The wickedly funny sequel to the MI5 and Me, described by Tatler as 'a stone cold comic classic', following the irrepressible Lottie's adventures in 1950s LondonLondon in the 1950s. Lottie is a reluctant typist at MI5 and the even more reluctant daughter of the organisation's most illustrious spy. Now she has had the bad luck to fall in love with Harry, a handsome if frustrated young actor, who has also been press-ganged into the family business, acting as one of her father's undercover agents in the Communist hotbed of British theatre.Together the two young lovers embark on a star-studded adventure through the glittering world of theatre—but, between missing files, disapproving parents, and their own burgeoning creative endeavours, life is about to become very complicated indeed...

The deliciously funny confessions of a debutante which became an international bestsellerFresh from convent school, Charlotte Bingham finds herself propelled from the private tortures of dancing class to the very public horrors of The Season. Though desperately on the hunt for a Superman to call her own, the freezing country house ballroom circuit seems to yield nothing but an inexhaustible crop of charmless, chinless young types known as Weeds. But Charlotte's adventures are more than sufficiently diverting: whether she's bouffing up her hair to try and pass herself off as a beatnik, fighting off unwelcome advances in the back of a cab, hurtling down the Champs Elysées on the back of a Vespa, or accidentally sticking her eyelids together with eyelash glue while at modelling school, her experiments in coming-of-age are never short of intrigue - and disaster. Published in 1963 when she was just nineteen, Bingham's sparkling memoir...

The Merriott sisters are born into a comfortable middle-class life and their house, situated on the edge of Richmond Park, is full of fun and laughter. But then Letty, the fourth girl, arrives and tensions suddenly appear in the once happy home. For unbeknownst to the sisters, much depended on the new baby being born a boy -- not least the happiness of their parents' marriage. Letty has a beautiful face but a withered arm and while the girls and their mother can accept and love her as their own, her father's resentment of her is tantamount to dislike.It is only when Aunt Rosabel, their mother's great-aunt, arrives for Christmas that all their fortunes change. Within months the Merriotts find themselves living in a great house, Merrylands in Wiltshire, with the promise of everything they, but most of all their father, have ever wanted. Unfortunately, Aunt Rosabel is not what she seems and before long the family find themselves worse off than they have ever been.

It is late autumn, 1962, and darkness is falling, but not just over the idyllic fishing port of Bexham. The threat of atomic warfare is so real that people are taking their children to work, or staying home with their families as they face what they think might be the end of the world. For some, the threat is all the more bewildering as they struggle to understand the new generation of the Sixties, a generation for whom they made so many wartime sacrifices, for whom they had such high hopes. No sooner has the threat of nuclear war seemed to have passed than Judy, Mathilda and Rusty are facing a new, personal crisis brought about by their teenage children. Much as Waldo Astley would like to remain on the sidelines, he finds it impossible, and this too brings about bitter opposition from those caught up in the near-tragedy. Still grieving for his lost wife, he tries his best to help his three friends, only to find himself falling in love with one of them. Meanwhile the younger...

It is 1941, and England is at its lowest ebb, under-nourished, under-informed and terrified of imminent invasion. Even at Eden Park, the beautiful country estate where Poppy, Lily, Kate, Marjorie and her adopted brother Billy are working in espionage, confidence is at an all-time low, and that is before the authorities discover there is a double agent operating from its MI5 unit. Lily volunteers to be dropped into France, only to find herself linked to Poppy's husband Scott. Meanwhile, Kate's lover Eugene is in Sicily to sabotage the bombers besieging Malta while her mother is recruited to work for Jack Ward, known affectionately as 'the Colonel'. As further agents are wiped out by the informant at Eden Park, Poppy leaves to train as a pilot. But as she closes the wooden shutters at the House of Flowers, the old folly where she and Scott began their married life, she realises that they were made over a century before to keep out another invader. England survived then, and...

A compelling love story set in Cornwall from the bestselling Charlotte BinghamWhen the famous portrait artist Napier Todd stumbles across Edith Hanson scrubbing floors, he is immediately struck by her beauty. Within a few weeks Napier and Edith are married and she moves into his large country house—much to the envy of the other maids. However the marriage is troubled and Edith falls seriously ill. Napier takes her to the idyllic Cornish fishing village of Newbourne to convalesce where Edith meets Celandine. Celandine Benyon is a struggling artist who moved to Paris to seek inspiration and fell in love with another painter, Sheridan Montague Robertson. The couple eloped to Gretna Green after Celandine was disowned by her mother, and together they set up home in Newbourne. Because Celandine understands Napier's artistic temperament, she tries to help Edith with her troubled marriage. However, although her advice succeeds beyond Edith's wildest dreams, it also causes...

When Cassie Rosse becomes the first woman to train an English Derby winner, with her home-bred horse The Nightingale, she has every right to believe that success is hers at last. Indeed, as she leads in her winner and raises her eyes to heaven, calling to her dead love Tyrone 'We did it!', she knows that this success is as much Tyrone's as it is hers. For it was to his Irish family home of Claremore that he brought Cassie as a young bride, and it is from Claremore that Cassie has at last stormed home to win a place in the history books. Now all she has to do is enjoy her success and retire The Nightingale, since, as a stallion, he is worth millions to her. But life will never be simple for Cassie Rosse, not just because she is unable to move out from the long shadows cast by the early death of her husband, nor because she has an indomitable will to win, but because she has integrity. Against all advice, therefore, she decides to keep The Nightingale in training and race him as...

