A crumbling castle, an eccentric and slightly mad family, and intricate plotting in a Medival fantasy series about a remote earldom is the perfect antidote to stressful holidays.
Need to escape into a different world after talking politics over the Thanksgiving table–or even harder, avoiding talking politics across the Thanksgiving table? Then it’s time to visit Gormenghast, the ancestral home of the ancient Groan family who lived in a wild and isolated landscape. Written by author and artist Mervyn Peake, the books in the series are Titus Groan, published in 1947, Gormenghast (1950), and Titus Alone (1959). Peake died while writing Titus Awakes, the fourth book. His widow, artist Maeve Gilmore, completed the book sometime in the 1970s but the manuscript wasn’t discovered and published until 2011.
According to its Wikipedia citation, “The series has been included in Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels and 100 Must Read Fantasy Novels as one of the greatest fantasy works of the twentieth century. Literary critic Harold Bloom has praised the series as the best fantasy novels of the 20th century and one of the greatest sequences in modern world literature.”
Available on Amazon, find a cozy corner to escape contemporary 21st post-election American angst and whisk yourself away to Castle Gormenghast.
The books are also available on Kindle and Audible.
Amber Patterson lied and seduced her way to displace Jackson Parrish’s wife Daphne, snagging the rich and ruthless millionaire to become his wife. But the passion that fueled their relationship barely lasted past the birth of their son Jax and by the time Jackson is sent to prison for tax evasion, and the money needed to fund their ultra-glamorous lifestyle has almost run out, Amber is plotting the next phase of her life. And it doesn’t include either Jackson or Jax, who she finds adorably cute but rather obnoxious in all his demands for her time and attention. But then what are live-in nannies for?
When Amber discovers the valuable diamonds Jackson had hidden away she thinks all her problems are solved. Even with an unknown provenance—these very rare stones net Amber $14 million and she still has a few secreted away for a rainy day.
That day may be coming sooner than she expects. She has her ticket to Paris booked and is planning on leaving the country before Jackson is released from prison. Unfortunately for her, Jackson gets home days early and discovering her plans, blackmails her into staying and helping him win back Daphne who has moved across country to protect their two daughters from their father.
But Jackson isn’t Amber’s only problem. She has risen from her blue-collar roots by guile and murder. She tried to trick a wealthy local man to marry her by getting pregnant and when he refused, she sets him up for a rape charge and sends him to prison. Stealing money from her parents, she jettisons the care of her young son (yes, her maternal instincts are nil) and finagles her way into marrying a rich older man who dies shortly afterward in a mysterious hunting accident. “I thought he was a deer,” she told the authorities. They believe her, but the man’s daughter, Daisy Ann, is on the hunt for evidence that it was no accident.
As if that wasn’t enough to fuel bad blood between the two women, Daisy Ann had her father change his will to protect the family fortune from his new wife. All that plotting for nothing. So when she snags Jackson, her next step is break into the high society of Bishop’s Harbor where Daphne reigned as queen. But when she is publicly humiliated by Daisy Ann who owns an exclusive line of handcrafted jewelry based upon her mother’s artistic designs, Amber becomes determined to acquire the business.
As if all this conniving isn’t enough, Amber and Jackson have set Daphne up to look like an addict who can’t adequately care for her children. When Jackson wins temporary custody, he forces Daphne to move back into the home they once shared. When she refuses to sleep with him, he makes it clear that her life depends upon her changing her mind.
Though The Next Mrs. Parrish is a sequel to the million-copy, bestselling Reese’s Book Club pick The Last Mrs. Parrish (also available on Audible), it also is a stand-alone novel. Full of the plot twists and turns that fans of Liv Constantine, the pen name of sisters Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine, have come to expect and they deliver.
The two sisters have produced a plethora of bestselling novels like The Stranger in the MirrorandThe Wife Stalker. And like those, this is a page turner and immensely readable.
“Horses are healing,” says Eliza Jane Brazier, author of “Girls and Their Horses”(Penguin-Random House), as she walks her horse around the arena while we talk on the phone. Brazier, who first started riding when she was five and has worked as a horse trainer, riding instructor and a head wrangler at a dude ranch, reconnected with her sport and those feelings helped her cope with the death of her husband.
“I have a horse in my backyard,” she says with a laugh about Tennessee, the draft horse she owns.
