Billie Harkness

The Northern Daughter is the first in a planned historical series for fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Susan Elia MacNeal, and our very own Rhys Bowen. Through research and tireless attention to detail, the author dramatizes the hard truths of war for an industrial town on the cutting edge between victory and death, all told through the lens of a woman ahead of her time-one of the first female officers in the Women's Police Constabulary (WPC), who during WW2, challenged stereotypes and risked their lives to protect the home front. 1940: Her mother just killed in a blackout accident, and her rector father and brother MIA in France, Wilhelmina Harkness finds herself homeless, penniless, and the recipient of an unwanted marriage proposal for “propriety's sake”. Instead of being married off, she leaves small village life behind, reinvents herself as “Billie”, and accepts her aunt's invitation to live with her in Kingston-Upon-Hull...a coastal industrial town about to be bombed relentlessly by the Germans. Billie crawls from beneath the rubble of her first air raid to find the body of the enigmatic stranger she had encountered earlier that day. A passing policeman whisks Billie from the collapsing building, hastily reporting the woman's death as a result of bombings. An astute observer with a resolute conscience, Billie challenges the ruling. The victim's body was unharmed, despite the fallen debris, information that inflames the wrong people but earns Billie an invitation to the newly formed Women's Police Constabulary (WPC) and a partner,the officer whose findings she challenged. The Northern Daughter opens with the outbreak of war on British soil, and features a police officer whose work protects Britain from German bombs, as well as from criminals intent on taking advantage of wartime chaos.

1940. It's been a month since rector's daughter Billie Harkness left her rural village to make a fresh start in the northern city of Hull. Now she has a new home and an exciting new job as one of only two female police constables in the whole city. But Hull still feels like a foreign country, and some people are less than impressed by the idea of a woman doing a 'man's job'. Facing disrespect from her colleagues and suspicion from the public, Billie throws herself into her work. The tasks she's assigned might be menial, but she's determined to do her bit for the war effort. The chance to prove her worth comes during a search for a missing air raid shelter inspector, when Billie makes a shocking discovery: his dead body, in a shelter that's been stripped of all its valuables. The officers summoned to investigate the scene believe it's an open and shut case, but Billie's not so sure. Asking questions means making enemies though-and little does she know that vile rumors about her are spreading, with the power to erase everything she's tried so hard to achieve …