Related to: 'The Perpetual Curate'

Virago

Miss Marjoribanks

Margaret Oliphant

From the moment of her mother's death, Lucilla Marjoriebanks knows her vocation - a conviction based on the influence of morally uplifting novels and the 'sublime confidence in herself is the first necessity to a woman on a mission'. The usurping of Dr. Marjoriebanks as master of his own table and the assuaging of Nancy, his formidable housekeeper, are but small steps in Lucilla's scheme, for she intends nothing less than the transformation of Carlingford society. Lucilla's 'evenings' become the talk fo this quiet country town: not only are they an essential source of gossip and entertainment for old friends and neighbours of Grange Lane, but they are also the setting for some of Lucilla's most startling accomplishments. For it is on these occasions, under the watchful eye and guidance of this magnificent young woman, that reputations are made and lost and romances are pursued and undone . . .

Virago

Hester

Margaret Oliphant

Catherine Vernon is the head of the family bank, reputed in the Home Counties to be 'solid as the Bank of England'. Loved and revered by the people of Redborough, she is nevertheless seen as a none-too-benevolent despot by those of her family who, dependent upon her charity, live in the nearby 'Vernonry'. Catherine is a proud businesswoman, in firm control of her life, her work and her family. She lives with her young cousin Edward, grooming him to succeed her in the bank, loving him like a son. Then fourteen-year-old Hester and her widowed mother join the tenants of the Vernonry and Catherine finds she has met her match in this strong-willed girl. We watch as Hester grows up through the 1860s and 70s and as their silent confrontation comes to a head over their love for the same man: an absorbing struggle which alters forever the fortunes of Hester and the Vernon family.

Come and celebrate

Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe: Chapter One

Indulge yourself and your sweet-toothed friends with Jenny Colgan’s new novel, simply bursting with Christmas cupcake recipes and seasonal sugar-fuelled fun.

Orbit

Heart Of The Mirage

Glenda Larke

Stolen from her people as a child and raised as a citizen of the Tyranian Empire, Ligea Gayed is the obvious choice to despatch to her homeland, occupied Kardiastan, with orders to root out a rebel conspiracy. At first, she devotes herself to her new assignment with zeal. Adopted daughter of the Empire's greatest general, and possessing a fearsome reputation within the ruthless Imperial spy network known as the Brotherhood, Ligea views herself as a loyal servant of Tyrans. But blood will out, and with each day she spends among her parents' people, her disciplined self-image crumbles a little. And there are secrets in Kardiastan, secrets that will inevitably force Ligea to choose between her upbringing and her birthright. Secrets that will shape the destiny of two nations. . .

Virago

The Harsh Voice

Rebecca West

In these four brilliant short novels set in America, England and Paris, Rebecca West explores the lives and relationships of rich women and men who are ruled by 'the harsh voice we hear when money talks, or hate'.There is Josie, a flower of American girlhood whose boundless ambition for wealth fatally loosens the bonds of her marriage to Corrie. There is Etienne de Sevenac, a dilettante French aristocrat whose courtly stratagems are no match for Nancy Sarle - a plain but powerful American businesswoman. There is Alice Pemberton, a sensible Englishwoman - the very salt of the earth - but a petty tyrant in her gracious Georgian home. And lastly there is Sam Hartley, an American businessman who has fought his way to riches with his wife at his side, but whose life is now haunted by an abiding vision of beautiful young women.

Abacus

Venice: Tales Of The City

Michelle Lovric
Sphere

Soft Touch

Maeve Haran
Abacus

Attack Of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks

Christopher Brookmyre
Abacus

Espresso Tales

Alexander McCall Smith
Virago

Some Tame Gazelle

Barbara Pym
Virago

Vera Brittain: A Life

Mark Bostridge, Paul Berry

Vera Brittain is most widely known as the woman who immortalized a lost generation in her haunting autobiography of the Great War, TESTAMENT OF YOUTH.Writer, pacifist and feminist, she condemned her provincial background but remained acutely conscious of the conventional elements in her own character; she revealed a richly emotional life in her writing but was outwardly sober and reserved; she possessed a fierce desire for fame and recognition but was ready to sacrifice both on matters of principle.This biography - comprehensive, authoritative and immensely readable - confirms Vera Brittain's stature as one of the most remarkable women of our time.

Virago

Remember, Remember!

Winifred Holtby

This selection of Winifred Holtby's short stories is drawn from her two published volumes, TRUTH IS NOT SOBER and PAVEMENTS OF ANDERBY, which were published posthumously by her two friends, Vera Brittain and Hilda Reid and have been collected here in one volume for the first time.Brightly written, in an unselfconscious, matter-of-fact style, these stories are irreverent and entertaining, fulfilling what she saw as the short story's purpose in a reader's life:'nice for chance guests - easy to pick up and more tantalising for one's bedside than a novel'.Many of these stories are autobiographically based, and feature the Yorkshire farming community in Rudston where she was brought up. This was the setting for her most famous novel, SOUTH RIDING, also published posthumously. Some of the stories relate to the last years of her life when she was contending with the incessant headaches and nausea of Bright's disease.

Piatkus

Across The Sapphire Seas

Heather Graves
Virago

Phoebe Junior

Margaret Oliphant
Illustrated

The History Of Silver

Claude Blair
Little, Brown US

The Ornament Of The World

Maria Rosa Menocal

Marjorie Eccles

Marjorie Eccles lives with her husband in Berkhamsted, Herts. She is a member of the Crime Writers Association and has been a professional writer for nearly twenty years.

Marjorie Hillis

Marjorie Hillis (1889-1971) worked for Vogue for over twenty years, where she became assistant editor. She was one of a growing number of independent, professional women who lived alone by choice. In 1936 she wrote LIVE ALONE AND LIKE IT (9781844081257), the superlative guide for 'bachelor ladies' (who became known as 'live-aloners'). It was an instant bestseller.

Marjorie M. Liu

Marjorie Liu was born in Philadelphia, was raised in Seattle and now lives in the Midwest. After studying East Asian languages then law at university, Marjorie went on to become a lawyer. Studying law agreed with her but practicing it did not, so she now makes her living as a writer.

Virago

Orchids On Your Budget

Marjorie Hillis

First published in 1937, ORCHIDS ON YOUR BUDGET gives advice on all manner of subjects, from entertaining and creating the perfect capsule wardrobe to relinquishing the family estate. Lest you worry about how to put the advice into practice, each chapter concludes with a case study providing examples of women who heeded - and those lamentable souls who ignored - Marjorie's wise words.'It's not difficult to have fun out of economising (up to a point), both because of the sense of achievement it gives you and because everyone else is doing it, too ... A slight financial pressure sharpens the wits, though it needn't sharpen the disposition. But it takes an interesting person to have an attractive m?nage on a shoe-string and to run it with gaiety and charm ... Maybe you would rather play polo than pingpong, but if you've got an old pingpong set and no ponies, you'll get a lot more fun out of life from being a pingpong champion than from taking a dispirited whack with a polo mallet every now and then.