Roman Bride

My story Roman Bride is available on Amazon. It is a romance of a British soldier, who follows the Emperor Arthur, and a Roman-British lady, who is given to him in marriage. Hope it will please some of my readers. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=roman+bride+sutton&crid=2QXTW9CUTIRD9&sprefix=roman+bride+sutton%2Caps%2C205&ref=nb_sb_noss

Kitten Lady

Its kitten season and Hannah is looking after very tiny kittens, some of whom are premature. You can follow her on social media.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Im hoping to write a blog on Fisher's writing soon. She is an American author, born in 1879, in Lawrence, Kansas. Her father was a history professor and her mother was an artist. She was a prolific writer who also was involved in educational reform and in war relief work in Europe. She studied at the University of Kansas. She also studied languages in Paris. In 1907 she married John Redwood Fisher. During the War, she went with him to France and became involved in war work. After the war, she went on writing and also got involved in promoting the Montessori Method of education for young children. One of her novels which I like is the Home Maker. It is set in America, about a husband and wife, who swap roles. The husband is injured in an accident and confined to bed. His wife, who has never enjoyed housework and is impatient with her children, takes on a sales job, and finds she is very good at it. At home, her husband starts to manage the house and take care of the children and he enjoys it a lot, and the children are happier. But as he recovers he realises that he would prefer to stay home and let his wife earn a living which she likes doing. His doctor realises this and says that he is still injured and will never be much better, so he has an excuse for staying home and being a house husband.. and his wife does well at her job. I hope to blog some more about her later.

warning to social Climbers by Benedict Brooke

As Jeremy reached the mountain top- He said “At last I can relax” "I must inform the office, By email, phone, and fax” “Must let them know that I’ve achieved My ultimate final goal” “No not slamming the markets Or selling my bloody soul Or being a bear, a slag or some such Or playing the Stock Exchange But I’ve given up my position And conquered a mountain range Reinstatement and promotion Senior manager, at least For I was conquering Everest, While they were on the piste Five hundred K, a company car A Merc or maybe a Jaguar Executive Box at sporting Events Henley, champagne, hospitality tents A flat down in Chelsea, a girlfriend called Shona Invited to Wembley, guest of the owner I’ll buy up Man U, run my own racehorse And hope for a gong from Elizabeth, of course Imagine their faces when I meet the queen I’ll stand there, polite, aloof and serene" And with that, the smug bastard fell down a ravine.

Consequences Part VI

Alex goes to town to meet her brother and he questions her about what has happened. She feels she can't explain why she left the house to find lodgings... and can't explain that her lodgings are shabby and in a very poor area. He asks why the servants weren't paid, and she finally manage to tell him it's because she had used up the money. She says that she thought he could just write another cheque and he is appalled and accuses her of embezzling the money. She really can't understand why it is a problem. She has not handled money in years. She dimly realises that it was wrong to take the money Cedric gave her for the servants' pay, and to use it herself, but she does not see why. Cedric is torn between serious disapproval and feeling sorry for her, when she is so helpless and unaware. Alex feels that it's another indication that she is a bad person and deserves punishment and hellfire. He tells her that they will forget about it, and when Pamela gets married, she will make over her money to Alex. She goes back to her lodgings and broods, and comes to the conclusion that if she's so bad, she is destined for hell anyway.. if there is a hell. So she decides to commit suicide. She goes to the Ponds on Hampstead Heath and nerves herself to end it all. She works herself up to find enough courage to finish her life.. and steps into the pond, having put stones in her pockets. She drowns. Her family are sad but not desperately upset. They don't understand the problems that she has carried all her life or what drove her to this final event. Her younger sister feels that she had nothing to live for. Barbara remembers how pretty the young Alex was.

Consequences Part V

Cedric tells Alex that because she was settled in the convent, their father did not leave her anything much in his Will. He left a portion of money to be divided between Pamela and Barbara, but to Alex, he only left a small annuity of £50 a year. That was paid directly to the convent. Alex has no real idea of money - in the convent, the basics were provided for her... so she does not realise how precarious things are now. Barbara needs the money she got from her father, as she was left so badly off. Pamela is young and will probably marry well, but Cedric feels he can't advise his sister to give up her money unless she has a rich husband, and she has not got one, as yet. Alex is very upset that her family seem to be making such an issue about her income, because it means very little to her. Cedric tells her he will help her out, a bit, but she will have to wait till Pamela gets engaged, and can give up some of her portion, to have a settled income, however small. Alex gets even more upset when she overhears Violet who has been very kind to her, say things that insinuate that she is only being nice for Cedric's sake. She has been staying with Violet and now, she feels uneasy doing this. When Violet and Cedric plan to go away to the country for August, Alex asks if she could stay at their house while she tries to make plans. Violet agrees as there will be a couple of servants still keeping an eye on the house... Cedric tells her that he will give her some money for herself, which she'll need and a cheque to pay the board wages to the servants at the end of the month. He and Violet go away and Alex stays, but she then finds that the convent want paying back for the money they spent on sending her back to London. Worried and not sure what to do, she decides that she has to pay them.. so she uses her little bit of money from Cedric. But that still leaves her short. Foolishly, she thinks it would be all right to use the money for the servants' wages for herself. She has decided to leave her family's homes and find some cheap lodgings. She finds a room in a lodging house, and dips into the servants' wages to pay for it. She thinks it's no harm as Cedric can just write another cheque for them. She is hurt at having overheard Violet and now believes that Violet was not really kind because she liked her... She was just showing kindliness for her husband's sake. She moves into the lodging house near Hampstead. It is shabby but the landlady is nice to her. Then Cedric learns from his servants that they haven't been paid. He hurries back to London to see what has happened.

Consequences Part IV

Alex finds that her hysterical fits and her insistence that she wants to leave religous life does not go down well. The nuns are shocked. She is sent to consult a priest and he is very unsympathetic, telling her that she is very wrong to want to leave her convent. He brutally tells her that her family won't want her. Her siblings are married or leading their own lives. They will not be willing to take her back. Alex is hurt by all this and it reinforces her conviction that she is a bad person whom nobody could love or respect. But the nuns and priests can't believe that anyone could want to leave, once they have become professed religious. He suggests that she could transfer to another convent or another order, but she says she does not want that. She cannot live in the way religious are supposed to live, not having any special people in her life. He says that even if she does go ahead and apply to be released from her vows, it will take a long time and may not even happen. She says that she can't go on. If they won't let her go willingly, she will just leave. He reminds her that she won't be wanted by her own family. She continues to insist and in the end, she is sent to the order's convent in Rome, to be near the Vatican while her case is being processed. It becomes clear that she will get her release in due course. She finds that the Roman nuns are cold to her as well, as it is the ultimate sin to want to be released from your vows. She is hurt and even more lonely, and she becomes ill, with throat abscesses which weaken her. She writes to her family, who are amazed that she now wants to give up the life of a nun. They say that she will always be welcome at home but it's clear they have no real understanding of what she has gone through during her time as a nun and now, while she is looking for laicisation. After several months she is allowed to leave. The order pays for her to go back to England, but makes it clear she will have to pay the money back. She is also told that the church will not sanction her getting married. She has no interest in marriage. She decides to go to Barbara who now lives in a small house in Hampstead... Her brother Cedric has married a well to do young woman, Violet, and they have one child. He is comfortably off now and happy in his marriage. Alex, having lived in a limited enclosed life for 10 years, is absolutely shattered by the journey back to London. She knows nothing of money, or how London has changed. When she get to the city, she decides to get a cab to Hampstead, to Barbara's house, but she does not have enough money for the fare. Barbara is not unwelcoming but she's a little annoyed that she has to pay some of Alex's cab fare and that her sister did not think of getting a bus or underground. In a day or so, she suggests that they go to town to see Cedric and his wife, and have a talk about her finances. Her youngest sister, Pamela, is "out" and lives with Cedric. She lends Alex a little money to pay for some new clothes, but Alex has no idea how she is going to repay her.

Diana III

Diana and Jan get married and she decides that she wants to use her money to set up a home for children whose lives have been destroyed by war. Jan feels that her good side is now coming out more. He is fed up with the war and wishes it were over. Diana is eager to have a baby. She wants a son by Jan, but in the end she has to tell him that it seems unlikely that she will manage it. She tells him that when she asked him to come to France with her on the mission to get Yves' papers, she was pregnant by one of her lovers. She felt that she could not go on with dangerous war work, in such a condition so she hastily arranged an abortion. It didn't go well and her womb was damaged. Jan knows little of female reproduction and is shocked. He had guessed at the time he met her that Diana was pregnant, and then on a second meeting, she did not seem to be pregnant. Diana tells him she could try to have an operation to fix her womb, but she also has a bad heart. She has had heart trouble before and the adventures in France have added to the strain on her heart. So having a gynaecological operation might kill her.

Consequences III

Ten years pass, and we learn that Alex is now a nun (Sister Alexandra) in the convent in Belgium. But she is still not very happy. She had found a refuge in the London convent, and was accepted as a postulant. She hasn't got any real skills to use in her work. She does a bit of teaching but one of her little pupils gets a crush on her and the nuns are nervous about this sort of thing. Alex still loves Mother Gertrude, who is now a senior nun in the Liege convent, but she is getting worn out. She has been struggling for years to persuade herself that she has a vocation and that she is in the right place, but she is running out of energy. She is often ill. But she felt when she came to stay at the convent that she had no real option but to go into the order. Her family didn't want her, and the upper class world didn't want her. Mother Gertrude and the convent seemed to be the only people who cared for her or wanted to give her a place in life. In the past years, things have changed a lot in England. Her parents are both dead. Her brother Cedric has married and so has Barbara. She married a young artist who went to South Africa during the Boer war and became ill and died. He left her very badly off. Alex feels lost. Her family keep in touch but she has no real connexion with them. Her youngest sister, Pamela, is now growing up and ready to take her place in society. She then learns that Mother Gertrude has been transferred to a convent in South America and will be leaving soon. Mother Gertrude believes she did the right thing in encouraging Alex to become a nun, but now she finds out her mistake. When she hears that her idol is going to be sent far away, probably for life, Sister Alexandra becomes hysterical. Gertrude is severe with her and tells her that she is very wrong to think like this.. She has a vocation and she must obey her religious superiors. She cannot attach herself to an individual or love someone more than God. Alex has always thought of herself as "bad" so these unkind words from Gertrude drive her to despair. It seems to confirm that she is really a bad person and that Mother Gertrude never cared for her. She breaks down completely. Mother Gertrude leaves and Alex tells the senior nuns that she has decided she can't stay in the convent.

