An Evening With Author Clare Whitfield

Join us for an evening of GOTHIC SUSPENSE as we talk to author CLARE WHITFIELD about her latest book THE LAST HANDMAID, and touch upon her earlier crime novels.Perfect for fans of Weyward and The Doll Factory, Clare's gothic historical thriller is Dracula meets The Favourite, inspired by the alleged most prolific female serial killer of all time.

A bookish evening at the library for fans of horror, history, and suspense.The HandmaidHungary, 1604.

Orphaned and alone, Catalina arrives at Csejte Castle with no protection and no power.

It is a place of shifting loyalties, and girls who displease the household simply vanish.

Survival here depends on obedience - and silence.The CountessCatalina is summoned to serve Countess Erzsebet Bathory, a woman as volatile as she is feared.

Only she seems able to soothe her moods, drawing Catalina into the Countess' private chambers and her interest in strange 'medicines'.The CompulsionAs more girls disappear, Catalina knows there is a cost to staying alive.

She must decide whether to try and escape her mistress' hunger, be consumed by it - or learn to feed it herself...About the author: Clare Whitfield is a UK based writer.

She has published three crime fiction novels, People of Abandoned Character, which won the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award in 2021 and was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger 2021; The Gone and The Forgotten; and Poor Girls, which was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger award and also for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize in 2026.