For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that Jack the Ripper preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told. Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, revealing a world not just of Dickens and Queen Victoria, but of poverty, homelessness and rampant misogyny. They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time --- but their greatest misfortune was to be born a woman.

Set during a period of revolution and turmoil, MISTRESS OF MY FATE is the first book in a trilogy about Henrietta Lightfoot, a young woman who was abandoned as a baby and raised alongside her cousins, noble children of a lord and lady. At just 16 years old, circumstance and a passionate
love affair tear Henrietta away from everything she knows, leading to a new life fending for herself on the streets of 18th-century London as a courtesan, gambler, and spirited intellect of the city.