Consequences II

Noel Cardew is a little like Monica's admirer in Thank Heaven Fasting.. The young man in Thank Heaven, called Carol, was very vain and tiresome. Monica put up with him because she had no other prospects of a husband. However, Alex begins to find Noel increasingly annoying. Her parents let them get engaged, privately but do not announce it. Within a few weeks, Alex feels she can't live with Noel's lack of any real affection for her any longer or his ceaseless boasting. She bravely breaks off the engagement. Her parents are horrified. They suspect that she will not have many more chances of getting married and that if news gets out that she jilted Noel, she will ruin her chances altogether. Alex is very upset but feels she had no option. Her parents continue to take her into society but she dislikes it more and more and she does not have any suitors. Barbara, the next girl, is now over her accident, when she fell off the "tightrope". The Clare parents had decided to send her to a friend in France to learn about society. Barbara took to life in France very well and soon became very sophisticated and fashionable. After a year or so, she returns. She is only 17, but she seems very well able to come out in Society and tells Alex that she has had an admirer in France who writes her love letters. Alex is getting furiously jealous of her younger sister. Barbara decides to make her come out early at just 17. It is the Diamond Jubilee year, and the family go to various events. Alex is coming home from one such event, with only her maid as chaperone. She is tired and hot, and the maid, who is a Catholic, suggests that they go to a nearby church to rest for a little. It appears that the order where Alex went to school now has a house and church in London. It is a Belgian order and Alex has had nothing to do with them since she left school. She agrees to walk to the church and rest up.. and when she gets there, she does feel a little happier. She wonders if perhaps she can pray for something good, and her prayer will be answered. In the church, she is waiting for her maid to find a cab, and she finds to her shock that there is a nun in the chapel. It is Mother Gertrude, one of the senior nuns. Gertrude sees how unhappy Alex is, as they talk, and she begins to persuade her to turn to religious life. Over the next months, she visits the church often and develops a crush on Mother Gertrude. Gertrude believes that Alex has a vocation and encourages her to think so too. The Clares are not happy with her for becoming so religious and "Slumming"... and arguments break out in the house. Barbara's French beau lets her down. She had thought he was going to propose and he marries his cousin in France. She is in a bad mood. Alex withdraws more and more from society and her parents get more annoyed with her. Another row escalates. Her father tells her that if she can't be happy with her own family and the upper class way of life, she can leave. Her mother reminds her that the family are not very rich, and that the house and most of their money is left to their 2 sons, so she and her sisters won't be very well off, if they do not marry. Feeling pressurised and unwanted, Alex decides to leave. She contacts Mother Gertrude, who invites her to come and stay at the convent and she goes.

Consequences by EM Delafield

This is one of Delafield's best known works. It is set in the late Victorian era - at the time when she herself was growing up. The work has been described as a very angry book. It seems as if Delafield was angry and rebelling about the way she and other Victorian girls were brought up. Alexandra Clare is her heroine. She is a neurotic and unhappy girl, whose father is a well to do gentleman, Sir Francis Clare. He is a Roman Catholic, but her mother Isabel is not much interested in religion. Their children are brought up strictly, however and Alex is not very happy all through her childhood. Her parents criticise her all the time. She does not get on well with her siblings, and she is not liked by her hyper critical Nanny. She believes that when she is grown up, she will be a success "like people in books". But for the present, she indulges in passions for friends, whom she admires extravagantly. Her parents don't like her emotional nature or the people she chooses to adore. As a young girl, she tries to dominate her younger siblings, but tends to end up in scrapes. The most serious is when she bullies her younger sister Barbara into playing "tightropes" with her. Barbara does not want to play, but Alex gets her to stand on a makeshift tightrope, and she falls, hurting her back. Her parents are angry at her "nearly killing Barbara" and send her away to a convent school as a punishment. She is not particularly religious then, and does not like the school in Belgium. She spends a few years there, and during her time, she "falls" for an older girl, Queenie, whom she adores. Queenie is not really interested in Alex. She is preoccupied with coming out in society. She is friendly to Alex but it's clear that she does not want to be friends with the girl - she is just cultivating her because Alex is from a better class family than hers. When she goes back home, she asks her mother if she can ask Queenie to stay but her mother is horrified at the idea of her befriending a girl who is not their social equal. When she comes out, she finds that she is not a success. She is too anxious to please and she does not make any real friends. She does have one suitor Noel Cardew, who is a vain "full of himself" young man who simply wants her to listen to him while he talks about how clever he is.

Diana Part II

When his wife is killed, John joins SOE. He speaks good French and learns how to kill and how to survive undercover in France. Then to his amazement, Diana turns up again. She is still living in France. She tells him that she is being asked to persuade him to take part in a Resistance attack. She is married to a wealthy industrialist, who has been collaborating in France for years. He believes in fascism, as it means that he can make more money under a fascist government. SOE wants to get into his factory to get hold of some documents. Diana works for them, but she would need help with this difficult task. Jan does not want to undertake it. He does not know whether he loves or hates Diana. When she comes to see him, he can see that she is in a highly nervous state and he's not sure she is up to undercover work. He agrees in the end to do the job with her and is flown into France. Diana's husband is Yves De Royden. He has a cousin, Raoul, who is disgusted at Yves' fascist beliefs and who is in the Resistance. With Raoul's help, Jan and Diana embark on kidnapping Yves to force him to hand over some papers which will be valuable to the SOE. Things go wrong and while they get away and get the papers, Yves is killed and this raises a hue and cry. Jan is injured. Back in the UK, Diana realises that she is now a widow, and free to marry again. She tells Jan that Yvonne, her daughter is his child. She became pregnant by him just before her father killed himself - and that was why she panicked and married Yves. They plan to get married. Diana is reconciled with her mother.

Johnny and the Four - short dark humour Story by Benedict Brooke

Johnny Davies was only short when they told him the story. About the four men who had lived next door. But then you’re not that tall at only two. Anyway, one day, Johnny was crossing the road and one of the men, the tall thin one, offered to help him to cross. How they got out of the way of that truck, I’ll never know. Funny guy. Funny peculiar- that is, dressed a bit like a monk. You know, long black habit, cowl, guess he was a gardener or some such with that scythe he carried. Do you remember the riot? Johnny does, when those five guys started up on the black family next door, (on the left hand side, not on the right hand side where the four guys were). Before you knew it, Combat 18, NF, the Anti-Nazi League and a representative of the Monster Raving Loony party, who had gotten lost while canvassing, all turned up with knives, skewers, corkscrews and whatever other implements they had managed to borrow from the other 4 guys next door. Do you remember how the police turned up? After the majority of the crowd had dispersed, and they arrested anyone remaining, bleeding or drunk (apart from the off duty officer of course.). Johnny meanwhile, looking aghast from the window, was moved to throw on his dressing gown and shove his feet into slippers and bugger off down the road, to a safe distance, to absorb events. The gentleman standing beside him in the gawking throng was smiling at this time, although Johnny, in his combination of shock, amazement and excitement, didn’t notice this. Anyway, Johnny grew older, as unfortunately and inevitably one does. He didn’t move. His parents were victims of a car crash when he was eighteen, when he was of an age, to take charge of the house. By this age, Johnny had a problem with his weight. Despite incipient anorexia and the earnest but terrible cooking of his mother, (in earlier years obviously... even I’m not stupid enough to confuse my continuity that much)… no matter how little he ate, he steadily piled on the pounds. So that at the age of 20, he realised that the only career he could embark on was that of professional wrestler. Fortunately, one of the gentlemen next door came to visit dear old Johnny. This neighbour was the pale rather slim one -with the ash blond hair and albino eyes. This gentleman suggested a high- quality though rather unnerving diet. Anyway, luckily for Johnny -he was never brought to book for his – ahem –cannibalistic crimes. Though he was rather foolish in that he used the same cab firm each time. But the desired effect was achieved. Johnny soon became a fine figure of a man (albeit rather short). So his thoughts began to run to courting. Joanna was tall, fair and graceful. Johnny met her at the Jim. He had intended to go and work-out, but was unfortunately dyslexic and had in fact walked into a bar. He managed somehow to work his way into her favour, and after the obligatory “coffee”, her knickers. Indeed, with the very marriage arranged and a stag night in view, Johnny was left, as one is, deciding whom to invite to the “almighty piss up”. But he had few friends, more like “acquaintances”, due to his earlier more unsociable activities. So Johnny thought it might be appropriate to invite the four men next door (Although he was very insecure concerning their ménage a quartre). Anyway, a jolly old evening was had by all, apart from the barman who experienced an attack of scrofula, and the knife fight about whose pint was whose? Johnny hadn’t realised that the Farmers Arms was a gay pub, and what with all the pub grub being out of date, and the old guy at the corner table being found dead, when everyone thought that he was just taking his time over his pint. Mind you, the tall skinny man was winning at pool. And when Johnny got home (he’d invited them all in for a drink) there was the message on his voicemail, from the hospital. Joanna was critically ill with pneumonia, pleurisy, and something that they’ve only just discovered and hadn’t given a name to, yet. (They were sure they’d be able to think of something in time for the TV news.) "Oh and she's dead,” they added. “Never mind, better luck next time?” However Johnny remained single, and heartbroken. Mourning his lost love, until, some 10 years later, all four chaps who lived next door, (who had been his emotional and physical crutch), popped up on the doorstep. “Hello Johnny” they said, in an affable manner. “We’ve come to cheer you up.” And give you a good haircut,” remarked the stocky one... although not in a way that anyone could hear clearly. “Anyway” the thin one said, affixing a tourniquet on his upper arm as they all sat at Johnny’s kitchen table, "Anyway,” he reiterated, “We think – that is we collectively –“ “Hold on -” the deep voice of the tall one said, “Who the fuck’s in charge here?” “Just get the fucking clippers” the stocky one replied. Johnny, proud of his lush and flowing locks (and the fact that he hadn’t had to pay for a haircut in 11 years), was taken aback at this. However, when held down by Mr Skinny, Mr Pale and with his head held firmly in place by the muscular forearms of Mr Stocky, he resigned himself to the robust attentions of Mr Grim (I think you’ve all guessed it by now!). Time passed – as it does – and here we find Johnny sitting bemused and shorn, upon his kitchen floor. Rubbing his shaven and rather itchy denuded head. He is heard to mutter to himself, “That fucking tattoo, what does it mean anyway? And what did he mean by that?” For as the tall one had left, tattooing equipment still in hand, he had said softly, smiling. “You’re ready now Johnny, you’re ready.” Mind you, with a face like that, there’s not much you can do but smile. And why, as the sign was engraved on his head, and he had yelled “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” had the pale one replied “How apt, how apt.” Three years later, at the age of 33, Johnny was elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The rest will be history, (Or Prophecy depending on how you look at it.).

