Tides of War, By Stella Tillyard

Tillyard tries her hand at historical fiction with a Regency romance set during the Peninsular war.

Newly-married Harriet Raven is left in London while her husband James sets off to join Wellington's troops in Spain.

While Harriet finds herself experimenting with the new freedoms of the age, James falls into the arms of a Spanish double-agent with an alluring lisp.

A bodice-ripping romance this isn't, but in Tillyard's safe hands the real-life players of the Napoleonic era spring to life – including Nathan Rothschild, Goya and Girodet.