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Treasure Hunt (Vmc Ser. #62)
Par Molly Keane. 1952
Angel, formidable hostess, social charmer and mother par excellence, confidently awaits the return of her little boy from the trials…
of war. She could not anticipate that the teenager who went away will return a grown man - bronzed and world-weary - a sophisticated American widow on his arm. Nor could she anticpate that her irrepressible daughter Slaney will similarly throw herself into romance (without asking her advice) and even her niece Tiddley will show an unexpected determination in getting on with her life. Faced with domestic insurrection on a grand scale, Angel will have to sharpen her wits to maintain her tyranny.Poor Cow: A Virago Modern Classic
Par Nell Dunn. 1967
Joy - also called Blossom, Sunshine and Blondie by the men in her life - walks down Fulham Broadway carrying…
her week-old baby, Jonny. She is twenty-one, with bleached hair, high suede shoes, and a head full of dreams. Her husband Tom is a thief and on the proceeds of a job they move to a luxury flat - 'the world was our oyster and we chose Ruislip'. Then Tom is sent to prison, leaving Joy and Jonny to move in with Auntie Emm. This is Joy's story: an exuberant, pink-lipsticked, tale of London life, love and young motherhood in the sixties...Sisters By A River: A Virago Modern Classic (Vmc Ser. #479)
Par Barbara Comyns. 2013
On the banks of the River Avon, five sisters are born. The seasons come and go, the girls take their…
lessons under the ash tree, and always there is the sound of water swirling through the weir. Then, unexpectedly, an air of decay descends upon the house: ivy grows unchecked over the windows, angry shouts split the summer air, the milk sours in the larder and their father takes out his gun. Tragedy strikes the family, and before long the furniture is being auctioned off and the sisters dispersed among relatives. In her daring first novel, originally published in 1947, Barbara Comyns' unique young heroine relates the vivid, funny and bittersweet story of a childhood.The Scapegoat (Vmc Ser. #553)
Par Daphne Du Maurier. 2013
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF REBECCA'What a magnificent thriller this is' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'Someone jolted my elbow as…
I drank and said, "Je vous demande pardon," and as I moved to give him space he turned and stared at me and I at him, and I realised, with a strange sense of shock and fear and nausea all combined, that his face and voice were known to me too well.I was looking at myself.'By chance, two men - one English, the other French - meet in a provincial railway station. Their resemblance is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking - until at last John, the Englishman, falls into a drunken stupor. It's to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, his French companion has stolen his identity and disappeared. So John steps into the Frenchman's shoes, and faces a variety of perplexing roles - as owner of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a fractious family, and master of nothing...A good original novel, well tinged with nightmare - Times Literary SupplementA Foolish Virgin
Par Ida Simons. 2014
It is the middle of the roaring twenties, and Gittel is living The Hague with her parents, whose blazing rows…
are the traditional preserve of Sundays and public holidays. What luck, then, that Gittel is Jewish, and must submit to "the double helping of public holidays that is the lot of Jewish families".After every matrimonial slanging match, Gittel's mother runs off to her parents' home in Antwerp - with her daugher in tow. Much to her delight, Gittel makes the acquaintance of the well-to-do Mardell family, who allow her to practise on their Steinway. Gittel feels that she is taken seriously by Mr Mardell, the head of the household, and by thirty-year-old Lucie, whom she adores. When these friendships turn out to be nothing but an illusion, Gittel learns her first lessons about trust and betrayal. Her second comes soon after, when her father, whose talents for business leave much to be desired, attempts to make a quick killing in Berlin on the eve of the Wall Street Crash.Though this intimate portrayal of familial strife is set in the shadow of the Holocaust, Simons says little about the horror that awaits her characters, yet she succeeds in giving the reader the sense that the novel is about more than a young girl's loss of innocence. In a fluid, almost casual style, she has written a masterly and timeless ode to a relatively carefree interlude in a dark and dramatic period.Translated from the Dutch by Liz WatersThe River: A Virago Modern Classic (Vmc Ser. #421)
Par Rumer Godden. 2012
By the author of Black Narcissus.'Her craftsmanship is always sure; her understanding of character is compassionate and profound; her prose…
is pure, delicate, and gently witty' New York TimesHarriet is caught between two worlds: her older sister is no longer a playmate, her brother is still a little boy. And the comforting rhythm of her Indian childhood - the sounds of the jute factory, the colourful festivals that accompany each season and the eternal ebb and flow of the river on its journey to the Bay of Bengal - is about to be shattered by a tragic event. Intense, vivid, and with a dark undertow, The River is a poignant portrait of the loss of a young girl's innocence.Listen to the Nightingale: A Virago Modern Classic (Vmc Ser. #236)
