Old Baggage

'The enemy hasn't changed in the slightest - this country's still run by stuffy old club-men who'll be rubbing their hands together at the prospect of women voluntarily forgoing their vote for the sake of patriotism.'

What do you do next, after you've changed the world?

It is 1928. Matilda Simpkin, rooting through a cupboard, comes across a small wooden club - an old possession of hers, unseen for more than a decade.

Mattie is a woman with a thrilling past and a chafingly uneventful present. During the Women's Suffrage Campaign she was a militant. Jailed five times, she marched, sang, gave speeches, smashed windows and heckled Winston Churchill, and nothing - nothing - since then has had the same depth, the same excitement.

Now in middle age, she is still looking for a fresh mould into which to pour her energies. Giving the wooden club a thoughtful twirl, she is struck by an idea - but what starts as a brilliantly idealistic plan is derailed by a connection with Mattie's militant past, one which begins to threaten every principle that she stands for.

Packed with the smart, quick-fire wit of her bestselling novels, including the recently adapted Their Finest, Old Baggage is a funny and bittersweet portrait of a woman who has never, never given up the fight.