LATEST PUBLICATION

The Breached Wall

Book Three of The Cresswell Inheritance Trilogy

It is spring 1915. Far away in France, the Great War was not over by Christmas as was confidently predicted. It shows no sign of ending, and the peaceful calm of Cresswell Manor in Devon has been shattered. It is now a convalescent home for soldiers from the Front. They arrive in increasing numbers to recover from their wounds - their minds and bodies broken. The old social order is crumbling as surely as time begins to breach the walls of the ancient manor house.

With their menfolk away at the Front, the women left behind take on the burden of running the estate, as well as their homes and households, working harder than they ever have before. Some of the women battle on and remain faithful, while loneliness encourages others to stray.

Will life ever be the same again for Rowan, in conflict with society and fearful of what the future may hold; for Esmeralda, who is riddled with guilt? Is it too late for Hannah to find her life's companion, and will Dolly ever be reconciled with the man she loves? These and many other conflicts add drama to this glorious saga of home life against the terrible backdrop of 'the war to end all wars'.

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MY BOOKS

My books are published by ORION.

Many writers claim that they write entirely from their imagination as if autobiographical writing is less valuable. I disagree completely. While much of each of my books is fiction, in most of them I have used my own experiences from the strange and varied life that I have lived.

My first book was Distinctions of Class which was short listed for the Romantic Novelist Association, Romantic Novel of the Year Award. It tells the tale of a working class girl who marries an aristocrat - which is exactly what I did. While it is a romantic novel it is also an angry one since it takes issue with the unfairness of the class structure in England and is heavily autobiographical.

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Love: the Bright Foreigner - This is the only totally romantic book I have written; that is, it is a tale of love with very few other issues. It is about a woman, recently widowed who feels that life for her is finished but who then falls in love with a Greek millionaire. I had lived in Greece and love the country and the people and so enjoyed writing it.

Available from Amazon.co.uk

I then began the task of writing a trilogy: Daughters of a Granite Land.

It begins in Victorian England and ends after WW2. In each of the books is a house called Gwenfer, in Cornwall, which is as much a character as any of the people. And Cornwall is where I spent many years, living through the war at Lanhydrock House, near Bodmin. Lanhydrock occurs again and again in my books and is the inspiration for Gwenfer.

I particularly enjoyed writing about the Victorian and Edwardian periods when I drew heavily on what my mother, who had been in service, had told me about life in a large stately home.

Book One: The Azure Bowl. Available from Amazon.co.uk

Book Two: The Golden Butterfly. Available in July 2001 from Amazon.co.uk

Book Three: The Stone Mistress. Available in July 2001 from Amazon.co.uk

Next came a contemporary novel Advances. This book is set in the world of writers' circles, workshops and publishing. Kate Howard is a middle aged woman who one day begins to write a novel and her whole life is changed. A lot of the content is what happened to me when I was first published.

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Overtures - I have always been fascinated by sibling rivalry. In this novel, two sisters, who are rivals - emotionally, since one is more favoured by her mother than the other, but also professionally for one is an opera singer and the other sings rock. It tells of their lives and the constant warring that sisters can be prone to. I had, in the 60s, worked in the pop industry for a short time and drew heavily on that experience.

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Avarice is a modern morality tale. I wanted to see if I could write from the viewpoint of men. It is a search for an elixir of life and is one of my favourite books and is totally imaginary...

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Lottery came about because I have always been fascinated by the effect money has on people's characters and lives. My own mother-in-law was extremely wealthy and I have often felt her life was ruined by too much too soon. This is a theme that I often come back to.

Available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com [large print edn.]

A great passion in my life is dogs and their welfare. I saw a report on TV about puppy farming and was so upset I wrote a book about dogs - Breeders - which although about Crufts and the champion dogs is also about the bad side of dog breeding and the evil world of dog fighting. The canine heroine is a bulldog - modelled on my own dog, Gertie.

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The Cult is primarily about three women who have reached a turning point in their lives. One is an actress who, ill with arthritis, sees her career is ending. A second wakes up to the fact that her love affair is over. The third, a devoted wife, discovers her husband is having an affair. At such a vulnerable time they are easy prey to the lure of a cult.

Available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

On Call - The world of hospitals seemed to me to always portray nurses as angels of mercy, I wanted to show it wasn't like that. And, having been a nurse, was fully aware that it wasn't.

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The Family relates the emotions, the problems, the joy and the pain of family life. I also wanted to show the change of the role of women in the past thirty odd years.