Par Rumer Godden. 2013
By the author of Black Narcissus.'Her craftsmanship is always sure; her understanding of character is compassionate and profound; her prose…
is pure, delicate, and gently witty' New York Times'Never forget, Charlotte, you were born to be a dancer . . . Never forget. Promise.'Before her ballet teacher died, Lottie promised Madame Holbein to be the dancer her mother never lived to become. Orphaned at birth, Lottie has been brought up by her aunt, and though she is loved, she is lonely. Then she finds Prince, a spaniel puppy, and discovers a love and loyalty that is boundless. When Lottie passes the tough audition for Queen's Chase, Her Majesty's Junior Ballet School, everybody is thrilled - except, surprisingly, Lottie. She will have to board at school, and what will happen to her beloved dog? To choose between the two is breaking her heart.Rebecca (Vmc Ser. #527)
Par Daphne Du Maurier. 1938
* 'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY* 'One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century'…
SARAH WATERS* 'It's the book every writer wishes they'd written' CLARE MACKINTOSHNOW A MAJOR NETFLIX MOVIE STARRING LILY JAMES, ARMIE HAMMER AND KRISTEN SCOTT THOMASWorking as a lady's companion, the orphaned heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. Whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to his brooding estate, Manderley, on the Cornish Coast, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding Mrs Danvers . . . Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the Other Woman. An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.Mansfield Park
Par Jane Austen. 2006
When the gorgeous Henry Crawford and his pretty sister Mary come to Mansfield Park, they've no idea what a disturbance…
they will cause. There they find the Bertram family, with their beautiful daughters and handsome sons - and Fanny Price. Eighteen-year-old Fanny has grown up in the shadow of her glamorous relations. In fact, no one seems to remember she's there at all, which is why they don't notice that she's gradually been falling in love. But while she hides a secret passion, she has no idea she's become an object of interest herself for another admirer. As a scandal begins to unfold that will have devastating effects on everyone, Fanny discovers that love will blossom in the most unusual of places...I'll Never Be Young Again (Vmc Ser. #513)
Par Daphne Du Maurier. 2013
A COMING-OF-AGE TALE OF ADVENTURE AND LOVE, FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF REBECCA'The iron of the bridge felt hot under…
my hand. The sun had been upon it all day. Gripping hard with my hands I lifted myself on to the bar and gazed down steadily on the water passing under . . . I thought of places I would never see, and women I should never love'As far as Richard's father, a famous poet, is concerned, his son has no talent as a writer and will never amount to anything. In a moment of crisis, Richard decides to end his life, but is saved by Jake, a passing stranger. The two men, both at turning points in their lives, set out for adventure, jumping aboard a ship to Norway. Their travels take them through Europe and they form a passionate friendship. But in bohemian Paris Richard meets Hesta, a music student who inspires him to follow his artistic dreams.No other popular writer has so triumphantly defied classification . . . She satisfied all the questionable criteria of popular fiction, and yet satisfied the exacting requirements of "real literature", something very few novelists ever do - Margaret ForsterThe Loving Spirit (Vmc Ser. #548)
Par Daphne Du Maurier. 1931
Daphne du Maurier's lushly written novel . . . is a rapturous celebration of the beauties of the Cornish landscape…
- Michele Roberts----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Cornwall, 1900s. Plyn Boat Yard is a hive of activity, and Janet Coombe longs to share in the excitement of seafaring: to travel, to have adventures, to know freedom.But constrained by the times, instead she marries her cousin Thomas, a boat builder, and settles down to raise a family.Janet's loving spirit - the passionate yearning for adventure and for love - is passed down to her son, and through him to his children's children. As generations of the family struggle against hardship and loss, their intricately plotted history is set against the greater backdrop of war and social change in Britain. Her debut novel, The Loving Spirit established du Maurier's reputation and style with an inimitable blend of romance, history and adventure.The Dud Avocado
Par Elaine Dundy. 2007
'One of the funniest books I've ever read' - Gore Vidal*The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status on first publication…
