Siân Busby Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Siân Busby was a British published author.

Born on November 19, 1960, she passed away on September 4, 2012. She was the daughter of Tom Busby, a Canadian actor, and Wendy Russel. She attended Creighton School and then Sussex University, where she read English.

Siân started out working in arts television but later decided to switch to writing. The first two books she wrote were nonfiction, A Wonderful Little Girl about a Welsh child and The Cruel Mother, an account of child murder by one of her ancestors.

In 2007, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Her last book, A Commonplace Killing, was completed not long before she passed from the disease. The book came out in 2013 and was featured as part of BBC Radio Four’s Book at Bedtime in June that year.

Busby got married to Robert Preston in 1998. He was the BBC’s business editor and they had a son together named Max that was born the year before they tied the knot. The two had known each other since they were teenagers and were able to rekindle after a friend was hospitalized after an accident on the road. During that time, she married and divorced Kees Ryninks, a Dutch film maker. They also had a son together.

The author would sadly pass away in 2012 after a long illness and struggle with lung cancer. She is known for A Wonderful Little Girl, The Cruel Mother, Boudicca (Who Was…?), McNaughten, and A Commonplace Killing.

The Cruel Mother: A Memoir is a 2004 novel by Siân Busby. If you enjoy a good nonfiction work and have been looking for more to add to your must-read list, this is a great option as this work is a true story that is truly intriguing on every level.

In 1919, Siân’s great-grandmother ended up giving birth to triplets. One of the babies unfortunately died when they were born, but it was what happened later that would be truly shocking. Her great-grandmother would end up drowning the two babies that survived in a bath of cold water. She would be sentenced to prison for the criminally insane for a term of indefinite length.

For generations on end, the family had to contend with the murders and the fallout effects of the event, as well as their accompanying anxiety, guilt, and shame. They do their best to mostly suppress the memory and try to deal with it the best that they can. But when Busby started to experience severe rounds of postpartum depression herself, she felt that it was time to find out more about this story and immerse herself in the tragedy that had so much of an effect on the collective history of her family.

In this engaging memoir, the author goes more into her own postpartum depression and the experiences that her family went through, starting with her great-grandmother. The result is a picture of post-World War One working class England and the exorcism of ghosts of a family that have been haunting them for a long time. Emotional and empathetic, this is one memoir that you won’t want to miss.

A Commonplace Killing is a 2013 novel by Siân Busby. If you’ve been looking for a suspenseful novel that is also a psychological thriller that will keep you guessing, this book might be it. Follow along as Busby delves into the double life of a middle class woman who meets her unfortunate end when she is strangled to death.

The year is 1946 and it is a damp July morning. Two schoolboys have found the body of a woman located on a bomb site in north London, and she is stone cold dead. The body is eventually identified and found to be that of Lillian Frobisher, a mother and wife who lived in a terrace damaged by war located just a few streets away.

The police think that based on how it looks, the woman must have been sexually assaulted. But an autopsy that was done discovers that there is no evidence of rape. With this theory debunked, Divisional Detective Inspector Jim Cooper decides that the appropriate thing is to focus on her private life. It only makes sense to look further into her circumstances in the hopes that it will yield more clues.

Cooper wonders how the victim even came to be located in the bomb site. Could it have been a location where lovers met? Why was she strangled if in fact she was engaging in sex that was consensual? And why does it seem that her husband was not even aware of the fact that his wife hadn’t come home the same night that she was killed?

A mystery is afoot, and Cooper wants to solve it. Can he unmask a killer or will he find himself to be the unintended next target of a brutal murderer? Read A Commonplace Killing to find out!