Violet Town

Bryony McGuinness

It’s 1939, and the Second World War has just begun.

Catherine Hawkins, an orphan and scholarship student with dreams of Oxford University, is entering her final year at Dashwood Boarding School in the English countryside.

Intelligent, ambitious and determined to shape a future beyond the limitations of her upbringing, Cate has little time for distraction. But when charismatic American student Joseph Hume arrives at the school, Cate finds herself pulled between the life she has carefully planned and a love that threatens to upend everything.

Set against the uncertainty of wartime England, Violet Town is a sweeping historical debut exploring ambition, identity, class, first love and loss.

Release
Sep-2026
ISBN
9781764132183
RRP (AUD)
$22.99
Pages
352
Format
Paperback

Bryony McGuinness

Bryony McGuinness resides in Melbourne’s South-Eastern suburbs with her fiancé, David and furball-son, Archer. The second eldest of six, she took to writing from a very young age, and it was in Year 8, when she was daydreaming in the classroom, that the early stages of Violet Town were born.

Bakers Lane Books

Founded in 2025, Bakers Lane Books is an independent publisher of quality Australian fiction and non-fiction.

Violet Town