All of my books and stories have at least one thing in common: strong women. I’ve always been fascinated by women who are fighters and who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo. Astra, the main character in A Bright Young Thing, is definitely not alone in pushing back against society’s expectations: the women in these books (and many in real life in the 1930s) also find the strength to say no, to stand in their power, and truly live life their way.
After a lifetime of dutiful marriage, the newly widowed Lady Slane shocks her family by striking out on her own, moving from London to a suburban cottage where she will live alone and please herself (for once!). Her decision rumbles through her grown children’s lives and inspires one of her great-granddaughters to pursue an independent life herself.
I love that this book focuses on an older woman (Lady Slane is 88 years old), proving that it’s never too late to live life on your own terms. And in Deborah, her great-granddaughter, we get a glimpse of the new sort of woman who was really making her presence felt in this period: young women exploring their independence and living very different lives from their parents and grandparents.
A charming extraordinary early 20th century novel about family relationships.
When the great statesman Lord Slane dies, everyone assumes his dutiful wife will slowly fade away, the paying guest of each of her six children. But Lady Slane surprises everyone by escaping to a rented house in Hampstead where she revels in her new freedom, revives youthful ambitions and gathers some very unsuitable companions. Irreverent, entertaining and insightful, this is a tale of the unexpected joys of growing older.
Gaudy Night puts mystery writer and amateur sleuth Harriet Vane front and centre as she reluctantly investigates a series of crimes at her Oxford alma mater. Like my heroine, Astra, Harriet was orphaned in her early 20’s and had to make her own way in the world. She pursued a college education at a time when this was very unusual for women, lived with a man (scandalous!), and rejects the romantic attentions of an aristocrat until she feels the two can come together on equal terms. She’s fantastic and I adore her. I also love how, in this novel, she carefully examines women’s struggles to widen their roles in the world and achieve more independence. No wonder this has been called “the first feminist mystery novel”.
The twelfth book in Dorothy L Sayers' classic Lord Peter Wimsey series, introduced by actress Dame Harriet Mary Walter, DBE - a must-read for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Allingham's Campion Mysteries.
'D. L. Sayers is one of the best detective story writers' Daily Telegraph
Harriet Vane has never dared to return to her old Oxford college. Now, despite her scandalous life, she has been summoned back . . .
At first she thinks her worst fears have been fulfilled, as she encounters obscene graffiti, poison pen letters and a disgusting effigy when she arrives at sedate Shrewsbury…
Hurston’s heroine, Janie Crawford, lives in a time and place when a woman was supposed to be defined by the men in her life. But Janie, though she suffers suppression and abuse at the hands of her husbands, remains strong-minded, pushes back when she can, and ultimately experiences love on her own terms, becoming an independent woman with her own voice. This classic of the Harlem Renaissance not only provides us with a fascinating, remarkable woman in Janie; it’s also a great portrait of black lives and culture in the early 20th century.
Cover design by Harlem renaissance artist Lois Mailou Jones
When Janie, at sixteen, is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams, who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds ...
'For me, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece…
Toklas was Stein’s life partner—their relationship lasted nearly four decades and ended with Stein’s death in 1946. As the book shows, Toklas led a remarkable life, fleeing the devastation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to move to Paris, where she met Stein and became a centrepiece of the avant-garde art scene that included Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, and Matisse, to name just a few. Although she was viewed as a sort of background figure (it seems she was quite shy), she worked as Stein’s caretaker, editor, critic, confidante, lover, and cook. She finally got the recognition she deserved when Stein published this book, which became her best-known work.
The most famous short story in this collection is about Cora, whose whole life is spent in drudgery first to her own family, and then to the locally prominent Studevants. In her own life, Cora is somewhat unconventional—she feels no shame for having an illegitimate child at a time when that was frowned upon, to say the least—but she’s quietly obedient to her difficult employers. Until, that is, one of them causes a tragedy, and Cora feels compelled to speak up very publicly. And, oh, when she does it is immensely satisfying! (TW: racially charged language and abortion)
THE CELEBRATED SHORT STORY COLLECTION FROM THE AMERICAN POET AND WRITER OFTEN CALLED THE 'POET LAUREATE OF HARLEM'
A black maid forms a close bond with the daughter of the cruel white couple for whom she works. Two rich, white artists hire a black model to pose as a slave. A white-passing boy ignores his mother when they cross each other on the street.
Written with sardonic wit and a keen eye for the absurdly unjust, these fourteen stories about racial tensions are as relevant today as the day they were penned, and linger in the mind long after the…
With the sudden loss of her parents, 1930s socialite Astra Davies finds herself with a heap of debts and family secrets to sort out. Faced with a loveless marriage or stepping into the unknown, she makes the audacious decision to make her own way in the world.
But the road to financial independence is a rocky one, and it’s made more difficult when her business partner turns out to be a fool, a vengeful aristocrat goes on the warpath, and she unwittingly catches the attention of the equally hard up (but very irresistible) Earl of Dunreaven. Astra will have to find strength and skills she never knew she had if she’s going to prove that she’s more than just A Bright Young Thing.
My book is fantastical historical fiction about two characters who're wrestling with the monstrosity of their grief.
It takes you into London high society, where Ambrose tries to forget about how much he misses Bennett and how much he dreads becoming as cold as their Grandfather. It takes you to the family's country manor house, where Mattie isolates and old ghosts start to come out of the woodwork.
It's a story about loss and depression; it's a story about friends who don't let you walk through the valley of death alone.
Ambrose Bancroft returns to London society with his younger sister, hoping they'll leave ghosts of memory behind. They have only each other left. While Ambrose attempts to draw Mattie out, dragging her to balls and threatening to seek suitors for her, his sister recoils from his meddling. Finally, when Ambrose compels her to attend art class before she's ready, Mattie paints something horrific enough to banish them from society in public disgrace.
At Linwood Manor, Mattie and Ambrose aren't as alone as they think. Taking advantage of Mattie's desperate need to find freedom, a vanishing room lures Ambrose's sister into…