Blondes by Benedict Brooke

Blondes have more fun Brunettes have the brains At least that’s what they say In fact, that ain’t true Blondes just think that they do! And what do they know, anyway?

Diana by RF Delderfield

This is not one of Delderfield's better works but I've enjoyed reading it some time ago. There were originally 2 novels which were combined into the one work "Diana". The hero of the book is John (Jan) Leigh, who lives in a small seaside town in Devon in the 1920s and 30s. He lived in London as a small child but his mother died and he was taken into the care of his maternal uncles, Reuben, Mark and Luke. They are all simple west country people who lead a quiet life and work hard. Luke has a small shop, Reuben is a bit of a left wing activist and Mark has a small farm and riding school. John's father was a drunk and left his family badly off. The uncles take John in when his mother has died, and offer him chances to take over their businesses when he's grown up. He loves Devon.. He meets Diana Gaylorde Sutton in his early teens. She is the daughter of a wealthy businessman who has an estate down there, and her mother spends most of her time in London, engaging in social activities. She is a hard selfish woman, and Diana continually plays truant. She is educated by a governess. When she meets Jan, they become friends and playmates.. enjoying the countryside and having fun. As he grows older, Jan begins to fall in love with her. But he's aware that he is a poor boy without many prospects and she is a very rich heiress. Mrs Sutton gets angry at the way her daughter is behaving and begins to worry that Diana may end up losing her virginity to this country boy. Jan goes to school and has some talent for writing. He then manages to get a job on a small newspaper. Diana comes out and is a very popular deb. She smuggles Jan up to her bedroom on the night of her coming out dance, and they make love. But Jan comes to realise that although Diana claims to be in love with him, she is totally selfish and really she is just using him to rebel against her mother. She admits that she does not think she could in real life marry someone who was not rich. She goes back to London and to her society life, but after a while, she gets into trouble and John has to help her out. She was driving drunk and crashed a car and someone died, and she feels guilty. John still cares for her, but they can't agree about whether they can find a way of living that suits both of them. He wants to be independent, perhaps run a farm or riding school. Diana can't see herself married to a working man. Then, her father loses a lot of his money and commits suicide. Diana vanishes, and when Jan goes looking for her, her mother tells him that her daughter could not face being poor. She has married a French upper class man, whom she has known for some time, and gone away with him. War breaks out and Jan joins up. He marries a girl called Alison, out of loneliness. But she is killed in an air raid. Then at Dunkirk, when Jan is trying to get back to England, he meets Diana in the crowd of French refugees. She has some children that she wants to send to the UK, and once she sees him, she relies on him to help.

Cynthia Asquith Spring House

Lady Cynthia Asquith (born Cynthia Mary Evelyn Charteris) was the daughter of the Earl of Wemyss, a Tory peer. Her mother was also an upper class lady belonging to a society set, called the "Souls" who were interested in intellectual and aristic matters. She married Herbert Asquith, son of the Liberal Prime Minister, a few years before World War One. He was a barrister, but he wanted to be a poet, and the young couple did not have much money. Cynthia was interested in literature and the arts, though she also enjoyed a typical upper class social life. When she realised that she and Herbert (Beb) were going to be short of money, she decided that she had to be the bread winner, although she was not brought up to work. So she took to writing and also got a job as a part time secretary to JM Barrie. She wrote biographies of the Royal Family, memoirs about the upper class life before the War, a biography of Sonia Tolstoy, and some fiction. She also wrote ghost stories. However, now she is most famous for her Diaries of life in England during World War One, from 1915 to 1918, which were published in the 1960s. In the 1930's she wrote a novel, "The Spring House". I hope to blog about it soon. Her heroine is called Miranda, and the novel is based loosely on her own life during the War. During that time, Cynthia was living what she called a "cuckoo" life, renting out her house and living with relatives and friends. Her husband was away at War, and she by then had 2 small children. The book starts with Miranda staying with her mother, together with her small son Patrick. Her husband is abroad and advises her to stay in England because of fears of submarine attacks. Miranda feels a bit useless and wants to do some war work but she is not sure what she can do. She is accustomed to a leisurely social type of life... Her 2 brothers have joined up and she misses them. More will follow.

House of Mirth I

Wharton wrote a lot as a girl but she did not publish a novel until she was around 40. Her marriage ended and she spent most of her time in France, rather than the USA. She involved herself in war work during her life in France, and wrote about it. One of her best known novels is "House of Mirth". Like most of her work, it is set in the US, in "Old New York".. ie among the moneyed well bred aristocracy of the East Coast. Her heroine, Lily Bart is from a well born family but her father comes home one day and tells his wife and daughter that they are ruined. He has lost all his money. He fades away and dies, ashamed. Mrs Bart is angry and upset that her husband has let her down, and left her poor. She dies, leaving Lily to the care of relatives who are not really pleased to have a young woman foisted on them. The girl moves from staying with one relative or friend and another, and feels that she has to play along with these people to have a home of sorts. She gambles a lot and sometimes wins but it's not a steady income. She tries to find a husband but never seems to find the right man, who would be agreeable to her and rich enough to keep her. At the beginning of the book, she is 29 and getting dangerously close to spinsterhood.

Edith Wharton

I am hoping to write a blog on Edith Wharton soon and cover one or 2 of her novels. She was born as Edith Jones, in New York, in 1862. Her family were rich and members of the American aristocracy. She was related to upper class people of English and Dutch descent. She was educated by governesses and wrote poems and novellas, but did not have any of them published at first. She was expected to join in the social round and find a husband. She was ambivalent about "Society" and having to put aside her writing to attend parties and travel around searching for a suitable marriage. Her family spent time in Europe and she liked it better there. Her father died, and she found a husband, Edward Wharton. She and her husband travelled to Europe a good deal and shared an interest in the arts. But he suffered from depression and their marriage began to collapse. Edith started an affair with a journalist, Morton Fullerton. M/F

The Mitford Girls

I'm reading a biography of the Mitford family, by Mary S Lovell. I find myself unable to like it very much. It is well written but I find that there is a little too much sympathy for the fascist members of the family, particularly Diana Mosley. (unfortunately, there were quite a few of them.) David Freeman-Mitford, Lord Redesdale, the father of the family, was eccentric and right wing. He had a hot temper and was difficult to live with. However in later years, he regretted letting himself be involved with his daughters' right wing fascist views. As a young man, David married Sydney Bowles. His wife was a cool but gentle woman, who seems to have married for security but they were relatively poor by aristocratic standards. He was a younger son, and his father in law got him a job as editor to a magazine when he got married, so as to provide a bigger income. David was not much of a reader, so it was an odd choice of career. David's older brother was killed in World War One, and left only 2 daughters, so David then became the heir to the title and estates. With 7 children, money was tight by upper class standards. They had more than one estate but none of them were prosperous. Nancy was the eldest of the family which consisted of 6 daughters and 1 son, Tom. In the 1920s and 30s, as the children grew up, quite a few of them seemed to veer toward the right, in politics. While I like Nancy, who was a mild liberal who became rather more conservative, as she grew older, I find the family's political leanings unnerving. Even Nancy, though she was anti Fascist, was inclined to tolerate her siblings' right wing views, perhaps to avoid family rows. But she did speak to the British authorities when World War Two broke out, and advised them that Diana was overly sympathetic to the Nazis. As a result, Diana, who had just had a baby, was imprisoned with her husband under wartime laws for her alleged Nazi leanings, even though Mosley had told his followers to fight for Britain once they were at war. Some people thought it was unfair or unsisterly of her to do this to her sister, but honestly I am relieved that she felt strongly enough to stand on the right side. Unity, the second youngest girl, was not just right wing but unstable. She went to Germany to study. She became obsessed with Hitler and supported his anti Semitic policies. When war broke out, she shot herself because she was so upset that her country, and Germany which she loved, were fighting. Tom, the only boy, also "liked Germans" and was right wing. He did not want to fight the Germans. He joined up but managed to get posted to fight against Japan. He was killed in the later stages of the war. Jessica (called Decca) was a non fascist; she was sympathetic to the Communist party. She ran away and married a nephew of Churchill's wife, Esmond Romilly... who was an upper class Communist. Nancy disliked him, as she felt he was nasty and unpleasant, and that he had led Jessica into rebellion against her family and a difficult life. Jessica and Esmond were very poor after their marriage and lived in Rotherhithe, a working class district, near the docks. They had a daughter, Julia, who caught measles, when only a few months old. The child died, and the couple were devastated. However, their very loud pro Communist activities provoked their upper class relatives and friends. In the beginning of their marriage, if they visited relatives, they regularly stole small items from their houses, on the grounds that the upper class did not need the things and that they deserved some punishment for being rich. So after this childish behaviour, it was hardly surprising that their friends and relations were not all that fond of them. Jessica did repent to some extent of her Communist views in later life, whereas Diana was ambivalent about her pro Fascist viewpoint. Jessica and Esmond went to the US and when War broke out, he joined up. They had another daughter, Constantia, but Esmond was killed. Jessica remained in the US, and married a Jewish left wing lawyer, Bob Truehaft. She and he had 2 more children and pursued left wing causes, as journalists and activists. But Jessica never made up with her sister Diana. I hope to write a bit more later.

