Historical novel set around ENGLAND (Birmingham)

29th April 2026

Dwell by Rue Baldry, historical novel set around ENGLAND (Birmingham).

Winner of the 2024 First Novel Prize

This is a story of queer love with a post WW1 backdrop. It focusses on Albert Mere who is returned from combat and has found a job working as a gardener at Whiteborne School. He is largely left to his own devices as he sets about his work.

The narrative moves between the terrible war experiences –  “Aren’t we all too young for hell?” and the aftermath. The Spanish flu has now started to make the rounds and is gathering momentum, a new kind of hell for those who have survived the war years.

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Attending the school is Edgar Lancaster, an 18 year old student. There is a tentative mutual attraction between the two. Edgar is in the last few months of education and hopes to go on to study medicine.

Once Edgar secures a place to study, Albert accompanies him to Birmingham, and there the two take joint lodgings. It is, of course, a time when their kind of relationship is outlawed, and thus they have to take supreme care about how they manage their days and public interactions. Then, an unwelcome person from Albert’s past re-enters his life and the couple’s careful arrangement comes under threat.

The story felt reminiscent of another novel I recently read for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2026(Fiction with a sense of place) shortlist – The Two Roberts by Damian Barr, set in Glasgow / England, focussing on two protagonists who carefully had to nurture their bond against all odds in the earlier 20th Century.

In Dwell, the author constructs a tender story, with a real sense of the time, as Albert struggles with the aftermath of war – how simple triggers can take him back to terrible times; this all proves terribly unsettling for them both. There is a terrific sense of England, the weather and landscape melding with detailed descriptions of life, love and class weaving through a rich narrative.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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