AUTHOR Tony Nicholson returns to his roots for an event in the Guisborough Cricket Club next weekend to speak about his already popular novel, The Love of Dangerous Men – A Secret History in Letters.

A former history lecturer, Nicholson is retired and lives in North Yorkshire. He spends his days researching, writing and giving talks, including the three-part series, Secrets of the Attic, based on the stash of letters which he and his family discovered after they moved to an old house in the area.

It was these letters which inspired the novel. In his talk next Friday evening he will speak about the book and his travels across the globe to unravel the life of Annie Bowen.

He will also offer a foretaste of a new book, The Langworthy Affair, based on a real-life Victorian scandal involving a young woman who never played by society's rules.

In The Love of Dangerous Men, a bird’s nest is found in the attic with hundreds of photographs and letters tangled in its straw. The first letter begins: ‘Well dear friend, I note all you said about Mr Bowen and that vile woman’ .

Nicholson set about researching the era and soon found himself in Calcutta and in London's Whitechapel tracking Annie's lover.

Peeling back the layers of her story, he uncovered a lost world of moonlight dances, country vicarages and teenage "spooning".

In London, there were sensational spectacles, "professors of swimming and illusions", glamorous dressmakers, nights at the music hall, reckless cab-drivers and drunken sailors.

A rich array of vivid characters came and went – loafers and swells, impoverished aristocrats, Victorian Bluebeards, pretty barmaids and saucy actresses.

Through it all the tangled web of Annie’s life was gradually unpicked. There were illicit affairs, family secrets and scandals, fading photographs and deceitful letters.

Moving from one astonishing place to another and tracking down her descendants across the world, the author found out about her lovers and rivals, friends and family, places she knew and the secrets of her life.

The Love of Dangerous Men is fascinating social history that tells the story of ordinary lives lived in extraordinary ways.

Nicholson grew up in Brotton, near Saltburn, where his family owned a shop, Nicholson and Petty, a local mini-department store.

Tickets for next Friday's event, which starts at 7pm, are available from Guisborough Bookshop at £5 each. The cost is redeemable against the price of The Love of Dangerous Men if bought on the night. The book normally retails at £9.99 in paperback and is available from the Guisborough Bookshop.