Juliet Stevenson
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On a dark midwinter's night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, a wounded stranger carries in the lifeless body of a small child. Hours later the girl stirs, and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Magic? As the days pass the child remains mute and unable to answer questions. Three families are keen to claim her: the wealthy mother of a kidnapped daughter missing for two years; a farming family sure it is their son's secret daughter; a parson's housekeeper,...
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"Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker--a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable...
5) Persuasion
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Austen's last novel is the crowning achievement of her matchless career. Her heroine, Anne Elliot, a woman of integrity, breeding and great depth of emotion, stands in stark contrast to the brutality and hypocrisy of Regency England. Includes a new Introduction by Margaret Drabble, famed novelist and editor of The Oxford Companion to the English Language.
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It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.
7) Belgravia
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"On the evening 15 June 1815, the great and the good of British society have gathered in Brussels at what is to become one of the most tragic parties in history -- the Duchess of Richmond's ball. For this is the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, and many of the handsome young men attending the ball will find themselves, the very next day, on the battlefield. For Sophia Trenchard, the young and beautiful daughter of Wellington's chief supplier, this night...
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Ten years on from her last novel, Edna O'Brien reminds us why she is thought to be one of the great Irish writers of this and any generation. When a wanted war criminal from the Balkans, masquerading as a faith healer, settles in a small west coast Irish village, the community are in thrall. One woman, Fidelma McBride, falls under his spell and in this astonishing novel, Edna O'Brien charts the consequences of that fatal attraction. The Little Red...
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Appears on list
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""Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." It's one of the most famous opening lines in literature, that of Virginia Woolf's beloved masterpiece of time, memory, and the city. In the wake of World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic, Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party and remembering those she once loved. In another part of London, Septimus Smith is suffering from shell- shock and on the brink of madness....
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Recruited into MI5 against a backdrop of the Cold War in 1972, Cambridge student Serena Frome, a compulsive reader, is assigned to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer whose politics align with those of the government, a situation that is compromised when she falls in love with him.
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From the thrilling imagination of bestselling, award-winning Colm Toibin comes a retelling of the story of Clytemnestra -- spectacularly audacious, violent, vengeful, lustful, and instantly compelling -- and her children. In House of Names, Colm Toibin brings a modern sensibility and language to an ancient classic, and gives this extraordinary character new life, so that we not only believe Clytemnestra's thirst for revenge, but applaud it. He brilliantly...
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Albert Pierrepoint (Timothy Spall) finds great success as Britain's most famous public executioner and his notoriety rises to a new level after he is selected to hang Nazi war criminals after the Nuremberg trials. The experience changes him, and he begins to question the morality of his vocation at the same time that abolitionists begin a campaign to end hanging.
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When Julia Reynolds talks her husband into a family vacation on the beautiful island of Malta she has a secret agenda: a date made twenty-five years ago with her first love. But when the sexy Frenchman shows up, insisting she's his true love, she discovers a side of her husband she never expected. The flat-footed insurance man sets out in search of his own Malta romance, and is soon dancing the salsa with an ex-chorus girl. A movie for anyone who...
14) Being Julia
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Julia is a true diva: beautiful, talented, wealthy and famous. She has a devoted husband who has masterminded her brillant career - but after years of the spotlight she begins to suffer from a severe case of boredom and longs for something new and exciting to put the twinkle back in her eye. She finds what she is looking for in a handsome young American fan, who adds a few more sparks than Julia was hoping for.
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Delighted to be invited to the wedding of Gwenda, her former housemaid, Miss Marple travels to the isolated island where Gwenda lives with her fiancé, Leo Argyle, and his grown children. Though they are happy for their father, the Argyles are still reeling from the murder of their mother and the execution of their brother Jacko for the crime. Then a stranger arrives who exonerates Jacko, leading all to realize that the real murderer is still in their...
16) The March
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A charismatic, Gandhi-like leader emerges from the refugee camps to lead a million starving Africans on an epic march from Sudan into Europe, under the banner "Watch Us Die". When they reach their destination, the authorities' reaction is both predictable and violent.
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Three generations of women, all with the same name, rid themselves of their unwanted husbands one by one and each in the same way: they drown them. The local coroner agrees to declare each of the deaths accidental in return for sexual favors. But when things don't go exactly as planned, he devises a final game that could result in the undoing of them all.
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"The "wickedly offbeat" (Parade), contemporary mystery series follows the adventures of newly promoted Detective Sergeant Matilda Stone and her three crime-writing aunts as they solve murders in the picturesque English region of Wildemarsh. Though Matilda's strict boss warns her that homicides are police-only matters, her aunts can't help but offer their expertise, as well as unsolicited dating advice. As Matilda contends with a novelist killed during...