Yeats and Marriage

In 1913, Yeats was feeling hostile to the Irish middle classes partly due to their lack of sympathy for the poor, in the Dublin Strike. But a few years later, he was shocked by the Easter Rising, which was led by Irish middle class nationalists who rose up and tried to fight against the British, while they were engaged in World War I with Germany. The British savagely repressed the Rising and swiftly executed most of the leaders. Even Irish people who had not supported the Rebellion were shaken by the brutal response of the Government. They began to sympathise with the men who had gone out to die. Yeats wrote poems where he admitted that he had not realised how passionate the Irish were about their freedom. He felt that the dull, bourgeois city of Dublin had been transformed and that a "Terrible Beauty" had been born. Maud Gonne had married an Irishman, John MacBride, and the marriage had failed within a couple of years. But now, her husband had gone out to rebel, and had been shot. He had proved himself as a patriot. Yeats began to consider getting married, as he was getting older and had no children. He fell in love with Georgina Hyde Lees, a much younger Englishwoman. He had met Georgie, as she was called, in 1910, through his mistress and friend, Olivia Shakespear. Several years later, in 1917, he asked her to marry him. She agreed. Their marriage had its difficulties at times. Yeats had not started his sex life early... he had been a shy romantic minded young man who did not lose his virginity until he was older, because he was not confident with women. But over the years, he had had romances and affairs. When they married, things were awkward between them. Georgie felt unhappy about the women in his life. She feared that he still loved some of them, particularly Maud Gonne. Georgie and Yeats had a son, Michael and a daughter Anne. Yeats became a Senator in the Irish Free State and continued to write. His poetry was harsher and grittier than his early works. He continued to take an interest in politics and dabbled in the Blueshirt movement. He sympathised a little with fascism but he was more interested in his poetry. Georgie grew to tolerate his mistresses. She had to look after Yeats, an older man, in poor health who was demanding, and it began to wear her out. She was rather glad to let other women share in the task of looking after the great poet.

David Allan Coe

Coe died a month ago, at the age of 86. He was born in Ohio in 1939. He was a member of the Outlaw country movement and a talented song writer. He was in and out of trouble as a young man, in correctional institutions and prison. But he sometimes exaggerated the crimes he had committed. He claimed that he had been in prison for murder, but this was untrue. He had several problems with the IRS, but he had a successful career. Some of his big hits were Long Haired Redneck, which is about balancing between being a country singer and a rebel. Another is The Ride, about the Ghost of Hank WIlliams.

Pin to See the Peepshow V

Julia is hardly able to take it in that she is to be executed. Leo is to be hanged on the same day. She cracks up badly, and has to be given sedatives. She realises that her affair with Leo never really meant anything. He had been fond of her but there was no substance to the relationship. She does not seem to feel much remorse for Herbert's death. However her execution is unfair in that she did not take part in killing him. But her foolish letters did give the impression that she was eager to get rid of her husband, and as such an accessory to the murder. I dont know if I like the book very much. Julia is not all that likable, and while one feels sorry for her, I feel that Jesse excused her rather too much.

Emily

Due to illness, Im not working on my Emily Bronte Story. But I hope to get back to it soon

Pin to See the Peepshow IV

Julia finally realises that Herbert is dead and that Leo killed him. She is then questioned by the police. She tries to shield Leo, but it is pretty clear that he was the killer. The police find out that she was having an affair with him... and they believe that she incited Leo to kill her husband. She has some well to do friends, such as her employers at the dress shop, who support her, and pay for a lawyer, but at the trial, things go against her. Leo is obviously guilty. But Julia did not know he would try and kill Herbert. Leo says himself that he never took seriously Julia's letters where she claimed she was trying to kill her husband. He knew that she was just exaggerating and saying silly things to get his attention. She insists on going into the box, though her lawyer advises against it. Unfortunately her performance there shows her as inconsistent and often telling lies. She and Leo are both found guilty.

Emily - a Story of the Brontes Part IV

Emily hated talking to people, so she tried to ignore him, but he coughed and said "I hope I don't disturb you, Miss." She mumbled something and went to the bookshelves in search of some more of Byron's poetry. "Do you like to read then?" he said, in a voice that had a Yorkshire accent. He clearly was not a close friend of the Heaton family, but he was not a servant, either. She didn't reply. She hastily took some books from the shelf and scurried out of the room. In the hallway, one of the maids was polishing a table. "Are you leaving then, Miss Emily? I hope you found some books." "Yes, I did," she replied gruffly. "It's a long walk for you, would you like a cup of tea before you go, Miss?" Emily shook her head and hurried to the door. She walked back faster than she had ever done before. It alarmed her to have to talk to people, though she knew the maid well enough, after the girl had been working in the house for a year. She wondered who the young man was. She had never seen him before. He was clearly from Yorkshire but did he come from the Haworth area? She felt a twinge of curiosity. If he were a local lad, she would have seen him at church or in the village. She liked at times to talk to Tabby of the local people, and their histories. Tabby had known the village for a lifetime, and could tell stories of the farmers who lived in isolated places and their feuds and quarrels. She liked tales of conflict.

A Pin to see the Peepshow III

Julia's relationship with Leo is not all that easy. She worries that as she's some years his senior, and not able to be with him much, he will get bored with her. She starts to make silly remarks in her letters, saying that she wishes that Herbert was dead. She even claims she has been trying to kill him by putting ground glass in his food. Leo gets cross with her, because he knows she is just making this up. She tries to persuade him to help her find a job abroad, and she could then be with him. But she is still married to Herbert. They pursue the affair, and it seems to be more of a pain than a pleasure to Julia. Then she becomes pregnant. Leo helps her to find an abortionist, and she goes to see her. When she gets home, she finds that Herbert's sister, a difficult woman, who has been staying with them, has had Julia's dog put to sleep because he was ill. Upset, she collapses and her miscarriage comes on. Herbert thinks that it is a natural miscarriage caused by her being shocked, and he tells her that he will get rid of his sister. Julia's friend Anne, who is studying to be a doctor, realises that Julia has deliberately aborted her pregnancy. She keeps quiet about it, but tells her that Herbert is not that strong, and she should be careful how she treats him. Julia is getting desperate. She can't understand why Herbert won't give her a divorce, when they are both unhappy in their marriage. She's afraid that Leo is going to get fed up and leave her. Then one evening, while Leo is on shore leave, Julia and Herbert go to a charity theatre performance given by the business that he works for. On their way home, someone emerges from the shadows and attacks Herbert. She realises that it is Leo. She is horrified, and can't believe it but her husband is dead.

Dennis Locorriere Dies

Just heard that Dennis has died, at the age of 76. He had lived in the UK for many years and I saw him playing in London a few years ago. He was great. He had a wonderful voice and wrote some of his own songs. He was the lead singer of Dr Hook and the Medicine show, which made it big in the 70s, with the hit, Sylvia's Mother. They also did a lot of pop ballads. They had gone bankrupt during the 1970s, because they partied a lot. The pop songs were big hits and greatly improved their finances. Dennis was born in Union City, New Jersey in 1949. His parents split up, and he was raised by his grandmother. He joined up with Ray Sawyer, from the South and they formed a band which played in bars. Dennis' voice was beautiful and he sang lead, though Ray also sang lead on a few songs. The band sang Shel Silverstein songs, but later, when they went bankrupt, they became more commercial. He is almost the last of the Hook people - Ray died a few years ago and now I think the only one left is the guitarist, Rik Elswit.

A Pin to see the Peepshow II

Julia and Herbert get married and he joins up, but has a safe posting. She goes on working, and is doing well at her job. She is pleased with life and delighted to have her own flat. But when Herbert comes back from the war, she begins to find him irritating. She meets a young man who is a sailor. His name is Leo, and he had been dating Elsa. They start an affair. Leo is away at sea a lot, so they write to each other. Julia begins to long for escape from her marriage and they begin to imagine ways that they could be together. They don't have much time together. Herbert becomes aware of the relationship and begins to give his wife a hard time. She and he quarrel and Leo gets involved as well. He gets angry with Herbert for being unkind to his wife and for not having the decency to offer her a divorce.

A Pin to See the Peepshow

Jesse's novel is closely based on the story of Edith Thompson. Her chief character, Julia Almond, is a pretty girl who lives in East London. She has ambitions, but her parents are not very successful in making a living. She get a job in a ladies' clothes shop run by a couple of aristocratic women who for various reasons need to earn money. Julia is bright and good at selling and starts off doing errands and helping out. She has potential and her employers think of promoting her to be a buyer in due course. It is just before World War One. Julia finds an admirer, but he is killed in the early stages. Then her father dies and her mother has no money, so she ends up letting some relatives move into their house to share expenses. Julia does not make enough to keep herself and her mother. She has to share a room with her cousin Elsa, whom she dislikes. She is increasingly unhappy, then Herbert Starling, a neighbour, begins to take an interest in her. He is a widower, and older than she is. He works in a gents' outfitters in the West End. It's not as high status a job as Julia's own but he's making a decent living and has his own flat. He asks Julia to marry him. She is tempted because she hates living with her uncle and aunt and cousin, and would be glad to have a home of her own.

F Tennyson Jesse

Fryniwyd Jesse was born in 1888, to a clergyman and his wife.  Her birth name was Winifred Margaret. She was related to the poet Tennyson. 

 Her family moved around a lot, abroad, and she was educated in different places. She went to a school of art in Cornwall, when she was 18 and she did some painting. She then became a journalist and had a special interest in criminology. She wrote several books about murder trials and she also wrote novels. 

