‘A captivating tale …This novel is a delight’ THE TIMES ‘A terrific novel … It springs off the page’ DEBORAH MOGGACH 'Vividly engaging’ SUNDAY TIMESChelsea, 1876 Struggling artist Jimmy Whistler is at war with his patron. Denied full payment, he and muse Maud Franklin face ruin. As Jimmy’s enemies mount, he resolves to sue a famous critic for libel, in a last-ditch attempt to ward off the bailiffs. Although she has no position in society, Maud is expected to do her part. But Maud has a secret that forces her to choose between art and love. Mrs Whistler is a dazzling glimpse inside a world of passion, art and power.
He made a dangerous wager…and won himself a wifeGambling hells are Sir Develin Dundrake’s forte. Hunting risk, craving victory, he’s surprised by nothing. Until the woman whose dowry Develin has claimed in a card game proposes the only solution that will rescue her from ruin: a wedding.Wicked Develin isn’t made for matrimony, but all Lady Theodora Markham demands is a convenient arrangement. He must avoid falling for his wife’s sensual charms – there are secrets hidden behind her beguiling gaze – yet neither can resist surrendering to the passion their marriage bed promises!
A lord in want of a wifeRuined and on the run, Julia Prior is in desperate straits when she meets a gentleman with a shocking proposal. Certain he is close to death, William Hadfield, Lord Dereham, sees Julia as the perfect woman to care for his beloved estate when he is gone–if she will first become his wife….Marriage is Julia's salvation–as Lady Hadfield, she can finally escape her sins. Until three years later, when the husband she believes to be dead returns, as handsome and strong as ever and intent on claiming the wedding night they never had!"Allen reaches into readers' hearts." –RT Book Reviews on Married to a Stranger
A brilliant – and rather transgressive – collection of short stories from the double Man Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror & the Light.Including a new story ‘The School of English’.Hilary Mantel is one of Britain’s most accomplished and acclaimed writers. In these ten bracingly subversive tales, all her gifts of characterisation and observation are fully engaged, summoning forth the horrors so often concealed behind everyday façades. Childhood cruelty is played out behind the bushes in ‘Comma’; nurses clash in ‘Harley Street’ over something more than professional differences; and in the title story, staying in for the plumber turns into an ambiguous and potentially deadly waiting game.Whether set in a claustrophobic Saudi Arabian flat or on a precarious mountain road in Greece, these stories share an insight into the darkest recesses of the spirit. Displaying all of Mantel’s unmistakable style and wit, they reveal a great writer at the peak of her powers.
A story of grim comedy amid the apocalypse and a celebration of the sheer indestructibility of the human spirit in a nation run riot: Michela Wrong’s vision of Congo/Zaire during the Mobutu years is incisive, ironic and revelatory.Mr Kurtz, the colonial white master, brought evil to the remote upper reaches of the Congo River. A century after Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ was first published, Michela Wrong revisits the Congo during the turbulent era of Mobutu Sese Seko.From the heart of Africa comes grotesque confusion: pink-lipsticked rebel soldiers mingle with track-suited secret policemen in hotels where fin de siecle dinner parties are ploughing through vintage wines rather than leave them to the new regime. Congo, the African country richest in natural resources, has institutionalised kleptomania. Everyone is on the take. Someone has even swiped one of the uranium rods from the country’s only nuclear reactor.Having presided over unprecedented looting of the country’s wealth, Mobutu, like Kurtz, retreated deep within the jungle to his palace of marble floors and gold taps. A hundred years on and nothing has changed.
A MOST UNORTHODOX DEBUTLady Mary Hope, known as Maidie, refuses to allow herself to be pushed into marriage with a man she dislikes. So she presents herself to Laurie, Viscount Delagarde, and asks him to sponsor her for a Season. Laurie is flabbergasted–as a bachelor he is the least suitable person for such a task. But his aunt Hester has other ideas…. When his household is suddenly inundated with women, Laurie knows he has to make a stand–but will all be for naught when he spies the transformation of Maidie from a dowdy maid to a sparkling diamond?
She can’t trust anyone.Yet to survive she has to trust him!When widow Hetta Champion and her little boy are endangered by her father’s hunt for a murderer, aristocrat Magnus Haile is compelled to assist! Hetta’s unhappy marriage has left her just as wary of people as Magnus, but on their adventure in England’s stunning south coast she feels her guard begin to slip.Could she offer Magnus the family he’s long believed impossible…?
When their parents married, James, Earl of Corringham, and Lady Lavinia Stanmore became as close as brother and sister. Now, years later, James has outgrown his rakish ways and is burning with a love for her that he longs to reveal.However, he faces a rival in the mysterious Lord Wincote. Torn between James and the handsome stranger, Lavinia's feelings are thrown into turmoil. But is this man really what he seems? The more Lord Wincote persists, the more Lavinia wonders if she should be looking for love a little closer to home….
Hoping to live with her great-uncle Henry Capitain, Margaret Donnington found him a reprobate and took refuge at Winterford Manor. It seemed Roland, Lord Pargeter, was in need of a wife, and he offered Margaret a marriage of convenience for one year.She thought she had strayed into a madhouse but, with little money and no chance of a job, she had to accept.Only after the marriage did Margaret learn of the family curse, and how dangerous it would he for her…
A passion forged from fireRejected by her favoured knight, Joanna Sollers knows she will never love again. Especially when the man she’s now forced to marry is none other than her beloved’s half-brother!For blacksmith Hal Danby, marrying Joanna makes his life-long dream of entering the Smiths’ Guild possible, even if the secrets in his past mean he’ll forever keep his distance. But everything changes with one stolen night, and in the arms of his new bride, Hal wonders if this loveless arrangement could transform into something real…