and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living. It is, as the Guardian observes, 'one of the best novels about growing up fast'.Sally Jay Gorce is a woman with a mission. It's the 1950s, she's young, and she's in Paris. Having dyed her hair pink, she wears evening dresses in the daytime and vows to go native in a way not even the natives can manage. Embarking on an educational programme that includes an affair with a married man (which fizzles out when she realises he's single and wants to marry her); nights in cabarets and jazz clubs in the company of assorted "citizens of the world"; an entanglement with a charming psychopath; and a bit part in a film financed by a famous matador. But an education like this doesn't come cheap. Will our heroine be forced back to the States to fulfill her destiny as a librarian, or can she keep up her whirlwind Parisian existence?*A champagne cocktail ... Rich, invigorating, and deceptively simple to the taste ... One falls for Sally Jay Gorce from a great height from the first sentence - ObserverAs delightful and delicate an examination of how it is to be twenty and in love and in Paris as I've ever read - Sunday TimesI had to tell someone how much I enjoyed The Dud Avocado. It made me laugh, scream, and guffaw (which, incidentally, is a great name for a law firm). - Groucho MarxBooks included in the VMC 40th anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White; The Collected Stories of Grace Paley; Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann; Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith; The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heartburn by Nora Ephron; Memento Mori by Muriel Spark; A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor; and Faces in the Water by Janet FrameThe Haunting Season: The instant Sunday Times bestseller and the perfect companion for winter nights
Par Andrew Michael Hurley, Natasha Pulley, Laura Purcell, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Jess Kidd, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Bridget Collins, Elizabeth Macneal. 2021
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'You won't find a more thrilling winter read this year, or a better line up…
of writers who have mastered the gothic and ghostly.' SARA COLLINS, Costa Award-winning author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton Featuring new and original tales from: Bridget Collins Sunday Times bestselling author of The Binding | Imogen Hermes Gowar Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock | Kiran Millwood Hargrave Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mercies | Andrew Michael Hurley Sunday Times bestselling author of The Loney | Jess Kidd International award-winning author of Things in Jars | Elizabeth Macneal Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory | Natasha Pulley Sunday Times bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street | Laura Purcell Award-winning author of The Silent Companions ______________Long before Charles Dickens and Henry James popularized the tradition, the shadowy nights of winter have been a time for people to gather together by the flicker of candlelight and experience the intoxicating thrill of a ghost story.Now eight bestselling, award-winning authors - all of them master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre - bring the tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding new collection of original spine-tingling tales.Taking you from the frosty Fens to the wild Yorkshire moors, to the snow-covered grounds of a haunted estate, to a bustling London Christmas market, these mesmerizing stories will capture your imagination and serve as your indispensable companion to the cold, dark nights. So curl up, light a candle, and fall under the spell of winters past . . .Last Friends: From the Orange Prize shortlisted author
Par Jane Gardam. 2013
'It's a cliche to compare novelists to Jane Austen, but in the case of Jane Gardam it happens to be…
true. Her diamond-like prose, her understanding of the human heart, her formal inventiveness and her sense of what it is to be alive - young, old, lonely, in love - never fades' Amanda Craig'Her work, like Sylvia Townsend Warner's, has that appealing combination of elegance, erudition and flinty wit' Patrick Gale'Sharp, humane, generous and wonderfully funny, she is one of our very finest writers' Hilary MantelShortlisted for the 2014 Folio Prize.Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat told with bristling tenderness and black humour the stories of that Titan of the Hong Kong law courts, Old Filth QC, and his clever, misunderstood wife Betty. Last Friends, the final volume of this trilogy, picks up with Terence Veneering, Filth's great rival in work and - though it was never spoken of - in love. Veneering's were not the usual beginnings of an establishment silk: the son of a Russian acrobat marooned in northeast England and a devoted local girl, he escapes the war to emerge in the Far East as a man of panache, success and fame. But, always, at the stuffy English Bar he is treated with suspicion: where did this blond, louche, brilliant Slav come from? Veneering, Filth and their friends tell a tale of love, friendship, grace, the bittersweet experiences of a now-forgotten Empire and the disappointments and consolations of age.The Breaking Point: Short Stories (Vmc Ser. #536)
Par Daphne Du Maurier. 1959
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF REBECCA'The apathy of Sunday lay upon the streets. Houses were closed, withdrawn."They don't know," he…
