Wendy Holden

A love so strong, a king renounced his kingdom--all for that woman. Or was she just an escape route for a king who never wanted to rule? Bestselling author Wendy Holden's new novel takes an intimate look at the inner workings of one of the most notorious scandals of the 20th century. 1928. A middle-aged foreigner comes to London with average looks, no money and no connections. Wallis's first months in the city are lonely, dull and depressing. To the lively American woman, the British seem cold and have an impenetrable social code. With no friends of her own she follows the glamorous set in magazines and goes to watch society weddings. Her stuffy husband Ernest's idea of fun, meanwhile, is touring historic monuments. When an unexpected encounter leads to a house party with the Prince of Wales, Wallis's star begins to rise. Her secret weapon is her American pep, honesty and lack of deference. For the prince she is a breath of fresh air; she, for her part, encourages his ambition to modernize the monarchy. As her friendship with David--as his friends call him--grows, their relationship deepens into love. Wallis is plunged into a world of unimaginable luxury and privilege, enjoying weekends together at his private castle at Windsor. Wallis knows the fun and excitement can't last. David will have to marry and she will return to Ernest. The sudden death of George V seems to make this inevitable; David is now King. To her shock and amazement, however, he refuses to give her up. Starting to discuss marriage, he refuses to recognize that they are facing impossible odds. Her fairy tale becomes a nightmare. The royal family close ranks to shut her out and Ernest gives an ultimatum. Wallis finds herself trapped. Faced with an intractable Parliament, David insists on abdicating his throne. He won't give her up and she can't escape the overwhelming public outrage. Villainized, she becomes the woman everyone blames, the face of the most dramatic and extraordinary royal scandal of the twentieth century.

The Duchess

"Sunday Times bestselling author Wendy Holden brings to life the unknown childhood years of one of the world's most iconic figures, Queen Elizabeth II, and reveals the little-known governess who made Britain's queen into the monarch we know today. In 1933, twenty-two-year-old Marion Crawford accepts the role of a lifetime, tutoring their Royal Highnesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. Her one stipulation to their parents the Duke and Duchess of York is that she bring some doses of normalcy into the sheltered and privileged lives of the two young princesses. At Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Balmoral, Marion defies oppressive court protocol to take the girls on tube trains, swimming at public baths, and on joyful Christmas shopping trips at Woolworth's. From her ringside seat at the heart of the British monarchy she witnesses the upheaval of the Abdication and the glamour and drama of the 1937 Coronation. During the war, as Hitler's Heinkels fly over Windsor, she shelters her charges in the castle dungeons (not far from where the Crown Jewels are hidden in a biscuit tin). Afterwards, she is there when Elizabeth first sets eyes on Philip. But being beloved governess and confidante to the Windsor family has come at a cost. She puts her private life on hold until released from royal service following Princess Elizabeth's marriage in 1947. In a majestic story of love, sacrifice, and allegiance, bestselling novelist Holden shines a captivating light into the years before Queen Elizabeth II took the throne, as immortalized on the popular television series The Crown"--

A Novel of Queen Elizabeth II's Childhood

The Royal Governess

Marthe Cohn

An inspirational memoir chronicles the exploits and experiences of a young Jewish woman who ventured behind enemy lines and masqueraded as a German nurse searching for her soldier boyfriend among Nazi forces in order to acquire critical information about German troop movements for the allies. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany

Behind Enemy Lines

The Sunday Times bestseller now updated with a new foreword Among millions of Holocaust victims sent to Auschwitz II-Birkenau in 1944, Priska, Rachel, and Anka each passed through its infamous gates with a secret. Strangers to each other, they were newly pregnant, and facing an uncertain fate without their husbands. Alone, scared, and with so many loved ones already lost to the Nazis, these young women were privately determined to hold on to all they had left: their lives, and those of their unborn babies. That the gas chambers ran out of Zyklon-B just after the babies were born, before they and their mothers could be exterminated, is just one of several miracles that allowed them all to survive and rebuild their lives after World War II. Born Survivors follows the mothers' incredible journey - first to Auschwitz, where they each came under the murderous scrutiny of Dr. Josef Mengele; then to a German slave labour camp where, half-starved and almost worked to death, they struggled to conceal their condition; and finally, as the Allies closed in, their hellish 17-day train journey with thousands of other prisoners to the Mauthausen death camp in Austria. Hundreds died along the way but the courage and kindness of strangers, including guards and civilians, helped save these women and their children. Sixty-five years later, the three 'miracle babies' met for the first time at Mauthausen for the anniversary of the liberation that ultimately saved them. United by their remarkable experiences of survival against all odds, they now consider each other "siblings of the heart." In Born Survivors, Wendy Holden brings all three stories together for the first time to mark their seventieth birthdays and the seventieth anniversary of the ending of the war. A heart-stopping account of how three mothers and their newborns fought to survive the Holocaust, Born Survivors is also a life-affirming celebration of our capacity to care and to love amid inconceivable cruelty.

