Fay Weldon

In this novel, Fay Weldon explores the lives of three friends: Majorie, Grace and Chloe, who met as children during the evacuation of wartime London. Their unusual friendship survives despite shared lovers, turbulent marriages, and clamouring children.

From the award-winning novelist and writer of Upstairs Downstairs, the launch of a brilliant new trilogy about what life was really like for masters and servants before the world of Downton Abbey As the Season of 1899 comes to an end, the world is poised on the brink of profound, irrevocable change. The Earl of Dilberne is facing serious financial concerns. The ripple effects spread to everyone in the household: Lord Robert, who has gambled unwisely on the stock market and seeks a place in the Cabinet; his unmarried children, Arthur, who keeps a courtesan, and Rosina, who keeps a parrot in her bedroom; Lord Robert’s wife Isobel, who orders the affairs of the household in Belgrave Square; and Grace, the lady’s maid who orders the life of her mistress. Lord Robert can see no financial relief to an already mortgaged estate, and, though the Season is over, his thoughts turn to securing a suitable wife (and dowry) for his son. The arrival on the London scene of Minnie, a beautiful Chicago heiress with a reputation to mend, seems the answer to all their prayers. As the writer of the pilot episode of the original Upstairs, Downstairs—Fay Weldon brings a deserved reputation for magnificent storytelling. With wit and sympathy—and no small measure of mischief—Habits of the House plots the interplay of restraint and desire, manners and morals, reason and instinct.

Once again the acclaimed British author of Rhode Island Blues and Big Girls Don't Cry draws us into an unmistakably wild, rollicking tale full of her trademark satirical wit and sharp observation. Grace McNab Salt is the recently divorced wife of the millionaire Barley Salt, who has married Doris Dubois, the sexy, young host of TV's Artsworld Extra. The novel opens with Grace emerging from jail where she was sent for trying to run Doris over with her Jaguar in a supermarket parking lot in an act of revenge. All three attend a London charity ball, and in typical Weldon fashion the meeting turns everyone's lives upside down. Weldon's world is one of torrid affairs, lovers' spite, and revenge. Full of clever women, breathless romance, insistent desires, and even a dose of the supernatural, The Bulgari Connection is a boisterously witty and stylish novel. The publication of The Bulgari Connection created a whirl of controversy when a front-page New York Times article revealed that Weldon received an undisclosed sum of money from the famous Italian jeweler for a prominent place in her novel. The debate about the legitimacy of commercially sponsored literature has been heating up ever since.

Ruth Patchett never thought of herself as particularly devilish. Rather the opposite in fact -- simply a tall, not terribly attractive woman living a quiet life as a wife and mother in a respectable suburb. But when she discovers that her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy that she becomes truly diabolic. Within weeks she has burnt down the family home, collected the insurance, made love to the local drunk and embarked on a course of destruction and revenge. A blackly comic satire of the war of the sexes, LIFE AND LOVES OF A SHE DEVIL is the fantasy of the wronged woman made real.

Fay Weldon takes “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” to dazzling new heights in this quintessential novel about a wife’s revenge Ruth loves her husband, Bobbo, a handsome, successful accountant. But Bobbo has fallen in love with Mary Fisher, a bestselling romance novelist who lives in a high tower overlooking the sea, pampered by her young, virile manservant. Mary is petite, dainty, and lovely. He tells Ruth about his affair and when Ruth reacts badly, he promptly moves out. In turn, Ruth decides to orchestrate a fiendish and masterful revenge.  The Life and Loves of a She-Devil is a masterpiece about love, hate, infidelity, corrosive envy, and the best kind of revenge.

'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 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 by feeding her experimental new drugs? Was Ted's death intended? Such suspicions make Philly doubt her own sanity – yet something about her new marriage doesn't quite ring true... Witty, unnerving and surreal, this is Fay Weldon at her best.

You've written a book, triumphantly typed 'The End', but now, it seems, no-one wants to publish it. What do you do next? Don't give up: ask yourself what went wrong, then do something about it. Author of over thirty novels, stories and screenplays, and tutor on the prestigious creative writing course at Bath Spa, Fay Weldon has a lifetime of wisdom to impart on the art of writing. Why Will No-One Publish My Novel? will delight and amuse, but it isn't just another how-to-write handbook: it shows you how not to write if you want to get published.