1721, and elderly Catherine Yale discovers that second husband Elihu’s will has left her no bequest except the slur of branding her a "wicked wife.” True, her private journals are filled with intimacies: her inner thoughts about life in Old Madras, where the East India Company’s intrigues are as complex as any in the Mughal Emperor’s court; and the espionage she has undertaken, despite the danger into which it has thrust both herself and her children. Perhaps it’s time for her to read them afresh, to go back before the days when Elihu first betrayed her, before she was betrayed by her enemies, and betrayed by the friends who should have stood at her side – before she determined to wreak her revenge on them all.

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The Doubtful Diaries of Wicked Mistress Yale is now available on a wide range of e-readers, including Kindle, Kobo, Nook and iBooks.

David Ebsworth is the pen name of writer Dave McCall, a former negotiator for Britain’s Transport & General Workers’ Union. He was born in Liverpool but has lived in Wrexham, North Wales, with his wife Ann since 1981.

Following his retirement, Dave began to write historical fiction in 2009 and has subsequently published six novels: political thrillers dealing with the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War, the Battle of Waterloo, warlord rivalry in sixth century Britain, and the Spanish Civil War. His sixth book, Until the Curtain Falls, returns to that same Spanish conflict, following the story of journalist Jack Telford, and is published in Spanish under the title Hasta Que Caiga el Telón. Jack Telford, as it happens, is also the main protagonist in a separate novella, The Lisbon Labyrinth.

Each of Dave’s novels has been critically acclaimed by the Historical Novel Society and been awarded the coveted BRAG Medallion for independent authors.

This seventh novel, The Doubtful Diaries of Wicked Mistress Yale, is the first in a trilogy about the life of nabob philanthropist (and slave-trader) Elihu Yale, told through the eyes of his much-maligned and largely forgotten wife, Catherine. For more information on the author and his work, visit his website at www.davidebsworth.com.

"Ebsworth demonstrates a keen eye for historical detail and evokes, in his exploration of the Indian subcontinent of that period, James Clavell’s bestselling Shogun. An excellent adventure yarn.”

–Vaseem Khan, best-selling author of the Inspector Chopra and Baby Ganesh Detective Agency mysteries

"Ebsworth has used historical fiction tools skilfully to put together Catherine’s story."
–The Historical Novel Society

"A fascinating and realistic account of what life could have been like in early colonial Madras. It is also interesting that the dark side of the colonial era (issues like slavery, starvation, piracy, corruption, etc) are not glossed over, compared to the picture we get from our history text books which tend to be largely anglicised and sanitised because the British were the last to arrive and dominate the scene for over two centuries."

–Thomas Tharu for the Madras Literary Society

Read the Advance Information sheet for The Doubtful Diaries of Wicked Mistress Yale here.

Read The Historical Novel Society's review of the book here.