The Captive Heart

by Jessica Stirling

Published 12 April 2004

World War One ended well for the Franklins, prosperous Clydeside shipbuilders. But trouble is brewing behind their respectable facade...

Rebellious teenager Maeve McCulloch has arrived from Ireland to stay with the Franklins, much to the dismay of her aunt Lindsay. Maeve's mother caused nothing but grief and heartache for Lindsay and it seems that Maeve may do the same.

Meanwhile, Lindsay's husband has been swept off his feet by the wealthy and manipulative Stella Pickering. And Lindsay herself is torn between love and loyalty when handsome navy hero Geoffrey Paget unexpectedly walks back into her life.

As the slump of the 1920s begins to bite on Clydeside, troubles both financial and personal invade all their lives. Once again Jessica Stirling has evoked a whole world at the moment when - for better or worse - it is about to change forever.

Then the slump of the 1920s begins to bite in Glasgow and troubles both financial and personal invade all their lives.


Shamrock Green

by Jessica Stirling

Published 7 February 2002

An explosive and unforgettable story of love and war, following on from the saga begun in The Piper's Tune.

The marriage of Sylvie and Gowry McCulloch was hardly a match made in heaven and has gone through difficult times. Settled now in Dublin, they have a daughter, Maeve, whom they both love dearly. Sylvie presides over the respectable Shamrock Hotel while Gowry is a driver for Flanagan's bus company.

When Francis Hagarty explodes into their lives, however, everything changes for the worse. Fran is a journalist and gunrunner and hides a shipment of smuggled arms in the Shamrock. Gowry discovers them and, sensing danger, is furious.

But Sylvie has already fallen in love with Fran and is soon swept into an illicit affair. Trapped in a tangle of subversion that he has resisted all his life, Gowry is forced to flee Dublin and become caught up in the war in Europe.

Read the continuing story in The Captive Heart...


The Piper's Tune

by Jessica Stirling

Published 6 May 1999

Jessica Stirling's Glasgow comes to scintillating life in the story of love and fortune set in Edwardian Scotland, the first in a trilogy.

Lindsay Franklin's life is an adventure she has just begin to enjoy. At eighteen, Arthur Franklin's cosseted daughter has left her Glasgow school and finds her role as a marriageable young lady with a widowed father more than agreeable.

But Lindsay's life takes an unexpected turn when her ambitious, charming Irish cousin Forbes comes to Glasgow to join the family business. And then Lindsay's grandfather, the founder and dictator of the business, decides to retire and hand over his shipyard to the new generation. Unexpectedly, a share in the business will be Lindsay's - and equally unexpectedly, she decides that she must master that business as carefully as her male cousins. What is not surprising is that several eligible men decide that it is time to master Lindsay...

As the mysteries of shipbuilding open to her, and the puzzle of male behaviour becomes both more fascinating and more dangerous, Lindsay will have to make some fateful decisions. Decisions that will make or mar her whole future.