An occasional series which looks at the work of authors whose books qualify as bestsellers, but who still aren’t quite as famous as they deserve to be.
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| Caroline England |
A Yorkshirewoman by birth, Lancastrian by adoption. After university in Manchester, Caroline England trained as a solicitor, and after a brief early encounter with the criminal fraternity, moved into divorce and professional indemnity. Her work only served to
deepen her fascination with the human condition: the differences and similarities between people, their failings and frailties, the masks they wear to cover their hidden depths and secrets. Later, voluntary mediation work gave her an insight into the nature of storytelling: how there is always more than one point of view, and multiple versions of the truth.
deepen her fascination with the human condition: the differences and similarities between people, their failings and frailties, the masks they wear to cover their hidden depths and secrets. Later, voluntary mediation work gave her an insight into the nature of storytelling: how there is always more than one point of view, and multiple versions of the truth.
The leap from writing divorce petitions and court reports to making up stories for her three daughters was a short one, and the jump into fiction for adults even shorter. Early in her writing career she put her legal background to good use in a two-book mini-series with a village setting, featuring a feisty feminist solicitor, written under the pen-name Caro Land.
Her debut psychological thriller Beneath the Skin was a tense mystery based around the secrets and lies she finds so intriguing, and she has gone on to write seven more highly acclaimed standalones under her own name. They are all a perfect fit for the domestic noir sub-genre, set in the home, family and friendship ties at their heart with all the consequent frictions, conflicts and convolutions.
As C E Rose, she writes darker thrillers with an element of the gothic, in which the location acts almost as another character in the story and adds a sinister layer to the atmosphere. Who knows what goes on behind the closed doors of a crumbling stately home, a spooky farmhouse, a mysterious cottage?
Spirited solicitor, domestic noir or gothic thriller, her books have acquired a considerable following. She writes about characters who are fallible and all the more human for it; their relationships have unexpected twists, and their secrets are well hidden until the layers are peeled away. They are complex, often tense and menacing, the kinds of books that keep you up all night because the itch to know what happens won't go away.
With all these best-seller ingredients in place, you'd imagine that Caroline England had earned a place at the top of the crime-writing tree. So why hasn't she? It's a mystery.
Books by Caroline England
The Wife's Secret (2017)
aka Beneath the Skin
My Husband's Lies (2018)
Betray Her (2019)
Truth Games (2020)
The Sinner (2022)
The Stranger Beside Me (2023)
The Return Of Frankie Whittle (2025)
Behind Her Smile (2025)
Books Written as C E Rose
The
House of Hidden Secrets (2021)
The House on the Water's Edge (2021)
The Shadows of Rutherford House (2022)
The Attic at Wilton Place (2023)
By Caro Land
Convictions
Confessions.
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