Coronet Books
9 total works
London, 1888. Tessa d'Arblay is the 22-year-old daughter of an eccentric widower-clergyman living in the East End. The household is managed by her even more eccentric aunt, a situation that leads Tessa to seek the help of one Dr. Segal, a noted Victorian brain specialist. Her innocent enquiries draw her into a bizarre and ultimately horrific sequence of events.
Through Dr. Segal, she meet the strangely compelling Dante Rosen, a successful artist and member of the Oscar Wilde set. Another of her new acquaintences, budding actress Connie Saunders, warns Tessa against any involvement with Rosen, whom she thinks of as Satan made flesh. But Tessa comes to believe Segal is the evil influence, not her beloved Dante. Too late she learns the dreadful truth, more appalling than even Connie Saunder's wildest imaginings...
For more information and a full bibliography visit www.malcolmmacdonald.org
Clive Mortimer - an aspiring politician and son of a wealthy Midlands industrialist, and Freddy Oxley - a mere apprentice - seem the unlikeliest of friends. But something in their past exerts a mysterious power over them. And it is not just Anne Howard, the maidservant who loves and is loved by both - yet cannot find happiness with either.
Travelling to the Cape, the lush jungles of Venezuela, Imperial Vienna, the Ottoman court and the Carribean, the trio seek to create perfect lives for themselves. Yet inexorably their past catches up with them and when a long-delayed time bomb threatens their ruin, the solution they devise is the most astonishing twist of all.
It is the 1920s, an age of innovation and daring in transportation both on the road and in the air. At the forefront of motor-car development is Somerville's - to own a Somerville-bodied Rolls-royce is every man's dream. But when George Somerville has an accident that leaves him paralysed, the future of the firm looks uncertain. George has no sons old enough to manage the firm. He does, however, have a wife.
Defying general skepticism and her own doubts, Julia gradually takes control, warding off takeover attempts with breathtaking skill and cunning. In Eliot Baring, an American employee and a brilliant airplane engineer, she sees a new future for Somerville's and, perhaps, for herself.
Together they take Somerville's into the skies where competition is fierce and enemies common. But the skies darken as fascism spreads across Europe and Julia's conscience becomes ever more important in Somerville's future. Beset on all sides, deserted by her colleagues - and lovers - her future looks bleak until help comes from the most unexpected quarter.
England in 1839. A time of change, upheaval and limitless possibility. Every new mile of railroad track and every belching smokestack is a sign of the advancing age of opportunity, where fortune awaits those with the courage and determination to seize it.
""Lord John"" Stevenson is the clever, ruthless and hugely popular foreman working on a project to build the world's longest railway tunnel. A near-fatal accident brings the waifish buyet savvy Nora Telling into his life. Together with an ill-married couple, Walter and Arabella Thornton, they risk everything in their quest to achieve the wealth and power they so desperately desire. Their relentless ambition sets them on a path that will lead to fame, fortune and the founding of a dynasty.
For more information and a full bibliography visit www.malcolmmacdonald.org.
Abigail Stevenson is beautiful and talented, passionate and headstrong. Her parents, in reaction to their own struggle out of poverty, have brought her up to the innocence and idleness that are the privilege of the Victorian ruling class; but Abigail will have none of the cloistered aristocratic life they intend for her.
From the moment she tricks her maid, Annie, into divulging the secret of what happens between men and women, Abigail's life becomes a voyage of discovery.
This is both a gripping and passionate story of one woman's fight to free herself from the shackles of her social class and an electrifying vision of the Victorian era.
"Boy" Stevenson and his brother Caspar have a problem: they are the two eldest sons of John Stevenson, one of the richest men in the world. Their mother, Nora, also has a considerable private fortune of her own. By their own skill, by luck, and by ruthlessness, they made their way to the top of the money tree. But Society has been slow to accept them, for in early Victorian England all the money in the world could not guarantee entry into the exclusive inner world of privilege.
John believes that Society will eventually accept them, but only if they behave absolutely correctly; none of them must step out of line, not even to flout the most trivial of conventions. Nora is not willing to pay so high a price. And Caspar, as he grows up, finds himself increasing rebelling against the neat army career his father has decreed for him. Casper's older brother, Boy, is by contrast the soul of convention. His one aim in life is to obey his father and to do his duty. Yet, by an astonishing chain of events he, too, is led into open defiance of John.
These tensions, which threaten to tear the family apart link the many separate dramas of the story as these four utterly different people cope with the love-hates of family life.
FROM THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND where beautiful and passionate young Catherine Hamilton fled her father's wrath and her own uncontrollable desires.
TO THE GREAT CANADIAN PLAINS where Catherine came during a raging epidemic of Spanish flu and took as her lover the town doctor she was aiding at the hospital, a married man old enough to be her father - then defied him by marrying his fiercely ambitious, hard-driving son.
TO A WHOLE WORLD OF JOY AND SADNESS, TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY, WAR AND PEACE in this exciting novel by the bestselling creator of the Stevenson saga.
For more information and a full bibliography visit www.malcolmacdonald.org
Frank Morgan, captain of the bargue Pegasus, always claimed he had two wives. The deeply respectable Hilda back in north London - and the sea.
But in the spring of 1885, outward bound for Boston with a cargo of cheap furniture and poverty-stricken Irish emigrants, a new and overwhelming emotion enters his iron-disciplined life.
Teresa O'Dee is young, lovely and with a spirit that awakens unnerving, long-buried memories of times past.
A the age of sail gives way finally to steam, everything in Frank Morgan's life is about to change...
When Mary Flinders sets off on a journey that will take her from the quiet Irish countryside to the bustle of London, she has little idea of the new life about to begin. Protected on the way by the good natured navvy Steam Punch, on arriving in London she nevertheless soon falls under the sway of the captivating Lord Tottenham, who quickly introduces her to the more sordid delights of city life.
But it is with silent engineering genius Matt sullivan that Mary finds both true love and a successful business partner. Basing their talents and fortune on England's rapidly developing canal networks, Mary and Matt become a willing part of the adventurous times. Duels, races and tests of courage between both aristocrats and common men alike - all play their part in this tale of adventure and romance in 18th century England.