One of her novels is A Pin to See the Peepshow.   It was based on the Edith Thompson case in the 1920s. Edith Thompson was a young London woman who was in a dull marriage. She fell in love with a younger man, and they had an affair. He was a sailor, and they wrote letters to each other.   Bywaters, her lover, then killed Edith's husband. She was accused of inciting him to murder her husband and was tried and executed, though she was not the one who committed the murder. The trial was famous because of the letters written between the couple and the fact that Edith was hanged though she had not killed her husband nor had she even known that Frederick Bywaters was going to kill him. M/F

That Lady

This is a Kate O'Brien novel that I haven't read for years and I can't get it to re read. It is a historical novel set in the times of Philip II, about Ana De Mendoza, a noblewoman who opposed him. Philip kept her in confinement for many years. It is basically an anti Fascist novel, about fighting tyranny. O'Brien spent time in Spain as a governess in her young days, and she loved Spain, but was anti Franco. She visited the country, but was unhappy at the Falangist government, just as she disliked De Valera's narrow puritanical Ireland.

Peter Gilmore

Peter Gilmore is one of my favourite actors, and I was saddened some years ago when he died. While watching an old episode of the Bill, recently, I saw him again. I was as usual surprised by how good an actor he was. He was playing a man who had had a head injury which caused a personality change, and he was excellent. He spent so long in one part that one tended to forget that he was a very good and versatile actor. Peter Gilmore was born in Germany, in 1931, but was brought up in Yorkshire. He wanted to be an actor and attended stage school for a time, but was expelled. He could sing as well as act and appeared in several stage musicals in the 50s and 60s. He also appeared in small roles in many of the Carry On films. He achieved TV stardom in the 1970's when he was cast as James Onedin in the Onedin Line. He was tall and handsome and rugged looking and he carried the series for many years, appearing in all 91 episodes. However, he did prefer stage work to film, and TV, and liked a live audience. He was very popular as James Onedin, a hard selfish man who founded his own shipping line. Gilmore had two marriages in his younger days. He was married to Una Stubbs with whom he adopted a son, and then to Jan Waters. During the Onedin Line, he became involved with Anne Stallybrass who was playing his wife, Anne Onedin. They fell in love and lived together for some time. In the 1980s, they got married and lived in Devon. He felt that playing James had typecast him, and taken over his life.. so he finished with the show in 1980 and took on other roles. He was in an episode of Heartbeat with his wife. He also had a character role in a series about a Zoo vet, (One by One) and in a drama called The Manions of America, with a young Pierce Brosnan. He died aged 81, in 2013.

Sara Paretsky (1947- )

Sara Paretsky is an American detective novelist. She was born in Iowa, and her father was a microbiologist. She attended University and studied political science and did an MBA. Her family life was not very happy. She lived in Chicago and married a professor of physics at the university there. She was involved in social work, and then began to write detective fiction. She created a character Victoria (Vic) Warshawski. Like Paretsky, Vic lives in Chicago. She studied law but then became a private detective. She married a lawyer but she and he began to diverge on political matters and they divorced. Vic is left wing and her ex husband was much more conservative. She is partly Jewish and she was involved in many liberal causes in her youth, such as demonstrating against the Vietnam war, and running an underground abortion network. She is independent and has no interest in being married again or having children. She is very physically active and takes a lot of risks, in pursuing her cases. Paretsky was one of the first to create a woman detective who is tough and able to fight and get involved in rough stuff, and look after herself. She is a bit too much of a card carrying left winger for my tastes but the stories are entertaining and a good read.

E Arnot Robertson

Eileen Robertson was born in 1903, in Surrey. Her father was a doctor and her family life was not very happy. She went to a good school and then went abroad to study for a couple of years in France. At the age of 19, she became a magazine journalist. She wanted to write, and in 1927, she married Henry Turner, who was secretary of the Empire Press Union. They adopted a son. She wrote several novels, including one set in Malaysia, which she had never visited. Another successful novel was Ordinary Families, which was set in the countryside, with a heroine Lalage, who comes from a family that loves boating. Her later novels did not do so well. She went on writing journalism, and enjoyed boating with her husband. However when he died in a boating accident, she committed suicide. I've just picked up a copy of Ordinary Familes, which has rather disappointed me. The book does not seem to have much of a plot, and the characters are snobbish and sailing obsessed. Not sure if I will finish it. Usually when I re read books I used to like, I still enjoy them, but this is an exception.

Last of Summer

This is one of Kate O'Brien's novels that I have not been able to get a copy of. I did read it some years ago. It is set in rural Ireland, just before World War II breaks out. The Kernahan family live a quiet life in a country village. They are dominated by Hannah, mother of the family. Angele Maury turns up to visit them. She is their cousin. Her father left Ireland years ago and married a French girl. Angele is an actress. Hannah is clearly not pleased to see her and does not like the way that her two sons are both attracted to their cousin. She like a lot of Irish people at the time, does not want to think about the possibility of war. She wants Ireland to remain neutral and to keep out of world problems. Angele being French is ready to go to war with the Germans. She wants to go back to France as soon as possible, to take her part in the conflict. Hannah is annoyed when her sons quarrel over Angele, and when they want to join up and fight the Nazis. But they go ahead anyway. Angele leaves and goes back home.

As Music and Splendour By Kate O'Brien

This is one of Kate O'Brien's last novels. It was published in 1958 and afterwards she worked on another novel called Constancy, but only managed to write a few chapters. In her later years, she had poor health and also was a heavy drinker and it affected her work. She did not produce as much writing as some novelists. The book is set in Victorian times, and is about 2 young Irish women who both have beautiful voices. As young girls, Rose and Claire are offered a chance to train as opera singers. They are not from well off families, both are simple Irish country girls. But the chance of being successful singers is a great thing for both of them, as it means they will be able to earn a good living. As they grow up they begin to live abroad, mostly in Italy. They embark on love affairs. Rose has several male lovers and Clare discovers that she prefers women. She has a passionate affair with another singer Luisa. The book does not have much plot but it is readable. Both girls are Catholics but they make their own decisions about what sexual relationships they want to have. The book is more open about lesbianism than her other works.. many of which were banned in Ireland.

Two Stories

I have 2 stories available on Amazon. Rough Music, a band story about a country rock band, set in the 1970s, and Beds and Blue Jeans, a story set in America a little before Covid, about a young couple in Nashville, trying to make their relationship work. Written by Nadine Sutton

The Kitten Lady

Its Kitten season again and Hannah is busy rescuing newborns who need care. And Ferguson her orange cat who has kidney problems, is having a birthday. Happy birthday to Ferguson who is now 5. He was a teeny tiny newborn who was not expected to live more than a few weeks but he's still here and still well. You can find her on social media.

Piece of Justice Part III

Fran is thankful for her narrow escape from being the third biographer who was killed off. Imogen and Fran decide to go to visit old Mrs Evans, who was considered a quirky old lady who had settled into the Valley, learned Welsh and been well liked. They take the old lady out, and learn that Violet is now old and frail but in her youth, she was a mathematics student at Cambridge. But when Cambridge refused to give women degrees, there was a riot at the college and she was hurt in the fighting that went on... and her nose was broken. It upset her a lot, the refusal to accept women's degrees and the violence against those who protested. She left Cambridge without taking her degree and went back home. She married a young farmer from Wales, who was comfortably off and while she missed Cambridge, she had a good life as a farmer's wife. She learned to make quilts and she made the quilt with the mathematical pattern that Gideon copied and stole to pass off as his own research. He had felt guilty about it, and wanted to come clean but Janet wouldn't let him. Imogen approaches the college authorities and on the next degree day, she is awarded her degree and takes part in the graduation ceremony, which pleases her.

Piece of Justice II

Imogen does a litle snooping around and finds that she knows the sister of the biographer who died. He was called Mark Zephyr. Imogen was at school with his sister. She talks to her and finds that Mark died suddenly of meningitis. She also finds the nephew of May Swann. He tells her that he is worried about his aunt's disappearance. He feels she was devoted to her work and would never have abandoned the biography midway through. Imogen decides to go to Wales, where Gideon spent the missing time in the 70's. Fran had gone away to try and find the village, but has not come back. Imogen worries. When she gets to Wales, she finds that it is a little village, where she used to go for holidays in childhood. She drives there, and meets Gwenny her childhood friend. Gwenny's father owns the farm where the Quys used to stay. She tries to get some information on English people who have houses in the area. Then when she is walking, to visit a farm, someone shoots her. She breaks her leg and the farmer's dog bites her. But she is looked after and finds that the young farmer who shot at her had panicked. He had thought that she was a woman who has been pestering his family for some time. This woman had been chasing them up, trying to persuade them to sell her a quilt that's been in their family for a long time. She had even kidnapped the farmer's son, to try and scare them into giving up the quilt. But they held firm and hoped she had given up. Imogen is recovering from her broken leg and sees the famous quilt. It has a pattern that seems very unusual. She talks to the local police. Spurred on by her inquiries, they search for Fran. They are amazed to find a body of a woman buried in the valley, but to Imogen's relief, it isn't Fran. She guesses that it is the body of May Swann. She contacts Cambridge and finds that Fran has returned safely..She gets a friend from college to drive her back to her home and tells Fran and her police friend Mike that she thinks there is something really weird and bad going on. Imogen has learned from Fran that Janet Summerfield, as well as being violent tempered, has a weight problem. Her weight has gone up and down drastically over the years. She does a bit of research and finds there is a drug that is now off the market. It was used to help people lose weight quickly.. but it is poisonous. It produces symptoms that are rather like meningitis and then causes death and it can be mixed into food. She wonders if this could have been used to kill Mark Zephyr. She happens to meet Janet Summerfield and finds that the woman is obviously unbalanced and she makes an incoherent rambling admission that she poisoned her husband. In addition, she learns that Fran has been invited to dinner by a college fellow who professes a passionate devotion to the college, and she's very worried. She gets the police to go round to his house. They just get there in time to stop Fran from eating anything. They find that the dinner was poisoned with the drug that may have been used to kill Mark Zephyr and Gideon. The man, Meredith Bagadeuce, is arrested. He claims that he loves the college and will do anything to protect it. The police question Janet and she denies she made any confession. She says that Meredith was a friend of hers, who had the run of her house, so he might have had access to the drug which she kept for weight loss. Imogen contacts the Evans family who owned the quilt and learns that Mrs Evans, who made it is still alive, in a care home in Shrewsbury.