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Living for part of the year in France in an area that was heavily involved with the resistance I suppose it was inevitable that I should turn to that subject. But I didn't want to write of agents and guns but rather about the women who became involved even when they didn't want to and so I wrote Clare's War which I think of all my books is my favourite.

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In Exiles I have returned to the world of the writer (the heroine is Kate Howard from Advances) but she now lives in France and it is about living with ex-pats.

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As 'Annie Leith' I wrote two books called Tales from Sarson Magna: Molly's Flashings & Hector's Hobbies. They look with fond amusement at the world of the English Village. Hector's Hobbies is available from Amazon.co.uk

Last year wasn't the happiest for me, as it wasn't for so many others. I needed to escape and what better way then to write a book which had nothing to do with today and the problems we are all facing. I needed sheer escapism and hence The House at Harcourt.

Of the eighteen novels I have written only five are historical, but I was happy to do another. Hence it is a traditional drama: property, money, betrayal, lust and love! And all set in Victorian times, a period I love.

Perhaps these troubled times are the reason that there is a sudden resurgence of historical novels. Bad things may happen in them but in so many ways it was a more secure world than the one we live in now. It is as if we are safe as observers not participants - which can happen with modern novels, so often something similar has happened to us and a whole box of memories opens, which can be good but can also be bad... Those of you who chose to read it will, I hope, enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it and will love Eliza and Fanny as much as I do.

Read an extract

Available from Amazon.co.uk

The Visitor is soaring, dramatic tale of passion, money and love.

It is 1899. England is fighting the Boers, Queen Victoria's reign will soon be over and change is in the air. A young girl from Devon, Phoebe Drewitt, escapes her brutal father and a hard life on Dartmoor, her head full of dreams. She is rescued by the reclusive, middle aged Kendall Bartholomew, but are his motives as innocent as they appear? For Arnold Randolph Smythe, shopkeeper and upstanding citizen of Barlton in Devon, life is more than satisfactory. His shop is successful and his daughter adores him, though his rich wife does not. Yet appearances can be deceptive. Dulcie, his wife, meets Phoebe and invites her to their home. The arguments, hatreds and loves that follow have profound repercussions for all involved.

Available from Amazon.co.uk

The Broken Gate

Book One of The Cresswell Inheritance Trilogy

In the winter of 1901, Mortimer Cresswell is on his deathbed, surrounded by a family waiting to pick over the remains of his dwindling fortune. Though the ancient façade of Cresswell Manor surveys a vast estate, the land has fallen into ruin. A broken gate, always about to be mended, hangs perpetually open, a symbol of the extent of the decay. Hannah Creswell, Mortimer's daughter, can see her family becoming consumed by private ambition, jealousy and greed and is alone in her devastation at her father’s decline.

When Stanislas von Ehrlich, a self-made man of great fortune, moves into the neighbourhood with his family, the lives of the Cresswell family are disrupted forever. Stanislas has a ruthless desire for the Cresswell estate and a poisonous feud between the two families is sparked when the Cresswells refuse to sell.

Where tempers flare, so does passion. The beautiful Esmeralda von Ehrlich, headstrong and accustomed to getting her own way, is determined to gain her desire when she finds herself drawn to a Cresswell man.

Bound to one another by conflict, passion and betrayal, both families are set on a collision course so powerful it will completely alter their world.

Available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

The Heart's Citadel

Book Two of The Cresswell Inheritance Trilogy

It is 1913 and the world is on the brink of war. The Kaiser is sabre rattling in Europe and men are beginning to query the existing order. To the majority of the inhabitants of the estate of Cresswell Manor in Devon, the summer seems endless; why should they not think that life will continue as it always has, ruled by the seasons and the whims of the Cresswell family?

But change is afoot for the Cresswells too.

Hannah, the spinster daughter, is heavily involved with the suffragettes, whose aims she approves of but whose methods she abhors. She still dreams of discovering love. Esmeralda, daughter of the nouveau riche, corrupt Stanilas von Ehrlich and married to Oliver Cresswell, finds herself in a desperate situation that may force her to betray the man she loves. Lettice, tied to a brute of a husband, longs for freedom, but it comes at a price that makes her wonder if it is worth it. Young Mortimer Cresswell shocks his snobbish mother by falling in love with an estate worker's daughter, while his tearaway brother, Felix, breaks her heart in his pursuit of hedonism.

Most of them are ignorant that war is looming, that society is about to change for ever and that the England their forefathers knew is going to alter beyond their wildest dreams - or fears.

Available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

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