The incredible true story of three pregnant mothers and their courage and determination to survive in the concentration camps

Born Survivors

The Teacher of Auschwitz

TREAT YOURSELF to a sparkling romantic comedy... Last of the Summer Moët is a bottle of champagne in book form! 'Effing marvellous' JILLY COOPER. 'Funny and smart' INDIA KNIGHT. 'Total bliss' DAILY MAIL. Wendy Holden's warm and funny comic heroine Laura Lake is back. And this time, she's gone rural... Laura Lake, editor of glossy magazine Society, is always on the hunt for scandalous scoops to fill her pages. Now she's discovered a top-secret village in the English countryside where the rich and famous own weekend retreats. Where film stars, Turner-prize winners and billionaires park their helicopters outside the gastropub and buy £100 sourdough loaves from the deli. Outsiders are strictly forbidden. But luckily Laura's best friend Lulu, a logo-obsessed socialite with a heart as huge as her sunglasses, suddenly fancies a quiet life in the country... But life in this enchanted rural idyll is harder than it looks. A brawl at the world's poshest pub quiz nearly brings down the government. And gossip from rehearsals of the midsummer pantomime threatens to tear the village apart... Can Laura write her exposé before the snobbish villagers blow her cover and suss her true identity? WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT WENDY HOLDEN: 'A brilliant, funny read ... Perfect escapism from the daily grind' 'Move over Sophie Kinsella - there's a new Chick Lit queen in town' 'Escapism in its purest form ... A little gem' 'Pure fun, escapism and self indulgence. Delicious!'

A sparkling rom-com that will make you laugh out loud

Last of the Summer Moët

Patricia Gucci

"The gripping family drama--and never-before-told love story--surrounding the rise and fall of the late Aldo Gucci, the man who is responsible for making the Italian fashion label the powerhouse it is today, told by his daughter. Patricia Gucci was born a secret: the love child whose birth could have spelled ruination for her father, Aldo Gucci. It was 1963, and the halcyon days for the "must-have" brand of Hollywood and European royalty. Patricia's mother gave birth in secret in London before she was smuggled back to Vatican City and hidden from the fashion world, the media, and the rest of the Gucci family. Aldo couldn't afford a public scandal, but he could not resist his feelings for Patricia's mother, Bruna, the paramour he first met when she worked for him as a shopgirl in Rome. In In the Name of Gucci, Patricia Gucci charts her parents' untold love story, relying on her own childhood memories as well as an archive of love letters and interviews with her mother. She interweaves her parents' story with that of her own relationship with her father--from a little girl who remained a secret for eighteen months and wasn't publicly acknowledged for her first decade, through her rise to become Gucci's ambassador and Aldo's protaegae, to the moment when his three sons, who betrayed him in a famous palace coup, were disinherited and Patricia--once considered the shame of Gucci--was made sole universal heir. It is an epic tale of love and loss, betrayal and loyalty, sweeping among Italy, England, and America throughout the tumultuous years during the rise and fall of the House of Gucci"--

A Memoir

In the Name of Gucci

Rita Mae Brown

In small-town Crozet, Virginia, Harry Haristeen is kindling her romance with veterinarian Fair when their bliss is threatened by the murder of Professor Vincent Forland, a world-renowned grape and fungal expert visiting local vineyards, a crime in which Harry's curious pets--Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker--stumble upon the first clue. 75,000 first printing.

Sour Puss

When her gorgeous and wealthy boyfriend asks her to move out, aspiring novelist Anna takes a job as a nanny for a family she considers horrible, and meets Jamie, a handsome heir to a Scottish castle who might be too good to be true.

Bad Heir Day

Princess

'A modern day Jilly Cooper' Glamour. Another fabulous novel from bestselling author WENDY HOLDEN. For fans of MARRYING UP. When Mary meets Monty, heir to a stately pile, happiness seems assured. But as the mansion crumbles, passion wanes along with the heating. Banker's wife Beth swaps Notting Hill for weekends at a bijou cottage. They only offered a smidgeon over the asking price. So why don't the locals like them? Eco-harridan Morag is the terror of the village, with her objections to everyone and everything. Über-WAG Alexandra needs a footballer's mansion and fast. There must be a Hello!-tastic country pile with spa, champagne bar and parking for six SUVs somewhere? Ambitions clash when the village launches an allotment project and no one escapes the bitter struggle over sex, power and money which threatens to blight more than everyone's carrots.

Filthy Rich

Artist Rosie dreams of a peaceful country cottage. Meanwhile, a fantastically nosy postman, a ferret-racing former Bond girl, a ghost with a knife in its back & handsome but hermit-like rock star conspire to ensure that life and love are never the same again.

A Comedy of Country Manors

Pastures Nouveaux

A comedy of love, royals and rampant social climbing from Sunday Times bestselling author, WENDY HOLDEN. For fans of GALLERY GIRL and BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. She stopped at nothing. To get everything. Scheming social climber Alexa may be humbly born. But she's a class-hopping cruise missile aimed at the very top of the gold-digging tree. Only a title, mansion and family tiara will do. Befriending feckless aristo Florrie (three surnames plus black hole where her brain should be) means the grandest doors swing open and the prince of her dreams is in sight. But has Florrie's mother, the formidable Lady Annabel, rumbled what Alexa is up to? Beautiful but penniless student Polly, meanwhile, is in love. Is Max, the handsome young vet she's found in a country lane, quite as ordinary as he seems, however? Passionate love, eye-widening snobbery and more than naked ambition abound in this contemporary Cinderella tale - a deliciously satirical novel of the upwardly mobile.

Marrying Up

Four women cope with celebrity-adjacent life in London and Hollywood.

Beautiful People

The Wives of Bath

Inspired by the True Story

Governess

Edna Adan Ismail

The Midwife Who Built a Hospital and Changed the World

Woman of Firsts

"In 1933, a progressive young teacher became governess to the little Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. Determined to give her pupils a fun and normal childhood, she took them on buses, swimming at public baths and Christmas shopping at Woolworths. For seventeen years she served at the heart of the royal family. But her devotion and loyalty count for nothing when a perceived betrayal brings everything crashing down ..." --

Vinda Do Nada Para Criar Uma Rainha

Marion

In this novel, bestselling author Wendy Holden brings to life the unknown childhood years of one of the world's most famous figures, Queen Elizabeth II, and reveals the spirited young governess who made her the icon we love today.

Wendy Holden

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