The Woman in the Hall

She didn’t want men to be in love with her. She wanted power and a dangerous gamble and the fun of winning and putting herself over as a sweet saviour, till at last she came to believe it herself. 

Lorna Blake is a woman able to create her own reality: a swindler with nerves of steel, audacious manipulator, and devoted single mother to two daughters, Jay and Molly. When her eldest needs lifesaving treatment they cannot afford, Lorna begins a risky but thrilling gamble; taking her daughters to the hallways of London mansions to beg, with fabricated tales of dead, dangerous and deserting husbands. But as years pass and Lorna continues to wring pity and pounds from wealthy strangers, her daughters struggle to escape their mother’s theatrics. Meanwhile, from across the Atlantic Ocean, Lorna’s victims are slowly catching up with her … 

Acted out in the hallways of London mansions and across several continents, The Woman in the Hall is part psychological drama, part exhilarating cat-and-mouse chase, and a darkly comic portrait of how a single mother could wring pity from 1930s society.  

Publication date: 22/05/2025 

Author: G. B. Stern

Brand: British Library Publishing

Number of Pages: 352

Binding: Paperback

Dimensions: 190 x 130 mm