Fay Weldon CBE was an award-winning author and self-declared feminist. Weldon's work features what she described as "overweight, plain women" – as she deliberately sought, she said, to write about and give a voice to women who are often overlooked or not featured in the media. She said there were many reasons why she became a feminist, including "appalling" lack of equal opportunities and the myth that women were supported by male relatives.This co...

'A tour de force'The Times'Intoxicating'Daily Telegraph'Devilishly delightful'New York Times Book Review'Beautifully and compellingly written'Sunday Express'ONE OF OUR VERY BEST WRITERS' Sunday TimesTHE BESTSELLING CLASS...

'It was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring... except a clot of blood, creeping up from Ted's leg to his brain, to kill him as he slept...'Recently widowed Philly keeps dreaming of her dead husband Ted – strange dreams of a paranormal alternate reality: why is her new husband Robbie so interested in them? He works for a mysterious genetic research company called Portal Inc.But what exactly is Robbie's job? Did he seduce Philly ...

Your writer, in conjuring this tale of murder, adultery, incest, ghosts, redemption and remorse, takes you first to a daffodil-filled garden in Highgate, North London, where, just outside the kitchen window, something startling shimmers on the very edges of perception. Fluttering and chattering, these are our kehua - a whole multiplying flock of Maori spirits (all will be explained) goaded into wakefulness by the conversation within.Scarlet - a long-legged, skinny young woman of th...

In Fay Weldon's 1983 classic, The Life and Loves of a She Devil, women fought men for power and won. But in 2018, the fight continues on a new front...Ruth Patchett, the original She Devil, is eighty-four and keen to retire. She has worked hard to make the world as she wants it: women triumphant, men submissive. Now she is tired. Her business is done. The mantle of power and influence is up for grabs.Who can take up the role? Valerie Valeria, hot-s...

A pregnant woman takes a husband in Edwardian London in this witty novel of love, death, and aristocracy by the author of The Life and Loves of a She-Devil."A daredevil combination of farce and satire, pathos and bathos, written in a post-modernist, self-referential style, which effervesces its eccentric way through . . . pages that carry shades of Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh, P. G. Wodehouse, and John Fowles." — The Times Literary Supplement...

Here are three great historical novels in one volume.HABITS OF THE HOUSE: Fay Weldon takes us inside an aristocratic household -- upstairs and downstairs -- in the last three months of the nineteenth century. Tea gowns are still laced with diamonds; there are still nine courses at dinner, but bankruptcy, war and social unrest loom.THE SILVER THREAD: London, 1840. A young woman boards a prison ship bound for the other side of the world. Weaving death, love and adventure, The...

'She's a Queen of Words' CAITLIN MORAN.'One of the great lionesses of modern English literature' HARPER'S BAZAAR.'Readable, articulate and fascinating' THE SCOTSMAN.'Outrageously funny' DAILY EXPRESS.'Sharp, witty, incisive' THE TIMES.'Wise, knowing, forthright' INDEPENDENT.Reviewers have been describing Fay Weldon's inimitable voice for years. Now, here is Fay Weldon in her own words. Choosing and and introducing twenty-one of her favourite ...

How many parents does it take to make a baby? In the case of Rosalind Melrose Smithson it took four: one birth mother; one legal father; one interfering neighbour and one turkey baster filled with the defrosted essence of an anonymous donor.Or not so anonymous as it turned out. For donor no. 116349, '6ft 1in, blue eyes, blond hair, BA (Oxon), action man...' is the 9th Earl of Dilberne, who gave his seed back in 1979 as a stripling of twenty-two, and has now conceived a daughter – u...

December 1901: With London Society in a frenzy of anticipation for the coronation of the new king, Edward VII, the Earl and Countess of Dilberne are caught up in lavish preparations. Yet Lady Isobel still has ample time to fret, and no wonder with a new heir on the way, an elopement, family tragedy, a runaway niece, and a gaggle of fraudulent spiritualists to contend with...With her trademark joie de vivre, Fay Weldon once again draws her readers into the lives and loves of the ari...

From the award-winning writer of Upstairs Downstairs , the second novel in a trilogy about an earl's family and his servants in the early twentieth century.As 1901 comes to an end, there is much to be grateful for: The Dilberne fortune has been restored, and the grand Dilberne Court, with its one hundred rooms, has been saved. Lord Robert's son, Arthur, is happily married to Chicago heiress, Minnie, who is pregnant and tr...

"Wickedly funny satire of modern love, work, and parenthood . . . deft plot twists and a final delicious surprise"—from the New York Times Notable author ( People).Fay Weldon lets her incisive wit loose on a hot issue facing many modern families—child care, and what can happen when that involves having a nanny under your roof. Hattie and Martyn are the proud parents of newborn Kitty; both are in their early thirties, smart, handsome, and, for reasons of li...