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In 1860, as a young girl of 17, Lady Slane nurtures a secret, burning ambition - to become an artist. Instead, she becomes, the wife of a great statesman and the mother of six children. Seventy years later, released by widowhood, and to the dismay of her pompous children, she abandons the family home for a tiny house in Hampstead. Here she recollects the dreams of youth, and revels in her newfound freedom with her odd assortment of companions: Genoux, her French maid; Mr. Bucktrout, her house agent; and a coffin maker who pictures people dead in order to reveal their true characters. And then there's Mr. FitzGeorge, an eccentric millionaire who met and loved her in India when she was young and lovely. It is here, in this world of her own, that she finds a passion that comes only with the freedom to choose; and it is this, her greatest gift, that she passes on to the only one who can understand its value. -
Book III of the Landry Saga. Driven from the Dumas Mansion back to her beloved bayou, Ruby's only hope is that fate will let her begin anew. Living again in a humble shack, Ruby is determined to make a secure and happy home for her precious infant daughter, Pearl. Paul Tate - her first love, whom she was forced to abandon - is at her side once more, now a man of dazzling wealth. When he whisks her into his grand house, it seems their future is assured. As mistress of Cypress Woods, Ruby can forget even the shocking reason she and Paul must wed in a secret ceremony and remain husband and wife in name alone. But the thick, expensive walls of Cypress Woods cannot shut out the terrible memories that have woven their fabric over her destiny, or the cold eyes of Paul's mother, Gladys, reminding Ruby of the secret she must keep to give Pearl a loving father. Then her venomous twin sister, Gisselle, arrives to taunt her with news of Beau Andreas, the true father Pearl has never met, and the only man Ruby will ever long for with all her body and soul, Desperate to find the complete, fulfilling life she craves, Ruby builds a precarious new existence, a flimsy shanty of hope that the first flood washes away. Only when the storm exposes the very blackest evils of the past will she glimpse the rainbow's fragile promise, a morning of sunshine and laughter with a family of her own... -
The paths of a blind French girl and a German boy cross in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. And now, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. -
Set in America as it is drawn into World War II by the attack on Pearl Harbour, the book chronicles the Farman family, who had lived quiet, industrious lives on Farman Hill for generations until the war came into their lives. There is courage and sacrifice, triumph and tragedy, heroism and treachery...and a lonely young wife's desperate struggle to keep love alive in a world shattered by hate. Keyes was married to a Washington politician and she revealed here the failings of Congress in one of her characters, who betrays his country because of his sympathy for Germany. -
Book II of The Crown Family Saga. At 26, Fritzi knows time is running out in her ambition to become a successful actress. Pressed by her father to settle for a more suitable life, she heads for New York and one more shot at the big time, but she finds the streets of Broadway are not paved with gold - but with poverty, hunger and despair. Her younger brother Carol drifts from town to town, too proud to work at the Crown brewery. When his longtime fascination for automobiles finally sparks into a talent for racing and a job at Henry Ford's Detroit factory, it seems his future is assured. And then war looms over Europe. -
Here is a tale so ordinary in Fiji that it tends to be ignored. It is an account of hardships lashed out at those regarded as weak. The journey of Savriti is similar to many in Fiji - the abuses that her children face breed in the culture and is slowly getting acceptance as a common happening. The book's shocking climax, the violent death of Chottu, the attempts of the naive yet determined Maureen to save her brother from what she recognised as an exploitative and doomed relationship and the forced adulthood of Somu - who must become father and brother to his sisters on the death of Chottu - is one which must have been the subject of evidence in many murder trials in the Fijian courts. Yet in the short newspaper articles of murder trials in Fiji, the voices of children like Maureen, Gita, Chottu and Somu are never heard. A fictional story that depicts the ugly truth of Fijian society. -
Sydney, 1942 - the year of the fall of Singapore, the bombing of Darwin and the surprise attack on Sydney Harbour by Japanese midget submarines. Australia is surely doomed to fall to the Japanese...In the confessional, naive young Father Frank Darragh hears how his community fear the end of life as they know it - how the very real fear of invasion by the Japanese is leading people to challenge what the church teaches is right or wrong. Under the threat of death, people do things they would never dream of in peacetime. Especially vulnerable are those women whose husbands have been captured in Singapore or the Western desert. Facing the future alone and unprotected, they are at risk of succumbing to the charms of more subtle invaders: American servicemen. When the beautiful wife of an Australian POW is found brutally murdered, she becomes a casualty of war in the mind of the impressionable young priest. His obsession with her lost soul leads Darragh on a dangerous journey of personal discovery, one that puts his own life at risk. -
Walden Yapp has lived a singular life. Professor of Demotic History at the University of Kloone, Yapp spends his days highlighting the corrupt capitalistic nature of the upper-classes, and his nights feeding Doris, his computer and only friend, the information he has gathered. So when capitalist Lord Petrefact hires him to write a damaging family history, Yapp seizes the chance to chronicle the corrupt life of the Petrefact family. Spurred on by his expectations of dishonesty and depravity Yapp heads of the town of Buscott, where nobody is what they at first appear to be. Now a pawn in Lord Petrefact’s vindictive family game, Yapp’s presence is as welcome as the plague. From provoking dwarfish marital problems to uncovering an erotic toy factory, Yapp’s presence sparks such a chain of events that going through a car wash will never feel the same! -
Being the Chronicle of the Wars of Montrose as Seen By Martin Somers, Adjutant of Women in O'Cahan's Regiment. Surgeon and adjutant of women in O'Cahan's Irish regiment, warring in Scotland with Montrose, is Martin Somers, better exponent of swordplay than of surgery. In his adventurous wardship of this ill-fated company of women, in the strengthening of the line against the forces of the Covenant, his dexterity and toughness is often decisive. This is a tale of keen endeavour, fury and tenderness. Also published as The Dark Rose.