But the love of horses and the pursuit of championships along with the status of the horse owners in the rarefied air of Rancho Santa Fe Equestrian in exclusive Rancho Santa Fe, California can be much more toxic than healthy. This isn’t a jeans and cowboy boots sort of group hanging out in a drafty old barn with straw-covered dirt floors. The equestrian center is all stone and wood beams and the “barn moms” who gather there like it’s a social club can sum the cost of clothes that a new arrival like Heather Parker is wearing just by one quick glance (lucky for Heather she’s wearing an $800 blouse) and how much she’s worth by learning her address.
And Heather is worth a lot. Her husband stopped telling her how much he was making when it topped $150 million. But money doesn’t make Heather secure, it frightens her. She has other reasons to worry as well. She’s unable to stop her marriage from slipping away, her younger daughter Maple was brutally bullied when they lived in Texas and her older daughter Piper hates the move.
Their new home is so large that it’s easy to get lost and Heather also carries the scars of her impoverished upbringing and the abandonment by her father.
She’s determined to make life perfect for her children and she believes that joining the Rancho Santa Fe Equestrian will do just that, creating a bonding experience and also helping her relive and recreate her past. She still feels the pain of losing her barn family when her father left and they no longer had money. She lost friends and overnights and all the things that had made her happy. Now she has the money to give her kids what she missed and is still pining for after all these years.
Oh, if only it were that easy.
Her first day at the barn, Heather meets Pamela who takes her in hand. But Pamela has a hidden agenda. Her bank account is filled with nothing but fumes and she sees the rich Parkers as a way to help keep her in good graces with the barn’s owner so she can remain a member. And like Heather, she has a complicated back story as well.
Add to that, Maple doesn’t like horses. And Piper is jealous because Maple gets a horse the costs seven figures. It’s all so complicated.
And it becomes even more so when a mysterious death occurs in the barn.
Brazier’s opening chapter sums up the atmosphere of the rich barn culture perfectly.
“Oh, I can tell you exactly what happened,” replied the tiny young girl in an expensive riding habit told the police who had been waiting for her to finish her competition at an international horse show when asked if she knew of the murder and what had occurred in the first chapter of the book. “Do you have a mother?” Indeed, this is a wickedly fun murder mystery where the mothers are often more driven for their daughters to succeed than the girls are themselves. “Horses are like mirrors.
They reflect all the good parts and the bad parts of ourselves back at us,” is a quote from the book.
“It’s a mean girl kind of place,” says Brazier who is training in show jumping when she’s not writing mystery novels. “And things go deeper and deeper as time goes on.”
London, 2017. There’s no one Lucille adores more than her grandmother (not even her mother, she’s ashamed to say). So when her beloved Granny Sylvie asks Lucille to help secure the return of something precious to her, she’s happy to help. The next thing she knows, Lucille is on a train to Paris, tasked with retrieving a priceless Dior dress. But not everything is as it seems, and what Lucille finds in a small Parisian apartment will have her scouring the city for answers to a question that could change her entire life.
Jade Beer. Holly Clark Photography.
Paris, 1952. Postwar France is full of glamour and privilege, and Alice Ainsley is in the middle of it all. As the wife to the British ambassador to France, Alice’s job is to see and be seen—even if that wasn’t quite what she signed up for. Her husband showers her with jewels, banquets, and couture Dior dresses, but his affection has become distressingly illusive. As the strain on her marriage grows, Alice’s only comfort is her bond with her trusted lady’s maid, Marianne. But when a new face appears in her drawing room, Alice finds herself swept up in an epic love affair that has her yearning to follow her heart…no matter the consequences.
In her novel The Last Dress From Paris, Jade Beer makes the City of Lights come alive as she weaves a lush, evocative story of three generations of women, love, and a fashion scavenger hunt. It is also an exploration of the ties that bind us together, the truths we hold that make us who we are, and the true meaning of what makes someone family.
2022 actually marks the 75th anniversary of Dior, and the collection of dresses featured in the novel are inspired by an exhibit Beer saw at the V&A in London.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jade Beer is an award-winning editor, journalist, and novelist who has worked across the UK national press for more than twenty years. Most recently, she was the editor-in-chief of Condé Nast’s Brides. She also writes for other leading titles including The Sunday Times Style, The Mail on Sunday‘s YOU magazine, The Telegraph, the Tatler Weddings Guide, Glamour,Stella magazine, and is one of The Mail on Sunday’s regular fiction and nonfiction book reviewers. Jade splits her time between London and the Cotswolds, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.
This book is available in the following formats: Kindle, Audiobook, Hardcover and Paperback.
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