A Piece of Justice Part I

This is the second Imogen Quy novel. Imogen is a college nurse at a Cambridge college who occasionally solves a crime. She has a younger friend, Frances who rents a room from her, and is a graduate student. Frances is hard up and is offered a job, helping to write a biography of a mathematician, Gideon Summerfield. She is pleased because she needs the money. Gideon is well known because he did some innovative work in middle age. He has died recently and a biography is being planned. Fran starts work on the biography and then finds that Janet, Gideon's widow, is interfering with her. She also learns that 3 other writers had worked on the book before her. She is quite startled when she finds that one of them died suddenly and another one, May Swann, has disappeared. Miss Swann left her flat and noone has seen her for some time. The first writer did just give up and go travelling. But Imogen feels nervous when she hears of this. Imogen and Fran learn a bit about Gideon through Imogen's friends, whom she knows through her hobby of making quilts. She is working on a new quilt. One of the ladies in the group tells her that she knew Gideon's mistress, Melanie, an older lady who has retired. Frances is surprised, as Gideon seemed very dull and she couldn't imagine there was any scandal in his life. But it turns out that he had had an on off affair with Melanie for years, and had other liaisons too. His wife tolerated it but she doesn't want anything about the mistresses to appear in the book. Fran goes through his papers and realises that there is a gap of a month or so, during the 70s. He and his friends used to go away and rent a cottage for holidays, and spend the time, drinking, playing Scrabble and fooling around. But on this holiday, Gideon had a row with his friends, and left the cottage and disappeared for a few weeks.

The Real Charlotte IV

Francie is increasingly unhappy with her aunt and uncle and their children when they are settled in Bray, a seaside town. Her aunt is trying to run the house on even less money, and Francie's small income has diminished, due to her investments failing. Roddy Lambert comes to Bray to pay her a visit and he can see how miserable she is. He has always been attracted to her as she is so pretty and when she was a little younger, she used to flirt with him. Now she's older and not so taken with him, but she is leading such a dreary life, that when he asks her to marry him, she accepts. They get married quietly, and go to Paris. Roddy is not well off. He has his job and Lucy had a modest income but that's only settled on him for life. But he has been "borrowing" bits of money from the rents of the Dysarts' tenants, and hoping he can pay it back before they find out. Francie is grateful to Roddy for his affection, but she is not in love with him and finds him a bit boring. Then Sir Benjamin Dysart dies, and Roddy has to hurry back to Ireland. He and Francie go to see Charlotte. Charlotte makes a pretence of making up her quarrel with her cousin. Francie had said to her angrily that she could keep herself without getting married. But now, she has married Roddy mostly to have a secure home. She is not that happy back in Lismoyle. Roddy is good to her but she finds him dull. Roddy himself is not pleased with life either. He has been having financial problems since he's had delays with his wife's small fortune being transferred to him... Now he has a new wife who has only a tiny income, and has debts of her own. He has been filching money from the estate funds, and now that Christopher has inherited the estate and come home, he may be found out. Charlotte knows Roddy well as she used to work with him when he came as assistant to her father, and she knows he is not all that honest. She snoops around and finds evidence of his hiding money. She writes to Christopher to tell him that his agent has been cheating. Gerald Hawkins is back in Lismoyle and he gets involved with Frances again. She is tempted by him, but while she is not happy with Roddy, she knows how fickle Hawkins is. He asks her to run away with him, telling her that he can support her. Christopher talks to Francie and tells her that if Roddy pays back what he owes to the estate he won't take it any further. Meanwhile, Roddy goes to Charlotte and asks her for help. he tells her that he has debts and is in despair how to pay them and is in danger of losing his job. He asks if she can lend him some money. He banks on the fact that Charlotte used to be in love with him. But she slams him down immediately, telling him she won't lend him anything and that he has gotten himself into this mess. He wonders what on earth he can do, and isn't aware that Francie is on the point of leaving him. She has told Hawkins that she can't leave Roddy when he is in trouble, but she is tempted. She and he are out riding, when they pass a funeral. It is Julia Duffy who has died in the asylum. They hold back their horses to let the funeral pass, but a mourner, who is keening, flings her arms about and cries out, loudly. The sudden movement spooks Francie's horse. She is thrown on her head on the road, and is killed.

Conor Cruise O'Brien II

During his career in the Civil service, Conor became increasingly sceptical about the position taken on the North by the Dublin governments. He was involved in producing propaganda to try and persuade the British government to hand over the 6 Northern counties to the Irish state. This was referred to as the "Policy of the Sore thumb", ie raising the partition question all the time and hoping to nag the British government into a change of heart. Conor realised however that most Southern Irish knew little of the north and did not really want partition to end. It was a foreign land to them. Reunification would mean that a large number of anti Irish, anti Catholic Protestant Unionists would become Irish citizens. They mostly did not want a change in the culture of the southern Irish state. So while the Irish public claimed to want an end to partition, the truth was that they were very ambivalent about it. Conor had married a girl from Northern Ireland and he made an effort to get to know Unionists. He could see their point of view. While they were bigoted and treated Catholics in the North harshly, there was some truth in their belief that "Home Rule would be Rome Rule" as Southern Ireland was very much dominated by the Catholic church. Conor's first marriage ended in divorce, which was unheard of in Ireland. There was no legal mechanism for divorce. When he left the Civil service, after the Katanga issue, he became a lecturer at various universities abroad, in Africa and in the USA. He became a Labour party activist and stood for election in the 1970's. He became a minister in the Coalition government in 1973. He returned to Ireland to live, and used his time as a minister to attack the IRA and to try to persuade the public to re evaluate their attitudes to Northern Ireland and Partition. Conor lost his seat at the General Election in 1977, and got a job as Editor of the Observer, in London. He commuted for a few years, then gave up party politics in Ireland entirely. He worked as a journalist and wrote books. One was on Israel, The Siege, and one on Edmund Burke. He was not always popular in Ireland due to his dislike of extreme nationalism and his sympathy with Unionism. He and his wife went on writing for many years, and he died at the age of 90.

Conor Cruise O' Brien

I hope to write something on Conor Cruise O'Brien, who was a well known writer, playwright, lecturer and politican in Ireland. He died some years ago. He was an unusual man who did not fit into the Ireland of De Valera that he grew up in. He was born in 1917. His father was a journalist and his mother was one of the Sheehy family. They were well known Home Ruler politicans and prominent figures in Dublin Nationalist society. Conor's father died when he was a child, and had wanted him to go to a Protestant school, as he himself was an agnostic. Conor was sent to a Protestant school and grew up to be sceptical about religion. He questioned the heavy depressing Catholic ethos of the Irish state. He next went to Trinity College and then into the Irish civil service where he looked like he was going to have a brilliant career. I will write some more about him later.

The Real Charlotte Part III

Francie is invited to stay at Bruff for a few days, and she is very nervous. Christopher forgives her gaffes but the ladies of the party don't like her at all and think she is common and stupid. She embarks on a flirtation with Gerald Hawkins, who is a soldier - and who plays around with her, but has no intention of marrying a penniless girl. Lady Dysart and the other women, except for Pamela, Lady Dysart's sweet natured daughter, are chilly with her. She goes bicycle riding and lets young men flirt with her and can't seem to stop herself. She likes Christopher but is uneasily aware that he will not find her all that interesting or suitable if he gets to know her better. She goes boating and she and Roddy Lambert who is of the party are almost drowned. Charlotte begins to get annoyed with her young cousin. She seems to get into scrapes continually and to engage in vulgar behaviour. Moreover, she can see that Roddy is growing too fond of Francie, and she is jealous, because she still has feelings for him. Although he is married, he and Francie flirt and reminisce over when they knew each other in Dublin. Lucy Lambert, his wife, is getting uneasy. Francie is in love with Hawkins and wants to marry him but he shies away. Charlotte is more and more irritated by her, feeling that she is throwing away her chances of becoming Lady Dysart, for the sake of a flirtation with Hawkins. Charlotte is eager to increase her land, and manages to get hold of a farm rented by Julia Duffy. Julia is elderly and poor and not able to manage the farm. She is bedridden and suffering from depression. Charlotte tells Roddy Lambert that if she had the farm, she would use it for breeding horses and would make money out of it, but Julia is letting it go to rack and ruin. She gets the tenancy. Julia breaks down and ends up in the local asylum, having lost her health, her mind and her social status. Charlotte moves into the farm, but her servants don't like it as it is further away from town than her other home.. and they are lonely. There is nothing to do but look after Charlotte's collection of cats whom she adores. Charlotte is getting more annoyed with Francie, and she tells Lucy Lambert that she thinks Francie is flirting with Roddy. Lucy should watch out for her. She gives her letters between the 2 which indicate a heavy flirtation... Lucy, who is never in good health, gets upset and has a heart attack. Charlotte was supposed to be Lucy's best friend, but she is not desperately upset by her death. Roddy feels guilty that he was often neglectful of his wife and goes to Charlotte for consolation. Francie leaves Lismoyle and goes back to Dublin. Her aunt and Uncle are moving out to Bray, to find a cheaper place to live. She is fond of them, but finds life with them increasingly miserable but she doesn't have enough money to live on her own.

