequel to Barbary Slave, Holland’s second novel is set 25 years later after England has been through a revolution, becoming and a republic after the beheading of Charles I.
However, the issue of captives taken by Barbary corsairs and sold into Ottoman slavery hasn’t gone away.
Parliament sends a delegation to Algiers to redeem captives with gold and silver before they’re sold as slaves.
Once they reach Algiers, there’s a familiar face at the centre of negotiating the prices of captives to be redeemed, but he’s held a grudge for 25 years.