A young woman's coming-of-age in 1920, the royal tour of Edward, Prince of Wales, and the secrets that surface more than seventy years later. "A perfectly heartbreaking tale of royalty, lies, and friendship."--Kristin Harmel, author of The Room on Rue Amélie Australia, 1920. Seventeen-year-old Maddie Bright embarks on the voyage of a lifetime when she's chosen to serve on the cross-continent tour of His Royal Highness, the dashing Edward, Prince of Wales. Life on the royal train is luxurious beyond her dreams, and the glamorous, good-hearted friends she makes--with their romantic histories and rivalries--crack open her world. But glamour often hides all manner of sins. Decades later, Maddie lives in a ramshackle house in Brisbane, whiling away the days with television news and her devoted, if drunken, next-door neighbor. When a London journalist struggling with her own romantic entanglements begins asking Maddie questions about her relationship to the famous and reclusive author M. A. Bright, she's taken back to the glamorous days of the royal tour--and to the secrets she has kept for all these years.
Mary-Rose MacColl Bücher
Mary-Rose MacColl ist eine australische Schriftstellerin, deren Werke oft unbekannte oder übersehene Geschichten mit einem scharfen Blick für Details und psychologischer Tiefe erforschen. Ihre Prosa zeichnet sich dadurch aus, dass sie den Leser in das Herz historischer Ereignisse zieht und Menschlichkeit unter extremen Umständen offenbart. MacColl konzentriert sich auf starke weibliche Charaktere und ihre Widerstandsfähigkeit angesichts von Widrigkeiten. Ihr Schreiben wird für seine Authentizität und seine Fähigkeit, weniger bekannte Geschichtskapitel zu beleuchten, gefeiert.
From the author of the international bestseller In Falling Snow. In 1925, a young woman swimmer will defy the odds to swim the English Channel--a chance to make history. London 1925: Fifteen-year-old Catherine Quick longs to feel once more the warm waters of her home, to strike out into the ocean off the Torres Strait Islands in Australia and swim, as she's done since she was a child. But now, orphaned and living with her aunt Louisa in London, Catherine feels that everything she values has been stripped away from her. Louisa, a London surgeon who fought boldly for equality for women, holds strict views on the behavior of her young niece. She wants Catherine to pursue an education, just as she herself did. Catherine is rebellious, and Louisa finds it difficult to block painful memories from her past. It takes the enigmatic American banker Manfred Lear Black to convince Louisa to bring Catherine to New York where Catherine can train to become the first woman to swim the English Channel. And finally, Louisa begins to listen to what her own heart tells her.