A century ago, marriage, and marriage alone, offered a nicely brought-up girl escape from the domination of her parents. Indeed it was the only path to freedom. That path led her to a Season in London and, the ultimate goal, Coming Out as a debutante. But along the way she had to survive a terrifying few months, a make-or-break time in which her family's hopes for her could only be fulfilled through a proposal of marriage.For Lady Emily Persse, Coming Out means leaving her beloved Ireland and its informalities for England and its stricter codes. For Portia Tradescant, released from the boredom of life in the English countryside, it means trying to get through the Season despite the best efforts of her eccentric Aunt Tattie. For beautiful May Danby, the Season is an entrée to a whole other life, worlds away from her strict convent upbringing in Yorkshire.Debutantes, Charlotte Bingham's delightful and stylish new saga, centres around a single London Season in the 1890s. But...

Elizabeth Laurence is astoundingly beautiful. So beautiful she has never known what it is to have even a plain day. Used to the admiration of all, it seems that she will always be in charge of her own destiny. A star from the first minute she appears on celluloid, her future is certain, until she is cast opposite Jerome Didier in a hit play. As staggeringly handsome as she is beautiful, and tipped to become the leading actor of his generation, Jerome would appear to be made for Elizabeth.But Jerome has fallen in love with the tousle-haired and carefree Pippa Nicholls, who is neither conventionally beautiful nor an actress and, much to Elizabeth's fury, he marries her. They are set to live happily ever after -- until the playwright Oscar Greene creates a part for Elizabeth which she intuitively recognizes is based on the character of Pippa, and Jerome is tragically deceived by the duplicity of his art.

A deeply moving love story in the tradition of Charlotte Bingham's bestselling novels.Anyone arriving to stay at Stoke Park in Worcestershire could be forgiven for thinking that the house has a timeless quality. Certainly this occurs to Frederick Jourdan, the American composer who has rented the place to escape from overwork and from his well-meaning but exhausting fiancée. He revels in the peace and beauty of the place, until, early one morning, happening upon the heartstopping sight of the reclusive young occupant of the nearby Folly feeding deer at early dawn, he finds his life has been changed forever. Time has indeed stood still for Fleur Fisher-Dilke, but for reasons that the new tenant of Stoke Park cannot possibly guess. Born to an ambitious surgeon and his social-climbing wife, as a child Fleur was moved to Worcestershire for the sole purpose of improving the family's social prospects. Quite by chance, however, she finds she has a prodigious gift, and in spite of...

It is the summer of 1939, and like the rest of Europe, the residents of the little idyllic Sussex fishing port of Bexham are preparing for war. Beautiful but shy Judy Melton, daughter of a naval war hero, her determinedly feckless friend, the social butterfly Meggie Gore-Stewart, seemingly demure Mathilda Eastcott, and Corrie Hogarth, the tomboy daughter of the owner of the local boatyard, are all in their very individual ways determined to play an active part in the defence of their country. Knitting socks and bomb-dodging is not what they have in mind for themselves while their husbands and brothers, fathers and lovers are away fighting. But attitudes to women's roles in a warring world are difficult to change, and at first all four find it impossible to settle for the traditional kind of work that their families envisage. However, it is not just the young women of Bexham who are determined to find new roles for themselves - so are their mothers. In this manner the little...

As children, George Dashwood and Amelia Dennison loved to roam the Sussex Downs in company with their dogs, and just as their two very different families were friends, so too were they, until they are caught in a thunderstorm. Sheltering from the elements, the now mature George realizes that what he feels for Amelia is more than friendship. But it is 1914 and the declaration of war cuts across any romantic plans that the two might have.George is away at the Front for four years, and when the miracle happens and he returns home safely, it seems to Amelia and to both of their families that all they have to do is to marry. But Amelia quickly realizes that the George she loved as a child has gone.Amelia knows nothing about marriage. She loves George but she cannot get George to love her. It isn't until they are touring the West Country and they come across an old ruined priory with a magical atmosphere which they decide to buy that their chance for happiness becomes a reality. It...

Charlotte's new romantic bestseller set in the glamorous world of the theatre in the 1950sIn the 1950s, when Britain was still recovering from the effects of the war, the only people in society who could be said to have a glamorous lifestyle were the very wealthy, the aristocracy, and people who worked in the theatre. Elsie Lancaster is the granddaughter of a hardened old professional actress who runs a seaside boarding house. Oliver is the third son of an Catholic aristocratic Yorkshire family whose mother has run off, so the theatre-mad butler has brought him up like a son to be a Great Actor. Coco Hampton, Oliver's best friend, has been raised in Sloane Street by Gladys, her profligate guardian, who is always borrowing money from Coco to buy more clothes. Gladys and Oliver have been fans of the theatre since they were knee-high, but Coco has only ever wanted to be a designer. When Coco joins Oliver at his drama school in London, to his chagrin she promptly gets cast in...

As Walter Berrisford paints beautiful Katherine Garland, she asks him to put a ladybird on her finger without his knowing why. He is appalled when he discovers that Katherine is a Nazi. The outbreak of war means that her sister Caro and her friend Robyn join the FANYs, while former maids, Betty and Trixie, work in a factory. War brings frantic romance to all, including their flatmate Edwina O'Brien, but it is Betty, transferred to decode at the Park that alone discovers the truth about the Ladybird.

When Kathleen finds a mare in foal, despite the fact that she and her father can barely afford to feed her, they take her in. Tragically the mare dies, leaving an orphan that they name The Enchanted. As the young horse grows up among Ireland's lush pastures, Kathleen loses her heart to him... But as Kathleen has always feared The Enchanted must be sold. Rory James and his father take a chance on the little horse in the hope of improving the fortune of their run-down racing yard. But luck does not run Rory's way when The Enchanted mysteriously sickens. It seems that only Kathleen can help. And it is only under her care that The Enchanted is able to live up to his name and astonishing things start to happen to all those around him.