Rebecca is a novelist, non-fiction writer, historian and broadcaster. Her fourteen books reflect her curiosity for history, archaeology, feminism, history of science, marine creatures, literature and, sometimes… ghosts. 

 

Her creative non-fiction titles include Darwin and the Barnacle (2003), Darwin’s Ghosts: In Search of the First Evolutionists (2012) and Oyster (2003). 

 

In The Days of Rain (2017), her memoir about growing up inside the closed, secretive cult called the Exclusive Brethren, won the Costa Biography Award in 2017.

 

She will be speaking to us about her third novel, Dark Earth, in which two sixth-century sisters go on the run in the ruins of Roman Londinium.

 

‘It is only when you’ve pieced together a story in several different ways that you realise where the holes are, discover the knowledge that is still missing, the questions you still want to ask.’