The Key: The most gripping, heartbreaking novel of World War Two historical fiction from the global bestselling author of The Memory Box

Kathryn Hughes

Mar 2018 · Review · Narrated by Joanne Froggatt

About this audiobook

'Riveting' Lesley Pearse on The Letter. 'Gripping' Good Housekeeping on The Secret.

From Kathryn Hughes, the #1 bestselling author of The Letter and The Secret, comes a powerful, shocking, heartbreaking story set to get everyone talking in spring 2018.

1956
It's Ellen Crosby's first day at work as a student nurse at Fairhaven County Lunatic Asylum. When she meets Amy Sullivan, a young woman committed for allegedly attempting to drown herself and her stepsister, and Dr Stephen Lambourn, a pioneering physician keen to try out the various 'cures' available for mental illness, little does Ellen know that a choice she will make is to change all their lives irrevocably...

Present day
Under the cover of darkness, a young woman, Kate, picks her way through the brambles to the abandoned Fairhaven Asylum. A vast building with over six miles of corridors, the asylum still houses the metal-framed beds, rusty instruments and infamous padded cells used before it closed its doors for the last time. In an old wardrobe, Kate discovers a suitcase belonging to a female patient who was admitted to the asylum in 1956. The shocking contents of the suitcase lead Kate to unravel a forgotten story of tragedy, lost love and an old wrong that only Kate may have the power to put right.

About the author

Kathryn Hughes was born in Altrincham, near Manchester. After completing a secretarial course, Kathryn met her husband and they married in Canada. For twenty-nine years they ran a business together, raised two children and travelled when they could to places such as India, Singapore, South Africa and New Zealand. Kathryn and her family now make their home in a village near Manchester.