In 2013 Lucy Hughes-Hallett ‘s biography of Gabriele d ‘Annunzio, The Pike, won all three of the UK ‘s most prestigious prizes for non-fiction €“ the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Costa Biography Award and the Duff Cooper Prize. Her novel, Peculiar Ground spans three centuries, moving between an English stately home and Berlin, and combines all the pleasures of historical fiction with a timely investigation of the way those who try to wall others out, risk finding themselves walled in. Roddy Doyle wrote it was ‘so clever and beautifully written it gripped me from start to end. I abandoned work and family to finish it. ‘ Tessa Hadley described it as ‘haunting and huge, and funny and sensuous. It ‘s wonderful. ‘
Lucy Hughes-Hallett
