Joanna Trollope Books

1988--As the rumblings of dissent and racial resentment began to erupt into a savage war between Boer and Briton, so three young men found their lives drawn together. Matthew Paget, son of an archdeacon, was turbulent, rebellious, and longing for excitement. Throwing away all the privileges that could have been his, he enlisted as a trooper--only to find himself loving the beautiful war-torn country of Africa and finally falling in love with a girl on the enemy side. Will Marriott, his cousin, was an officer who believed in England's greatness and the glory of battle. But as his comrades were maimed and killed, as he himself was wounded, and then betrayed by a one-time friend, so his values began to change. The one thing that never changed was his love for Frances, Matthew Paget's sister. Hendon Bashford was an upstart social climber, a swindler and a cheat. Half English, half Boer, he owed allegiance to no one while creating havoc in the lives of more honourable men. As the passage of war unfolded, so the lives of these three young men, and women they loved, moved towards a tumultuous climax.

On the fifteenth of February, 1879, the day on which Queen Supayalat of Mandalay ordered eighty members of of royal family to be clubbed to death, Maria Beresford celebrated her twenty-first birthday. On that day Maria knew nothing of Mandalay, the fairy-tale City of Gems. The selfish, difficult but heart-stoppingly beautiful daughter of a failed tea-planter in India devoted herself to pleasure. But when her father was sent to Burma, and she had to accompany him, she became embroiled in an exotic world of political intrigue. Her friendship with the Queen - a dangerous and unpredictable figure - and her growing closeness to Archie Tennant, a young man who has come east to seek his fortune after the ruin of his family business, brought her both danger and the key to her destiny.

Vanity Fair, Thackeray's panoramic, satirical saga of corruption at all levels of English society, was published in 1847 but set during the Napoleonic Wars. It chronicles the lives of two women who could not be more different: Becky Sharp, an orphan whose only resources are her vast ambitions, her native wit, and her loose morals; and her schoolmate Amelia Sedley, a typically naive Victorian heroine, the pampered daughter of a wealthy family. Becky's fluctuating fortunes eventually bring her to an affair with Amelia's dissolute husband; when he is killed at Waterloo, Amelia and her child are left penniless, while Becky and her husband Rawdon Crawley rise in the world, managing to lead a high life in London solely on the basis of their shrewdness. (The chapter entitled "How to Live on Nothing" is a classic.) Thackeray's subtitle, "A Novel Without a Hero," is understating the case; his view of humanity in this novel is distinctly bleak and deliberately antiheroic. Critics of the time misunderstood the book, decrying it as (among other things) vicious, vile, and odious. But VANITY FAIR has endured as one of the great comic novels of all time, and a landmark in the history of realism in fiction.

The Taverners had lived at Buscombe, the mellow stone manor house in Wiltshire, for generations. They had farmed the land and sent their sons to war (and even, latterly, to commerce) in a way of life that seemed timeless. But in 1870 a new generation is about to take control - Tom Taverner, dedicated, impulsive, deeply caring about his inheritance, and his sister Catherine, intelligent, humorous, but frustrated by the limited opportunities open to women in a man's world. Tom marries, and agricultural depression hits the estate. And suddenly it seems that everything which was so secure can no longer hold. Stretching in time from the 1870s to the outbreak of the second world war, and in distance from Crete to East Africa, this warmly satisfying novel is a triumph of storytelling.

This novel explores the myths, the realities and the difficulties of trying to deal simultaneously with present relationships, past relationships and, above all, with other people's children.

A sweeping historical from the national bestselling author of Marrying the Mistress and Other People's Children. A young woman living in a crumbling villa on the Mediterranean island of Malta endures the deprivation and devastation of wartime bombing -- and learns that while life doesn't always go as planned, neither does love....

A romantic saga set in Florence at the turn of the century, telling the story of a young English girl growing up, falling in love and trying to escape her fortune-hunting husband. Caroline Harvey is a pseudonyn of Joanna Trollope, author of "A Legacy of Love" and "A Second Legacy".

"What a mess, she thought now . . . what a bloody, unholy mess the whole family has got itself into." It's been 25 years since Gus and Monica left England to start a new life in Spain, building a vineyard and wine business from the ground up. However, when Gus suffers a stroke and their idyllic Mediterranean life is thrown into upheaval, it's left to their three grown-up children in London to step in . . . Sebastian is busy running his company with his wife, Anna, who's never quite seen eye-to-eye with her mother-in-law. Katie, a successful solicitor in the city, is distracted by the problems with her long-term partner, Nic, and the secretive lives of their three daughters. And Jake, ever the easy-going optimist, is determined to convince his new wife, Bella, that moving to Spain with their 18-month-old would be a good idea. As the children descend on the vineyard, it becomes clear that each has their own idea of how best to handle their mum and dad, as well as the family business. But as long-simmering resentments rise to the surface and tensions reach breaking point, can the family ties prove strong enough to keep them together?

The Reverend Henry Harding was a handsome and prepossessing man. Unfortunately fate had seen fit to bless him with a family of extremely plain and unprepossessing children. Caroline was the least plain, according to Lady Lennox, but the entire Lennox family also admitted that Caroline was the least significant person in Dorset. Caroline, already twenty-six and bullied by her sister, was nervous in company and had no prospects at all. She had one golden memory, of an admirer when she was eighteen, but John Gates, nephew to the Lennox family, had gone to India and forgotten her. Or so she thought. When Caroline was summoned by Lady Lennox to be told that Johnny Gates had sent a proposal of marriage, Caroline first declined. But within a few weeks tragedy had overtaken her. The little security and contentment she had known vanished from her life and left her no option but to accept Lady Lennox's offer. In the October of 1776, Caroline Harding set sail for India, to a new life and a man she had not seen for eight years.