NOVELS

Kylie’ s five historical novels have been published in eleven languages. 
1919, far northern Queensland. Fleeing from England and a violent marriage, Eva Willoughby arrives at her childhood friend’s home, a cattle station near the eerie and mysterious Black Mountain, the site of several unexplained disappearances.

Although the war is over there is unease, and tensions are rising. Not long after Eva finds employment as an assistant to Detective Sergeant Jack Shaw at the Ross Constabulary, her friend Sylvia disappears. Shaken, Eva suspects that Sylvia’s disappearance is connected to the mysterious death of a troubled young soldier.

​Since her new boss is too preoccupied with a covert operation, and in spite of local superstitions about Black Mountain, Eva embarks on her own dangerous investigation to uncover exactly what happened to Sylvia.
​Unabridged CD Audio Book.
Read by Rebecca Macauley.
Published by Bolinda audio. 
An Apple Australia ‘must listen’.
A sharply written, fast-moving mystery set in a wonderfully evoked post-Gallipoli Australia. A deeply pleasurable read.
Andrew Miller

Tapestry
Tapestry is set partly in eleventh century London and Normandy and partly in the present day. It tells the story of the origin of the famous and enigmatic Bayeux Tapestry from the point of view of two women who lived nine centuries apart. Leofgyth is an eleventh century embroiderer who works in of the court of Edward the Confessor, and Madeleine is a twenty-first century professor of Medieval History. Between them, the dramatic story of the end of Saxon England unfolds and an ancient mystery is solved.
Published 2011 by Head of Zeus/Bloomsbury, UK; Actes Sud, France; in 2002 by Ullstein Buchverlage in Germany, and has subsequently been published in Spain, Sweden, Holland, the Czech Republic and Poland.
​Digital version launched in 2024 by Dotbooks, Germany.
See Latest News for the story of how Tapestry came to be written.

The Secret of the Ninth Stone
Amen Corner, London, 1864. A jewel thief in old London town is murdering his victims.

Sarah O’Reilly, who works as a typesetter, meets Lily Korechnya who has been enlisted to help catalogue a magnificent jewel collection including several large gems that belong to the Maharaja of Benares. One, a fiery red diamond, seems to exert an unsettling influence over anyone who touches it.

Two gruesome murders take place — a customs officer and a jeweller in Hatton Gardens, both strangled in a distinct way. A local simpleton, Holy Joe, is blamed but neither Lily nor Sara are convinced the police have the right man. The trail of the missing gems leads them back to India, to ghosts, and the dangerous cult of the destroyer goddess Kali.
Published 2006 and 2018: Orion Books, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, UK & Australia; Head of Zeus/Bloomsbury, Ullstein, Germany; Forum, Sweden; Uniebook, Holland; Salamander, Spain; Giano, Italy, Actes Sud, France, Proszykski, Poland; Kodansha, Japan.
… excels in presenting complex ideas such as fatalism and human frailty in the face of fear and desire.
Saturday Telegraph

​​… a very entertaining romp through a world of muckraking journalism, child labour and deadly cults… very enjoyable – perfect for curling up with on a miserable February day.
Gloss Magazine

The Silver Thread
Dublin, 1840: Rhia Mahoney watches in despair as her father’s linen warehouse goes up in flames. Her imagined future, full of pattern and colour, plum brocades and beetle-green taffeta, crumbles to ashes. Rhia’s life is changed beyond all imagination when her uncle, a shipping merchant, commits suicide. Before she can investigate, she is accused of a crime she didn’t commit, and forced to board a prison ship bound for New South Wales. 

The voyage is one of dry biscuits and endless sea, made bearable by the women’s daily chore: sewing scraps of cloth into an elaborate quilt. What Rhia does not realise is that with every stitch, she binds herself closer to a journey of discovery that will not end in Australia.
Published 2011: Head of Zeus/Bloomsbury, UK; Actes Sud, France; Ullstein, Germany
​Digital version launched in 2024 by Dotbooks, Germany.
​The National Gallery of Victoria chose The Silver Thread as the companion to their 2016 exhibition Making the Australian Quilt 1800–1995: the members book club discussed ‘art through a literary lens’.
... impressively researched and closely imagined. An exciting, spirited and ambitious tale.
Andrew Miller
Costa-award winning author of Pure.

Historic fiction fans will recognise in Kylie Fitzpatrick the quality they’ve come to expect from people like Philippa Gregory. In this case we’re treated to a ripping adventure to warm the cockles of the imagination.
thebookbag.co.uk

Women of the Round Table
​
A novel of love and betrayal set against the historical backdrop of the Wars of the Roses.

London, 1485. William Caxton, the first English printer, has just published the Morte D’arthur, Thomas Malory’s definitive collection of Arthurian romances. Elizabeth Wydeville, the Dowager Queen, visits him in secret. She has information about both the book and Malory, who died 16 years earlier. Elizabeth tells her story, which takes in her flawed and much-criticised marriage to Edward IV, and her fiery relationship with her childhood friend, Elayne.

​Both Elizabeth and Elayne influence Malory in his writing of the Morte D’Arthur, and each lays claim to its most popular and intriguing tale: the Story of the Grail.
Published 2014: ​Ullstein, in German as ​Die Frauen Der Tafel Runde. Archetype Books U.K. publication forthcoming.