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Author

Deryn Lake

24 fiction

Deryn Lake is the pen name of British historical novelist Dinah Lampitt, a writer of historical mysteries and romances whose fiction ranges across Georgian and earlier English history. Born in Essex, she began writing from an early age and later established herself with large-scale historical novels before moving into detective fiction. She has lived for many years in Sussex, close to Hastings and the landscape of the Norman Conquest. Her work is marked by a strong interest in period detail, social hierarchy, medicine, crime and the contrast between respectable society and the less visible worlds beneath it.

Lake is best known for the long-running John Rawlings series, beginning with Death in the Dark Walk. Set principally in eighteenth-century London, the novels follow a young apothecary who becomes an unofficial investigator for the real Bow Street magistrate Sir John Fielding. The sequence eventually grew to eighteen primary works and takes Rawlings from Vauxhall Gardens, Drury Lane and Apothecaries’ Hall to Romney Marsh, Devon and other parts of Georgian Britain, combining murder investigations with medicine, politics and urban life. Lake also wrote historical romances such as The King’s Women, Pour the Dark Wine and the Sutton Place trilogy, demonstrating a broader interest in dynastic politics and relationships beyond the crime genre.

Periods and events

Anglo-Saxon Englandc. 476–1066 CE Bath and Georgian Society1720–1830 CE Cornwall in the Georgian Era1714–1837 CE Georgian Crime and the Bloody Code1714–1837 CE Georgian Era1714–1830 CE Georgian London1714–1837 CE Henrician Reformation1530–1547 CE Hundred Years’ War in France1337–1453 CE Jacobite Rising of 17451745–1746 CE Napoleonic Era1792–1815 CE Reign of Edward III1327–1377 CE Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn1527–1536 Seven Years’ War1756–1763 CE Smuggling on the Georgian Coast1714–1830 CE Stuart Period1603–1714 CE

Historical fiction

Historical fiction series by Deryn Lake (2 series)

John Rawlings in Order

by Deryn Lake 17 books 4.2(11,535)

The John Rawlings mysteries follow a young London apothecary whose trained eye for physical detail and talent for deduction repeatedly draw him into murder investigations. Working at first alongside Sir John Fielding, the blind Bow Street magistrate known as the “Blind Beak”, Rawlings moves through pleasure gardens, theatres,…

Sutton Place Trilogy in Order

by Deryn Lake 3 books 4.2(2,113)

The Sutton Place Trilogy follows the fortunes of the families attached to the historic Surrey manor of Sutton Place, imagining a curse that begins in Anglo-Saxon England when Queen Edith condemns the land hunted by Edward the Confessor. Five centuries later the estate passes to the Weston family…

Historical fiction

Standalone historical fiction by Deryn Lake (4 books)

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