'Maggie knew her father was dead. His eyes were open, but some deep, primordial, instinct told her that there was what she could only describe as an absence of life in the shrunken figure next to her. She looked around. Surely someone else had noticed that her father’s laboured breathing had stopped? But nobody had. They were listening with rapt attention to the music. Maggie closed her eyes and waited to feel some emotion - grief, anger, even relief - but all she felt was a curious sense of anti-climax. She had always imagined that her father’s death would be announced, if not by a voice booming from above, like some Old Testament pronouncement, then at least by something more significant than the almost inaudible ‘tsk’ of impatience that had made her turn to look at him.'
A SENSIBLE GIRL is my latest novel and it has a darker tone than my previous three. Its central character is Maggie Stern, a woman in her mid 40s who is beginning to feel that her life is over. After a disastrous marriage, she has cared for her ailing but domineering father, Sir Nathaniel Stern, for 15 years. The arrangement was only meant to be temporary - just until a suitable nurse could be found - but her cantankerous father made sure that nobody would stay more than a few days.
Then her father dies, leaving the large apartment in a wealthy part of North London which Maggie has shared with him, to her younger brother who promptly sells it. Maggie is rendered both homeless and jobless until a chance encounter leads to work as a waitress in a rundown rundown café in South London, and a rented room in a house owned by an eccentric elderly Latvian woman, called Mara.
As Maggie slowly begins to build a new life for herself, she begins to grow close to Mara who reveals that she came to England as a refugee after the Second World War like Maggie's father. However, lurid newspaper revelations about the wartime source of her father’s wealth threaten to wreck not only her relationship with Mara, but also Maggie's sense of identity which appears to have been built on lies. And if this were not enough, love appears from a wholly unexpected - and not completely welcome - quarter. Can Maggie find the courage to grab a second chance at life, or will she let the past destroy her happiness?
A book about why, when it comes to love, being sensible isn’t always sensible.
Available in both ebook and paperback from AMAZON
MOTHERS, SISTERS & OTHER LOVERS is a romantic comedy in the chick lit tradition. Set in the 1990s on the sun-soaked beaches of a Greek island where women go in search of a holiday romance of a different kind.
As any woman knows, mother-daughter relationships are powerful and elemental, and both shape the woman we want to be, and the woman we don't. Either way, it’s a relationship that makes an indelible impression on women’s lives. It's a scenario Grace Hamilton knows only too well - her life would be perfect were it not for her mother, Marjorie, a ‘60s wild-child, who refuses to either grow up or grow old.
When Grace receives an urgent appeal for help from her mother who is in Greece, she assumes Marjorie is involved with yet another unsuitably younger lover. Grace flies to the rescue once more, only to find that her mother’s newest lover challenges all her preconceptions - not only about her mother, but also about herself. Caught up in an explosive mix of sexual and Greek village politics, Grace sheds her inhibitions and succeeds not in rescuing her mother, but in rescuing herself.
Shirley Valentine meets k.d. lang!
Now available in both ebook and paperback from AMAZON
As any woman knows, mother-daughter relationships are powerful and elemental, and both shape the woman we want to be, and the woman we don't. Either way, it’s a relationship that makes an indelible impression on women’s lives. It's a scenario Grace Hamilton knows only too well - her life would be perfect were it not for her mother, Marjorie, a ‘60s wild-child, who refuses to either grow up or grow old.
When Grace receives an urgent appeal for help from her mother who is in Greece, she assumes Marjorie is involved with yet another unsuitably younger lover. Grace flies to the rescue once more, only to find that her mother’s newest lover challenges all her preconceptions - not only about her mother, but also about herself. Caught up in an explosive mix of sexual and Greek village politics, Grace sheds her inhibitions and succeeds not in rescuing her mother, but in rescuing herself.
Shirley Valentine meets k.d. lang!
Now available in both ebook and paperback from AMAZON
COMING UP FOR AIR is ‘a witty love story laced with raunchy sex and moments of insight’ according to Good Housekeeping. It was also a Cosmopolitan best read and Woman’s Own best book choice of the week.
The only male successful TV producer Freddie Daniels is prepared to share her life with is a pugilistic, oversexed, stray cat called Hemingway. However, when even Hemingway walks out on her, she is forced to face up to her commitment-phobia and make a choice that will change her life forever.
COMING UP FOR AIR was first published by Arrow Books in 1999, but it is now available in a revised ebook edition from AMAZON
The only male successful TV producer Freddie Daniels is prepared to share her life with is a pugilistic, oversexed, stray cat called Hemingway. However, when even Hemingway walks out on her, she is forced to face up to her commitment-phobia and make a choice that will change her life forever.
COMING UP FOR AIR was first published by Arrow Books in 1999, but it is now available in a revised ebook edition from AMAZON
Also available from AMAZON is ACQUIRED TASTES, a black comedy about sexual fantasies and revenge
Mild-mannered, chocolate-loving academic Alicia Binns discovers that friendship, like food, can go toxic when past its sell-by date when her best friend, Vanessa Swift, makes off with the new love in her life.
What reviewers said about ACQUIRED TASTES when it was first published:
'Fast, funny combination of food, sex and tabloid TV' Big Issue
'Summer sizzler' Woman’s Own
'A light-hearted comedy with bonk busting tendencies' Time Out
Originally published by Mandarin Books in 1996, now available in a revised, ebook edition from AMAZON
Mild-mannered, chocolate-loving academic Alicia Binns discovers that friendship, like food, can go toxic when past its sell-by date when her best friend, Vanessa Swift, makes off with the new love in her life.
What reviewers said about ACQUIRED TASTES when it was first published:
'Fast, funny combination of food, sex and tabloid TV' Big Issue
'Summer sizzler' Woman’s Own
'A light-hearted comedy with bonk busting tendencies' Time Out
Originally published by Mandarin Books in 1996, now available in a revised, ebook edition from AMAZON
