From the globally bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring.<br><br>It is 1932 and the losses of the First World War are still keenly felt. Violet Speedwell mourning for both her fiancE and her brother and regarded by society as a ‘surplus woman' unlikely to marry resolves to escape her suffocating mother and strike out alone.<br><br>A new life awaits her in Winchester. Yes it is one of draughty boarding-houses and sidelong glances at her naked ring finger from younger colleagues; but it is also a life gleaming with independence and opportunity. Violet falls in with the broderers a disparate group of women charged with embroidering kneelers for the Cathedral and is soon entwined in their lives and their secrets. As the almost unthinkable threat of a second Great War appears on the horizon Violet collects a few secrets of her own that could just change everything…<br> <br>Warm vivid and beautifully orchestrated A Single Thread reveals one of our finest modern writers at the peak of her powers.