The Real Charlotte II

Charlotte invites Francie to Tally Ho Lodge her home, for a visit.. because her old aunt had wished it. However she is jealous of her cousin, who is young and fresh and charming. She does have ideas though of using Francie.. She can see that the girl has good looks and attracts men, and that it might be possible to make a match for her with one of the local gentry. Christopher Dysart son of Sir Benjamin, is a gentle likable young man whose mother wants to get him married. If Charlotte were to bring off a marriage, her cousin would be one day "Lady Dysart of Bruff" and an important figure in local society in Lismoyle, and Francie would owe it to her that she had achieved this rank. Francie has been living with her cousins, in Dublin in a shabby neighbourhood. She has a small income of her own but it is not enough to keep her. Her uncle Robert is not making much money and the family are always on the verge of having to move to an even more downmarket neighbourhood. She is not comfortable with the upper classes in Lismoyle, used as she is to mixing only with her uncle's family and their social equals in Dublin. She likes to flirt and frequently gets things wrong, when mixing socially. She is aware that the Dysarts' circle look down on her for being ill educated and inexperienced in "good society". Christopher Dysart however can't help being strongly attracted to her. Her beauty and naievety please him and he's willing to overlook her lack of education.

The Real Charlotte (published 1894)

This is generally held to be Somerville and Ross's best work. It is a serious novel, set in Victorian Ireland. Charlotte Mullen, the anti heroine, is a plain woman who seems jolly and pleasant, but she has a vicious streak that she hides. She inherits a house and a small property from her elderly aunt.. and she has had an education in running a farm and breeding horses, because her father was bailiff to the Dysart estate. Her aunt, when dying, felt guilty about Charlotte's cousin, Frances Fitzpatrick, who sometimes visited the country house... Francie's family that was "shabby genteel", well born but having no money. Francie has spent much of her life living in Dublin, with relatives who were also poor but who gave her a home. She mixed with poorer Protestants and Catholics in the city and she had little or no education - or refined manners. She was good natured but thoughtless and silly. Charlotte also has lower class origins, that she doesn't like to talk about. The maternal side of her family were Catholic and poor. However she has connexions with the upper classes in the area, because she is a Protestant and an intelligent woman who makes the most of her opportunities. Lady Dysart, the leading lady in the area likes her. She is good friends with Roddy Lambert, who is now the bailiff for the Dysart estate, Bruff.. who used to work under her father. Roddy is rather vulgar but manages to keep in with the upper class. He and Charlotte had the beginnings of a romantic relationship but Roddy married a woman who had a small fortune of her own, and she settled her money on him for life. Lucy, his wife, is a silly but good hearted woman who is devoted to Roddy, and she has made friends with Charlotte, who advises her on handling her marriage. He is a flirt who likes girls and she often worries about his relationships with local women who are pretty. Charlotte secretly despises Lucy for being so devoted to her husband and envies her for being attractive enough to win a husband.

Powder and Patch

This is another of Heyer's Georgian early novels. It hasn't got much plot. It is about a young man Philip Jettan who dismays his father by being a bit of a country bumpkin. Sir Maurice, his father, has an estate but he is a sophisticated man who likes to live in the town and to be a man of fashion. He sends Philip abroad to France to try and make him less awkward and dull -. Philip is in love with a beautiful girl called Cleone Charteris, but she also wishes he were more of a fashionable gentleman. In Paris, Philip learns to dress fancily and to be more amusing and charming. He learns to flirt with ladies, to the point where Cleone is annoyed with him. But he asks her to marry him and they fall in love all over again and get married.

Masqueraders By Georgette Heyer

This is one of Heyer's earlier novels, and is set in Georgian England shortly after the 1745 Rebellion. The rebellion was an attempt to put Charles Edward Stuart on the throne. The two main characters, Robin and Prudence, are brother and sister. Robin has fought for the Stuarts so he is a wanted man. So he and Prudence disguise themselves. Robin is small and slender and he passes as a pretty woman and Prue who is bigger and sturdier, dresses as a man. She can look after herself, has learned to fight with a sword and to carry off an imitation of a male. The siblings have come to London, to hide out, and they take part in society. Robin rescues a young upper class girl, Letitia Grayson from someone trying to abduct her, and he falls in love with her. Prue becomes friendly with a young man, Sir Antony Fanshawe, who was supposed to marry Letty, but he is not in love with Letty. He falls in love with Prudence. The siblings are called Merriott, and they have lived mostly abroad with their eccentric adventurer father who has engaged in all sorts of different professions. He comes to London and tells them that their name is not Merriott. Their real name is Tremaine and he is the heir to a viscountcy. He puts forward a claim to be Viscount Barham, and his children are shocked to learn that they are not penniless adventurers of dubious origin but relatives of a noble family. There is another claimant to the viscountcy, a distant relative whose claim is actually very poor. Tremaine knows all about the family and their estate and eventually, after an enquiry, he is accepted as the Viscount and takes his place in society. Robin defends Letty when she is being forced to elope with her previous suitor. She had agreed to run off with him because he had some evidence that her father, Sir Humphry Grayson had sympathised with the Rebellion.. She is not very clever and is easily fooled by a weak piece of evidence. Robin saves her and fights a duel on her behalf and they fall in love. Prue has become close to Sir Anthony, and he knows her secret and asks her to marry him. Tremaine is now Viscount Barham and is delighted that his children have made good matches. I've never been keen on cross dressing romances but I quite enjoyed this one. However it's not one I re read.

Also the Hills Part V

Dexter is keeping busy with his farm, and he is not too happy to see Judith back to help Alix with her confinement. He feels that she has shown herself to be selfish, in messing him around. She also realises that he is falling in love with Alix and says so to him, rather spitefully. He is hurt, and feels that he has no hope with a beautiful girl like Alix and that at present, she is grieving for Jerome. Alix has her baby, a son, and Judith is posted to North Africa. She enjoys her work, and meets up again with Joe Racina who is a war correspondent. But then she is injured by a bomb and left with severe burns on her fact and arms and hands. She is very ill and has to be flown home to the US for treatment. She can't hold things and her face is damaged. But she has plastic surgery and its believed that she will recover. Her hands will get better, and her facial injuries will improve. Daniel and Serena have been through a lot of pain and suffering, losing 2 of their children and their third child being badly injured. They tell themselves that they have Alix, who is a lovely kindly young woman and they have a grandson. Daniel tells Serena that they must be prepared for Alix to find a new husband in due course. She is a young woman and she can't live on memories forever. Serena is a little amused at her unsophisticated farmer husband showing such worldly knowledge. Alix decides to go down South to see her own family for a visit. Dexter is upset at her going as she has a cousin, Prosper, who was considered as a possible husband for her. He is afraid that she will decide to marry him and go back to her home state to live, rather than spend all her life in the cold of New England. Judith has reconciled herself to the fact that she can never be an army nurse again and she and Joe Racina get married. They begin to write articles together, so she has found an occupation to make up for giving up her army work. Dexter's sister Rhoda gets married to her Jewish fiance, and Benny their adopted child, helps to flush out a German spy in the neighbourhood. It makes up a little for Jenness' disloyal behaviour that the village manages to get rid of one enemy of the US. Alix returns suddenly to the farm and tells Dexter that she would never have married Prosper. But she will marry him. Daniel and Serena have a party to celebrate the changes, good and bad that have taken place over the past couple of years. They have lost Jenness and Jerome but he has left a son behind him and Alix will stay at the farm.. and marry Dexter. Judith is recovering and has a new and loving husband. The neighbourhood has grown and taken in new people from different cultures and made friends of them.

Also the Hills Part IV

Jenness' death is a horrible shock to her family and they are also pained by her activities before she died. She engaged in traitorous behavior and perjury, and she was clearly involved in a love affair with a man who had no intention of marrying her. Judith is still working in the US, and Jerome has been posted abroad. Then Alix, his young wife, comes up to New England from Louisiana. The family find her charming and sweet and take to her immediately. She is pregnant and wants to have her baby in Jerome's home. Serena likes her very much and gets over her prejudice against Catholics. Alix says that the baby will be brought up Catholic and she wants to get to know the locals in the neighbourhood who are Catholic. Serena is rather shocked to find out that her priest is quite happy to play cards or have a drink. Judith comes to see Alix to see if she can help with her pregnancy and having the baby. Alix also spends a lot of her money on making the farmhouse more comfortable and attractive. The Farmans have never gone in for luxury or comfort and are surprised by how willing Alix is to use her money to do up the house and her good taste. Then the family learn that Jerome has been killed in action. Alix is heartbroken..

Also the Hills Part III

Jenness has a fun time on her trip back to the farm, but her friend Joe Racina who comes as well, is a newspaper reporter. He brings them up to date on what's happening in the world outside. The Farmans learn that there is trouble brewing. It is in the early stages of America's entry into World War Two. There are still a lot of isolationists and pro Germans about. There is an investigation going on to find foreign spies, so Germans living in the countryside are suspected. Jenness works for a politican - Horace Vaughn - and he has asked her to send out papers putting forward the isolationist line under a government frank. She is in love with him, and although she recognises that it is a bit dubious, she does what he asks. He gives her expensive fur coats and jewels. But she is now being investigated for her activities. Judith keeps up correspondence with her family and asks them to tell Dexter about her war activities, as she still considers him her fiance. Dexter's sister, Rhoda, is a bit of a dull spinster but she returns to teaching as war work, and becomes a bit more outgoing. She meets a Jewish man in the neighbourhood, a widower with a child.. and he has taken in a refugee Jewish child, Benny. Rhoda begins to plan for a marriage that she never expected. Meanwhile down South, Jerome tells his new bride that he's under orders to ship out. He suggests that while he is on active service, she might like to go visit his family. Jenness finds that her boss, who had been flirting with her but is engaged to a well born socialite is now cooling on her. He wants to put all the blame on her and has no intention of marrying her. Daniel is so desperate to help his daughter that he sells the farm to Dexter, with a proviso that he can live there.. so that he has money to engage a top lawyer for her. Jenness is examined by the Grand Jury and found guilty of perjury. She realises that she's going to go to prison and becomes terrified. Joe Racina, who has come to see her before her sentencing, tells her that it is terrible but that she must face it and come out the other side stronger. She gets hysterical and says noone would want to marry her if she's been in prison. She begs her father to save her - but there's nothing he can do. She makes a sudden dash for the balcony of her apartment, and throws herself over, and dies.

