Bryn Turnbull Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Bryn Turnbull
When Bryn Turnbull was only eleven years old, she accidentally put her foot through a single-pane window as she leafed through a well-worn copy of Sandman (Volume 2).

The incident, which resulted in a trip to the hospital, five stitches, and a unique use of Superglue, taught her a couple of things: reading is not, nor should it be attempted as, a full-contact sport. And that writers can create world inside a book so fully and utterly all-encompassing and absorbing, that they can push readers to such a distraction as to fully forget the outside world.

She writes historical fiction, focusing on the stories of women found within the cracks of the historical record. Equipped with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from McGill University and a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of St. Andrews, she writes books that are intended to push readers to similar levels of distraction. And to transport them to different worlds and different eras, yet hopefully not into the hospital.

With a penchant for fountain pens that leak ink onto her fingers, traveling, and antique furniture, she is an old soul without much patience for modern conveniences.

To battle writer’s block, she works out. She does Pilates, goes for a walk, swims. Anything to get moving tends to help her get her brain out of sluggish mode, as well.

The idea for “The Woman Before Wallis” came about because she watched a 2011 movie titled “W. E.” (directed by Madonna) that told the story about Wallis and Edward’s courtship and marriage. Early in the movie, there is this scene that recaps the fateful conversation between Thelma Morgan Furness and Wallis Sampson, where Thelma (who is involved with Prince of Wales), asks Walls to “take care” of the Prince as she is traveling.

Bryn found herself being fascinated by such a question: who would even ask such a thing, even from somebody that was a close friend? Bryn started looking into who exactly this Thelma Morgan Furness was, and when she crawled out of her Wikipedia rabbit hole, she knew she had found a book.

“The Woman Before Wallis” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2020. This stunner of a novel tells the true story about an American divorcee that captured Prince Edward’s heart before abdicating his throne for Wallis Sampson.

During the summer of 1926, when Thelma Morgan marries Viscount Duke Furness after their whirlwind romance, she is immersed in this gilded world of privilege and extraordinary wealth. For Thelma, who is an American diplomat’s daughter, her new life being the member of the British aristocracy is much like a fairy tale—even more so when her husband introduces her to Edward, the Prince of Wales.

Her marriage to the Duke leads to her falling headlong into a love affair with Prince Edward, in what is a twist of fate. However happiness is fleeting, and their love becomes threatened when Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, Thelma’s sister, gets embroiled in a scandal with some far-reaching implications. While Thelma sets sail to New York to support Gloria, she leaves Edward in her trusted friend Wallis’ hands, never considering the consequences that are to follow.

Author Bryn Turnbull takes the reader from the raucous glamour of the French Riviera and Paris Ritz to the quiet and private corners of St. James’s Palace in a sweeping story about betrayal, love, and loyalty.

This novel is brimming with scandal and an equal measure of heart. It is an intimate yet sweeping look at the lives of some of history’s most notorious figures from the Prince of Wales to the Vanderbilts. Bryn takes a tale that we think we know well and turns it on its head, with rather captivating results. It is a meticulously researched, beautifully written, and memorable debut novel.

“The Last Grand Duchess” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2022. This sweeping novel takes readers behind palace walls to see the end of Imperial Russia through the eyes of the first daughter of the last Tsar, Olga Romanov.

Grand Duchess Olga Romanov comes of age during a shifting tide for the great dynasties in Europe. Yet even while unrest is simmering in the capital, she is content to live inside the confines of the sheltered life that her parents have built for her and her three sisters. They are hiding out from the world due to their brother Alexei’s secret affliction, their mom’s ill health, and rising controversy over Father Grigori Rasputin’s, the priest that the Tsarina has come to rely on.

Olga’s one escape from her seclusion of Alexander Palace comes from her aunt, who takes pity on her and Tatiana, her sister, inviting them to these grand tea parties amid the shadow court of Saint Petersburg. At last, she glimpses a world beyond her mom’s Victorian sensibilities. It is a world of whispered conversation, opulent ballrooms, and scandalous flirtation.

However while war looms, the palaces in Russia become transformed. Olga and her sisters trade in their gowns for nursing habits, assisting in surgeries and tending to the wounded minds and bodies of Russia’s military officers. While troubling rumors about her parents come in from the front, Olga dares to hope that a budding romance could survive whatever the future might hold. However when tensions begin to run high and supplies start running low, the controversy about Rasputin is transformed into fiery protest, and calls for a revolution threaten to end the three hundred years of Romanov rule.

At turns harrowing and glittering, this is a story about love, dynasty, and duty, however above all, it is also the story about a family that would pick devotion to one another over everything. Including their own lives.

Bryn delivers a novel that is tender and violent, intimate and ambitious, while she pulls aside some heavy curtains on Russia’s history, spotlighting some of the tragically human characters in a royal drama. Olga is seared into your heart as the best sort of tragic heroine, one that loves and fights with every fiber of her being, even in the face of mortal danger.