The Secret Rooms

Gripping. Reads like the best kind of mystery story. It is a tale of mistresses and heirlooms, cowardice and connivance

Sunday Times

'Astonishing, jaw-dropping, superb. Horrifying, extraordinary

Sunday Telegraph

Extraordinary, edge-of-the-seat, enthralling. All the ingredients of a lurid horror. The plot is thick with destroyed documents, decadent aristocracy, betrayed honour and curses

Metro

Compelling. A remarkable piece of research which throws a bright shaft of light on powerful people, hypocrisy and the first world war

Jeremy Paxman, Guardian, Books of the Year

Wonderful . . . has everything: family intrigue and hatred, love and war, witches' curses, eccentricity, snobbery and a series of shocking secrets. No reader can finish it unmoved

Sunday Express

Teems with hypocrisy, deceit, parental manipulation and bullying. Bailey artfully shows how guilt, grief, pride and shame levied a heavy toll

Literary Review

An extraordinary detective operation

John Julius Norwich

Excellent, beautifully crafted, fascinating

Red

Excellent. A fine, suspenseful, atmospheric tale, a less melodramatic and more nuanced Downton Abbey

Daily Express

Bailey's fascinating book takes us to the heart of a family tragedy ... this is a horrifying story of love, despair, intrigue, snobbery and upper class eccentricity which reads like fiction but is amazingly - and shockingly - real

Lancashire Evening Post

The mysterious death of a Duke and a castle full of treacherous goings-on make The Secret Rooms a gripping read for fans of Downton Abbey. As thrilling as any fiction, Catherine Bailey uncovers the darkest depths of a family with plenty of skeletons in its closet

Good Housekeeping