Also the Hills II

Jenness comes to the farm, from Washington and brings a couple of friends, who are journalists, and she wants to have a party. She is inclined to complain about how basic the farmhouse is, but never offers to help out financially to make it more comfortable. However, she loves her family and they love her and she's popular with the local people, because she is so pretty and charming and fashionable looking. Dexter is unhappy about Judith wanting to be an army nurse.. and tells her that if she's not prepared to marry him soon, he wants out of the engagment. Judith is determined to take on the army nurse role and she claims that she does not regard their engagement as broken. Word comes from down South, where Jerome has been posted, to say that he's getting married. He has met a Southern girl called Alix St Cyr - and she and he want to marry quickly because he might be posted abroad. Daniel and Serena are dumbfounded, especially Serena, who is prejudiced against Catholics.. and horrified that the couple are marrying in a Catholic ceremony...They learn that Alix, though Jerome met her working in a jewellery store, is actually quite well off. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her wish was that the child should be reared in a convent, and then her father married a rich widow, so Alix has quite a bit of money of her own. M/F

Also the Hills By Frances Parkinson Keyes

This is a novel published by Keyes in the early years of World War Two. It is a story about the Farmans, a New England family, who have a successful farm but who are simple people. They work hard and don't care about creature comforts. Daniel and Serena have 3 grown up children. Jenness is a very beautiful but rather flighty girl, who has left the farm and gone to work in Washington DC as a secretary to a wealthy politican. Jerome has left a banking job, to join the army.. and Judith, is still living at home, has trained as a district nurse. Judith is engaged to a local farmer, Dexter, who was injured as a child and cannot join the army. He is dedicating himself to farming and local affairs, to make up for this. Judith loves him but she takes her nursing job very seriously. She upsets Dexter in the beginning of the book by telling him that she has to travel away from their town to nurse some children. He is hoping that they can get married soon, but when she comes back she tells him that she wants to join up as an army nurse. More will follow.

Flower of May Part III

Andre follows his family to Europe and flirts with Fanny. She is drawn to him but she's not sure if he is really a serious prospect, and she is not aware of her sister's affair with him, which has happened only a short while after her wedding. Then during the holiday, news comes to Fanny that her mother is seriously ill and she goes home in a hurry. When she gets to her mother's home, she finds that Julia is close to dying. The nun who is looking after her tells her that her mother is worrying in her weakened state about her elder daughter.. Fanny stays with her mother until her death which causes terrible pain to her father and to Julia's elderly father. As they begin to recover, Eleanor, Julia's sister, talks to her niece about the future. She had wanted to be a nun but gave up the idea because her father needed someone to take care of him and run their small estate. So she suggests that she makes over Glasalla to Fanny, and that will provide her with a small income so that she and Lucille can go to University and study for a career. Fanny is happy to accept this offer. She knows that she could not marry Andre when he treated her sister so callously, seducing her almost on her honeymoon and she is intelligent and does not want to bury herself in marriage and house keeping. Lucille too is pleased as she feels there is no point in quarrelling with her family over a career when she has no training to do anything better than work in a shop or be a governess. Eleanor tells Fanny that when her father dies, she will give up her job of looking after the estate and leave it to a manager, and Fanny will get the proceeds... and Eleanor can go to Brussels and while it's a bit late for her to be a nun, she can live in the convent and lead a religious life, which is what she always wanted. Fanny and Lucille plan their future, getting into university and studying for a more challenging career than housekeeping or the like.. and Andre returns to the Continent. Louise and her husband try to get their marriage on track... and Fanny's father tries to recover from his wife's death.

Flower of May Part II

Fanny has Lucille to visit in Dublin, before they go on their continental trip. Louise, her sister is away on honeymoon. The young couple have gone off in a car, which breaks down, as motor cars were very new then and prone to problems. Andre, Lucille's brother, has a job as a car salesman and he rescues the honeymooning couple, when the car lets them down. He is attracted to Fanny and she is intrigued by him. Fanny goes on her trip with Lucille. Julia, her mother decides to go back to her country home, where her elderly father lives with his spinster daughter. It is a small estate, as Catholics had for a long time been unable to buy property. Some of them did retain their property, and the estate keeps the family in reasonable comfort and gives them status. Julia loves the country and does not like living in Dublin, but she puts up with it for her husband's sake. She is in increasingly poor health and longs to go back to her home. Before she goes away from Dublin, she sees a young couple in the city and gets an intuition that they are lovers, then realises that it is her own daughter, who is newly married. She goes to the country, and her health weakens. She is worried about her daughter. Fanny and Lucille enjoy their travels around Europe with Lucille's younger brother and her society obsessed mother. The family are kind to Fanny and she is happy to be seeing the world. She has been having religious doubts in recent years, but she is still interested in the Catholic culture of Europe.

Kate O'Brien The Flower of May

This is one of Kate O'Brien's later novels. It is set in Ireland not long before the First World war. Fanny Morrow is just 18 and attending her older sister's wedding. Her sister is a rather vain pretty girl... Fanny is told by her parents that she can't go back to school in Belgium, where she has been receiving her education. The parents don't tell her that they have financial problems and that Julia, her mother is in poor health and needs a companion. She is very upset about having to leave school as she loves learning. Her best friend Lucille is still at school, but she too has problems. Lucille's family are very rich and her mother wants her to go into society and make a good marriage. Lucille wishes that she could go to university and get a job, but without familial support this seems impossible. However, she invites Fanny to come on a trip to Europe with her visiting Italy.. and her parents allow her to go.

Ann Granger 1939 -2025

I've just heard of the death of Ann Granger, who has written several different series of novels, mostly detective ones. She died in September 2025. She was born in Portsmouth and went to university at the University of London where she did a degree in languages. She started to work as a clerk in the Foreign office and travelled abroad a good deal. She worked in the visa sections of various embassies and married John Hulme, who also worked in the Foreign office. She started to write romances, then she and her husband came back to England with their 2 children. She began to write full time and decided that she would like to try her hand at detective stories. She started writing a series about a clerk in the Foreign office, Meredith, who has returned to the UK and who gets involved in detective work with Alan Markby, a police officer. The two become a couple and marry after several years. When she had written several Meredith and Markby novels, she changed to a new detective, Fran Varady. She is a young girl living in London, who is homeless because her father and grandmother died, leaving her with no money or home. She lives in squats and has a few friends including a young Asian man, Ganesh and his uncle. She does small detective jobs and works in casual jobs such as helping in Ganesh's family shop, and as a waitress in a pizza restaurant. She gets a flat from a charity, and has a little home of her own and her big ambition is to become an actress but she is usually kept busy at trying to earn a living. Ann wrote 7 Varady novels, and then in the 2000's she began a new series. Ben Ross is a police officer, in Victorian London, and he meets a young woman during an investigation who is companion to a wealthy older lady. Lizzie Martin knew him when she was a little girl living in Derbyshire and her father, a doctor, paid for Ben to have an education, so he could get a better job. She and Ben fall in love and marry, and Lizzie helps him with his work. They are not well off but have a small house and a maid. During this time, Ann wrote another series set in present day England, about 2 young police officers who work together. Her last Victorian novel with Ben and Lizzie Ross was "the Old Rogue of Limehouse" about a pawnbroker. I'm sorry to hear that Ann has died, and there wont be any more of her Varady and Ben Ross novels.

Ante Room Part III

Miss Cunningham, the nurse keeps on being friendly with Reggie. Agnes however is now torn between her feelings for Vincent and her love for her sister. He tells Agnes that he loves her..and they are both tormented by their love for each other. Divorce in a Victorian Catholic family is out of the question, and even if it were not a Catholic family, as her brother in law, Vincent could not marry Agnes. Miss Cunningham hints to Reggie that she would take care of him, if his mother dies and that his mother is ill and in pain and she is struggling to stay alive for his sake, which is not fair to her. Danny, her husband is hurt as he can see that Teresa loves Reggie much more than she ever loved him. Then Reggie and Miss Cunningham announce that they are getting married. Agnes is rather shocked, but her doctor admirer tells her that Miss Cunningham,as a nurse is well aware of Reggie's condition and that she is willing to look after him and have a sexless marriage.. and he will be content with her, if his mother dies. He points out to Agnes that although she does not much like Miss Cunningham, she is not a bad person and she's a good nurse. She is not well off and it is understandable that she should be ready to make a marriage with him, with its various limitations so that she will have a comfortable home.. Agnes can see that he's right and that Reggie will be cared for and his mother will be able to die in peace knowing that her son will be all right. She talks to Vincent and they admit their love for each other. But since their religion forbids divorce and Agnes loves Marie Rose, there is no way they can be together. Teresa tells the doctors that she does not want an operation, she knows that her son is going to be looked after by his new wife, and she's happy to die. Vincent is relieved that things have settled down and he goes out into the garden, with his gun and shoots himself, ending his unhappy life and marriage and leaving Agnes free to recover from her love for him.

The Ante Room Part II

Agnes is lovely and intelligent and has devoted herself to looking after her mother and the house. Her feelings for Vincent, her brother in law, she keeps secret. She loves her sister Marie Rose, and is surprised when the girl suddenly arrives at the house, without her husband. She has come to see her mother and support her, while she is seeing the doctors. Marie Rose is rather silly and flighty but she is good natured and loves Agnes very much. She tells her sister that she and Vincent are not getting on and she left him behind because she does not want to have him around her. Agnes knows that Marie Rose is silly, rather snobbish and not very clever, but she still loves her and is upset to hear that her marriage is not working out. Reggie is very frightened that his mother is going to die, and he refuses to believe it. He depends on her very much to give his life a purpose and to show him affection. He is surprised when the nurse who is looking after his mother begins to show him a little kindness, trying to calm him down about the probability that Teresa will die soon. She is from a modest background and like governesses, she knows that the families she works for dont see her as a lady and look down on her. Agnes and Marie Rose are not all that nice to her... and begin to wonder why she is being friendly with Reggie. The famous doctor arrives to examine Teresa... and then to Marie Rose's amazement, her husband suddenly turns up at the Mulqueen house. She does not want to share her room with him and cries on Agnes' shoulder.