I am a number one international bestselling author. I have written thirty titles and sold over six million copies worldwide. I have written since I was a child but got my first book published when I was 31. I love reading books that have love at their core and which are beautifully written. Frankly, if a book doesn’t have love, I’m not interested. In the same way that life without love is pointless! I don’t like thrillers, dystopia, or shallow romances. I give up very quickly if I’m not gripped by the first few pages, but when I love a book, there is nothing better than floating away on the wonderful story.
West Cork, Ireland, 1900. The year marks the start of a new century and the birth of three very different women: Kitty Deverill, the flame-haired Anglo-Irish daughter of the castle; Bridie Doyle, the daughter of the Irish cook; and Celia Deverill, Kitty's flamboyant English cousin. Together they grow up on the dreamy grounds of the family's grand estate, Castle Deverill. Yet their peaceful way of life will soon be threatened by Ireland's struggle for independence.
This novel is the first of five in the Deverill Chronicles series.
Edith Wharton is probably one of my favourite authors. Her writing is uniquely beautiful, charming, witty, and emotionally powerful. Set at the turn of the last century it’s about upper-class New York society with its inflexible customs and rules. Handsome, noble Archer Newland is engaged to be married to sweet, innocent May. Then May’s scandalous cousin, the magnetic Countess Ellen Olenska, separated from her European husband, arrives on the scene to ruffle the feathers of this stuffy society – and threatens to steal the heart of Archer Newland. But May is stronger than she looks!
Edith Wharton's novel reworks the eternal triangle of two women and a man in a strikingly original manner. When about to marry the beautiful and conventional May Welland, Newland Archer falls in love with her very unconventional cousin, the Countess Olenska. The consequent drama, set in New York during the 1870s, reveals terrifying chasms under the polished surface of upper-class society as the increasingly fraught Archer struggles with conflicting obligations and desires. The first woman to do so, Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize for this dark comedy of manners which was immediately recognized as one of her greatest achievements.
I have read this book a dozen times. It just makes me so happy! It’s set between the wars. Four very different women rent a villa in Italy for the month of April. They are all escaping something unsatisfactory at home. The beauty of Italy and the unlikely friendship that blossoms between them alters them profoundly. Written from each woman’s perspective, the author gives the reader a wonderful insight into their thoughts and motivations. It’s witty, charming, and clever, but above all, it is so uplifting.
Originally published in 1922, Elizabeth Von Arnim's The Enchanted April is a charming and light-hearted novel about unlikely female friendships and the power of a blissful escape.
Complete & Unabridged. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, cloth-bound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover.
Four mismatched women respond to an advert in The Times offering a beautiful medieval castle to rent on the Italian Riviera. Bashful Mrs Wilkins, cheerless Mrs Arbuthnot, widowed Mrs Fisher and socialite Lady Caroline Dester are each…
This is set in Dublin from the 1940s to the present day. It’s the story of an orphan who struggles with his homosexuality and finding his place in the world. The characters are so beautifully drawn. They are eccentric, colourful, and unforgettable - and it is incredibly moving. I cried in the end, but in a good way. I was just so happy and moved. Do read it – you won’t regret it. It’s one of the most beautiful stories I’ve ever read.
'Compelling and satisfying... At times, incredibly funny, at others, heartrending' Sarah Winman, author of When God Was a Rabbit
Forced to flee the scandal brewing in her hometown, Catherine Goggin finds herself pregnant and alone, in search of a new life at just sixteen. She knows she has no choice but to believe that the nun she entrusts her child to will find him a better life.
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery, or so his parents are constantly reminding him. Adopted as a baby, he's never quite felt at home with the family that treats him more as…
This is a classic. No movie, even starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, can do it justice. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a master storyteller and has always been one of my icons. It’s one of the greatest love stories of all time. A love that lasts a lifetime. The writing is beyond amazing, as only GGM’s can be. His metaphors bring tears to your eyes as he penetrates the soul of his characters in a way few other writers do. There is love on every page.
There are novels, like journeys, which you never want to end: this is one of them. One seventh of July at six in the afternoon, a woman of 71 and a man of 78 ascend a gangplank and begin one of the greatest adventures in modern literature. The man is Florentino Ariza, President of the Carribean River Boat Company; the woman is his childhood sweetheart, the recently widowed Fermina Daza. She has earache. He is bald and lame. Their journey up-river, at an age when they can expect 'nothing more in life', holds out a shimmering promise: the consummation of…
Set in America’s deep south in the nineteenth century, it’s a story about courage, friendship against all odds, and love. Sarah is given a little slave girl for her eleventh birthday. Unable to accept the inhumanity of the cruel culture in which she lives, she sets out to change it – and in so doing unleashes a whole heap of trouble. I love this book for the writing, it’s like poetry; flowing, lyrical, and as beautiful as light. It’s the most touching story. I cried various times because I was so moved. It also helped me learn about and understand something about America’s history of slavery.
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees and the forthcoming novel The Book of Longings, a novel about two unforgettable American women.
Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world.
Hetty "Handful" Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke's daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something…
The Road from Belhaven is set in 1880s Scotland. Growing up in the care of her grandparents on Belhaven Farm, Lizzie Craig discovers as a small girl that she can see the future. But she soon realises that she must keep her gift a secret. While she can sometimes glimpse the future, she can never change it.
Nor can Lizzie change the feelings that come when a young man named Louis, visiting Belhaven for the harvest, begins to court her. Why have the adults around her never told her that the touch of a hand can change everything? When she follows Louis to Glasgow, she begins to learn the limits of his devotion and the complexities of her own affections.
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy, a novel about a young woman whose gift of second sight complicates her coming of age in late-nineteenth-century Scotland
Growing up in the care of her grandparents on Belhaven Farm, Lizzie Craig discovers as a small child that she can see into the future. But her gift is selective—she doesn’t, for instance, see that she has an older sister who will come to join the family. As her “pictures” foretell various incidents and accidents, she begins to realize a painful truth: she may glimpse the future, but…
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