A Grand Affair

Fans of Louise Douglas, Dinah Jeffries and Kristin Hannah will love this compelling and enthralling read from bestselling author Charlotte Bingham. The 1950s are brought vividly to life - as is the real battle between desire and duty that Ottilie faces. A real page-turner! 'The author perfectly evokes the atmosphere of a bygone era... ' -- Woman's Own 'This is great summer escapism from an award-winning romantic novelist' -- CHOICE 'I couldn't put it down' -- ***** Reader review 'Absolutely riveting' -- ***** Reader review 'A wonderful read' -- ***** Reader review ******************************************************************************* SOME THINGS NEED SAVING...BUT AT WHAT COST? Ottilie Cartaret is born in London into a family of boys dominated by their genial mother, Ma O'Flaherty. For the first four years of her life, all Ottilie knows is love until, that is, the erring father of the boys, sends enough money from America for the O'Flahertys to move to what Ma imagines will be rural bliss in Cornwall. True, St Elcomb is by the sea and in 1950s Britain is certainly rural but, for the O'Flahertys, it is not bliss. Never mind their poverty - the enmity of the local people is what proves insuperable. Ottilie is ultimately adopted by Mr and Mrs Cartaret, a wealthy couple who run the Grand Hotel in St Elcomb. Here she becomes pampered and spoilt, not just by her adopted parents but by all the visitors to the hotel. Times however are changing and not just for Ottilie but for the hotel too, and as the regulars to the now decaying hotel die off, the Cartarets find they are unable to adapt to modern ways. There is no doubt that Ottilie is their greatest asset and they live to rejoice in the day they adopted but is Ottilie perhaps expected to sacrifice too much herself to save the Grand?

Look for A Christmas Affair, the exciting new novel from Jodi Thomas, available from HQN books Oct 1, 2017. Pre-order your copy today!

A Wall Street Journal and Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year | Long-listed for the Plutarch Award A bold new biography of the legendary painter John Singer Sargent, stressing the unruly emotions and furtive desires that drove his innovative work and defined the transatlantic, fin de siècle culture he inhabited. A great American artist, John Singer Sargent is also an abiding enigma. While dressing like a businessman and crafting a highly respectable persona, he scandalized viewers on both sides of the Atlantic with the frankness and sensuality of his work. He charmed the nouveaux riches as well as the old money, but he reserved his greatest sympathies for Bedouins, Spanish dancers, and the gondoliers of Venice. At the height of his renown in Britain and America, he quit his lucrative portrait-painting career to concentrate on allegorical murals with religious themes—and on nude drawings of male models that he kept to himself. In The Grand Affair, the historian Paul Fisher offers a vivid life of the buttoned-up artist and his unbuttoned work. Sargent’s nervy, edgy portraits exposed illicit or dark feelings in himself and his sitters—feelings that high society on both sides of the Atlantic found fascinating and off-putting. Fisher traces Singer’s life from his wandering trans-European childhood to the salons of Paris, and the scandals and enthusiasms he caused, and on to London. There he mixed with eccentrics and aristocrats, and the likes of Henry James and Oscar Wilde, while at the same time forming a close relationship with a lightweight boxer who became his model, valet, and traveling partner. In later years, Sargent met up with his friend and patron Isabella Stewart Gardner around the world and devoted himself to a new model, the African American elevator operator and part-time contortionist Thomas McKeller, who would become the subject of some of Sargent’s most daring and powerful work. Illuminating Sargent’s restless itinerary, Fisher explores the enigmas of fin de siècle sexuality and art, fashioning a biography that grants the man and his paintings new and intense life.

She wants an affair... Maggie, Lady Parker desires a man, but she's not willing to leave freedom in Surrey to find scandal in London. Widowed for years, she wants to conduct a big enough scandal that a gentleman might come calling merely to see if the rumors about her are true. He wants a shot at Parliament... Stephen Tarkington is a self-professed rogue but if he had his way, he'd be a philanthropist. The only thing prohibiting his dream is his lack of sponsorship for a spot in Parliament. Marrying Lady Parker's niece could solve his problem. Sometimes the heart wants more... Imagine his surprise when he meets the widow and she's not an old bird he can charm. She's vibrant, sharp-tongued and enchanting to boot. Passion flares between them, and Stephen gives up on his plan... in search of a more pleasurable gamble. Maggie is immediately drawn to the charming, handsome gentleman, but will a simple affair fulfill her needs? A scrape with public scandal will toss them into a situation that may just satisfy both of their secret desires.

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David Beer¿s A Grand Affair transforms the way we see hotels. From the first step through the front door into the lobby, on to the bars, guest rooms, spas, swimming pools, and even the private apartments above, he provides an insider¿s view of what makes for a successful hotel, whether modest or grand luxe.A Grand Affair is an elaboration of the lectures that Beer, an architect and designer, gave at the Harvard Graduate School of Design for many years, enlivened by delightful, quirky anecdotes about the adventures and misadventures he experienced while traveling the world to work on projects.He sits next to Princess Diana¿s sacrosanct corner table at The Ritz Restaurant in London, admires the extravagant hats worn by ladies around the Cipriani pool in Venice (illustrating the fact that not all swimming pools are meant for a swim), and proves that you do not have to be an emperor to have a swinging time in the imperial suite at Le Grand Hotel in Rome, even when you¿re on a budget.He takes the reader to a balcony far above the Aegean Sea on Mount Athos where he drinks wine with the monks of Simonopetra, and to a third-class car on the Orient Express where he travels standing-room-only from Paris to Rome. After one too many martinis at the old Ritz Bar in Paris he misses the wedding of the ambassador¿s daughter at the Madeleine. He enjoys the Duchess of Windsor¿s favorite drink, Dubonnet and gin, in her apartment at the Waldorf Towers; sits alongside Ingrid Bergman on a terrace in Taormina; and in a Palm Desert club is bemused when Mamie Eisenhower shows him her vast collection of pastel-colored slacks, neatly arrayed in an immense walk-in closet.A rich and provocative book, A Grand Affair will not only beguile those who love staying in hotels but also chronicle the exciting life David Beer led during the golden age of travel, when it was still possible to visit the world¿s great sites with nary a tourist in sight.

Reproduction of the original: Secret Societies by David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, Edward Beecher