thought, "those people inside, how one gesture of mine, now, at this minute, might alter their world. A knock on the door, and someone answers - a woman yawning, an old man in carpet slippers, a child sent by its parents in irritation; and according to what I will, what I decide, their whole future will be decided . . . Sudden murder. Theft. Fire." It was as simple as that.'In this collection of suspenseful tales in which fantasies, murderous dreams and half-forgotten worlds are exposed, Daphne du Maurier explores the boundaries of reality and imagination. Her characters are caught at those moments when the delicate link between reason and emotion has been stretched to the breaking point. Often chilling, sometimes poignant, these stories display the full range of Daphne du Maurier's considerable talent.Challenge (Vmc Ser. #498)
Par Vita Sackville-West. 1974
CHALLENGE was Vita Sackville-West's second novel. It was ready to go to print in 1920, but the aughor suddenly changed…
her mind. This was not because she lacked confidence in her work,but because of the scandal it would have caused. CHALLENGE remained unpublished for over fifty years.Vita's love affair with Violet Trefusis had reached its peak, and, eloping to France, they decided to abandon everything and everyone - children and husbands included - to spend the rest of their lives together. Although they returned to their families eventually, CHALLENGE remains a testament of their love, and was written during that period. The hero, Julian, might be a Byronic young Englishman, and Eve the woman he adores; it may be an adventure tale about a revolt on a Greek island. But really, this is a love story, written in the presence of the beloved, and inspired by her. And, as its title implies, the novel is a challenge to the society that condemned Vita and her lover.Another Little Christmas Murder
Par Lorna Nicholl Morgan. 1947
A classic country house mystery republished for the first time in nearly seventy years. Perfect for fans of Murder at…
the Old Vicarage and Partners in Crime.When Dilys Hughes finds herself snowbound in the middle of a bleak and lonely stretch of Yorkshire, she has no option but to accept help from passing motorist Inigo Brown, who is on his way to visit his uncle.Arriving at his uncle's remote country house, Wintry Wold, the couple encounters a less than warm welcome from Inigo's new young aunt, Theresa. Why is she reluctant to let Inigo see his uncle, and is he really as ill as they are told?As the snowstorm brings more stranded strangers to their door, Dilys starts to realise that all is not as it seems at Wintry Wold. When the morning brings news of the death of Inigo's uncle, Dilys sets out to investigate - was it a natural death, or was it murder?A Game Of Hide And Seek (Vmc Ser. #646)
Par Elizabeth Taylor. 2011
'Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been some turning-point in one's own experience' - Elizabeth Bowen,…
author of The Heat of the DayIntelligent and haunting, with echoes of Brief Encounter, this is a love story by one of the best British writers of the 20th century.During summer games of hide and seek Harriet falls in love with Vesey and his elusive, teasing ways. When he goes to Oxford she cherishes his photograph and waits for a letter that never comes.Years pass and Harriet stifles her dreams; with a husband and daughter, she excels at respectability. But then Vesey reappears and her marriage seems to melt away. Harriet is older, it is much too late, but she is still in love with him.Perfect Lives
Par Polly Samson. 2010
In an English seaside town, lovers and children, young men and middle-aged women weave in and out of each other's…
lives and stories.A mother is tormented by her daughter's tattoo; another only pretends to love her baby. A wife stalks her husband and his new lover; a broken egg through a letterbox tells a story that will not go away; the cat thinks he knows best. Threaded throughout are longings for love and poignant disappointments, surprising pleasures and temptations. Some will fall but some, like the small boy at the circus who sees his babysitter fly past on a trapeze wearing little more than a blue bra and spangles, will retain their feeling of awe.PERFECT LIVES, follows Polly Samson's rapturously received first collection, LYING IN BED. They are rueful, knowing, witty, poignant, bashful, bold. Her genius is in the nuance.Angel: A Virago Modern Classic (Vmc Ser. #649)
Par Elizabeth Taylor. 2011
INTRODUCED BY HILARY MANTELElizabeth Taylor is finally being recognised as an important British author: an author of great subtlety, great…
compassion and great depth - Sarah WatersWriting stories that are extravagant and fanciful, fifteen-year old Angel retreats to a world of romance, escaping the drabness of provincial life. She knows she is different, that she is destined to become a feted authoress, owner of great riches and of Paradise House . . .After reading The Lady Irania, publishers Brace and Gilchrist are certain the novel will be a success, in spite of - perhaps because of - its overblown style. But they are curious as to who could have written such a book - an elderly lady, romanticising behind lace curtains? A mustachioed rogue? They were not expecting it to be the pale, serious teenage girl, sitting before them without a hint of irony in her soul. *'Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been some turning-point in one's own experience' Elizabeth Bowen'No writer has described the English middle classes with more gently devastating accuracy' Rebecca Abrams, Spectator