PearlyBooks

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Review 'It is a rollicking tale full of adultery, drinking, fighting, gambling. Rich imagery, suspense and some genuinely likeable characters'as well as plenty of murky ones'make this an enjoyable read. Karen is particularly strong at capturing the Geordie dialect and recreating the rural Northumbrian world of the 1800s, where the wealthy lived in comfort and the poor struggled to make ends meet.' 'Laura Fraine, Culture magazine, The Journal (Newcastle)'A break-in at the steward's office at Kirkley Hall in Northumberland on April 3, 1809, became a cause célèbre when local man James Charlton was accused of stealing over -ú1,100. Acquitted at his trial following a huge public outcry, his family thought it the end of the matter. But he was later re-arrested and transported on the evidence of a convicted burglar, whose death sentence was subsequently commuted. Charlton's novel, based on true events surrounding her husband's ancestor, is the first in a projected trilogy. Told with gritty realism, Catching The Eagle is a suspense-filled page-turner, which spares nothing in its descriptions of the hardships and injustices suffered by the poor at the turn of the 19th century.Its ending leaves the reader poised perfectly for the next volume'for which I can hardly wait.' 'The Daily Mail Product Description Easter Monday, 1809: Kirkley Hall manor house is mysteriously burgled. When suspicion falls on Jamie Charlton, he and his family face a desperate battle to save him from the gallows. When 1,157 pounds rent money is stolen from Kirkley Hall, it is the biggest robbery Northumberland has ever known. The owner sends for Stephen Lavender, a principal officer with the Bow Street magistrate's court in London, to investigate the crime. Suspicion soon falls on impoverished farm labourer, Jamie Charlton, and the unpopular steward, Michael Aynsley. Jamie Charlton is a loving family man but he is hot-tempered and careless. As the case grows against him, it seems that only his young brother, William, can save him from an impending miscarriage of justice.But William is struggling with demons of his own. Desperate to break free from the tangled web of family ties which bind him to their small community, he is alarmed to find that he is falling in love with Jamie's wife.Set beneath the impenetrable gaze of a stray golden eagle whose fate seems to mirror that of Jamie's, Catching the Eagle, the first novel in the Regency Reivers Series, is a fictionalised account of a trial that devastated a family and divided a community. About the Author Karen Charlton grew up in Sheffield and Leeds. She completed an English degree at Hull University. After a few years of roaming between various jobs in Harrogate, Ripon and Scarborough she finally settled inTeesside. She completed a post graduate teaching certificate at Durham University. Since then, she has combined a teaching job at a Stockton secondary school with her writing and raising her own pair of 'little villains'. The Regency Reivers Series is based on the true story of her family's notorious ancestor, Jamie Charlton.