Showing results by author "James MacManus" in All Categories

It’s January 1941, and the Blitz is devastating England. As America maintains its isolationist position, Churchill knows that Britain is doomed without its powerful ally. Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt’s most trusted adviser, is sent to London as his emissary and comes face to face with the prime minister himself and an attractive and determined young female driver who may not be what she seems.

Berlin, 1938: Newly appointed military attaché Noel Macrae and his extrovert wife, Primrose, arrive at the British embassy. Prime Minister Chamberlain is intent on placating Nazi Germany, but Macrae is less so. Gathering vital intelligence, Macrae is drawn to Kitty Schmidt's Salon - a Nazi bordello - and its enigmatic Jewish hostess, Sara Sternschein, who is a treasure trove of knowledge about the Nazi hierarchy in a city of lies, spies and secrets. Does she hold the key to thwarting Hitler?

Alison Spedding is a loner - no real friends, no boyfriend and a job in which she goes unnoticed. At 32, her only passion is bird-watching. One afternoon, high on a Scottish mountain, earnestly waiting for the rarest of sights - a white tailed eagle returning to its nest - she slips, falling silently. In shock, her fellow twitchers return to the hostel to raise the alarm, heavy with the realisation that she must be dead. What they find shocks them even more. Alison is already there, alive and unscathed.... 

In 1942, Cork-born Kay Summersby’s life is changed forever when she is tasked with driving General Eisenhower on his fact-finding visit to wartime London. The pair takes an immediate liking to one another, and so begins a tumultuous relationship against all military regulations. Kay becomes known as 'Ike’s shadow', but that does not stop him from using his influence to grant Kay US citizenship. When the US authorities discover Eisenhower’s plans, Kay is forced to take desperate measures to hold on to the man she loves....

A fictional biographical slice of Baudelaire's life and love with his famous Haitian muse, Jeanne Duval, Black Venus captures the artistic scene in the great French capital city, at a time when the likes of Dumas and Balzac argued literature in the cafés of the Left Bank. Among the bohemians, the young Charles Baudelaire stood out, dressed impeccably thanks to an inheritance that was quickly vanishing.