Three novelists, each from a different generation and with a substantial following of his own, have contributed a novella to this volume. All three stories focus on the shadowy side of their characters' lives. The theme of secret lives, hidden and unknown to others, runs throughout the text.

Secret Lives: Three Novellas

KING, FRANCIS

Wakefield, Tom

GALE, Patrick

Constable and Company Ltd.

<p>It is 1942, and the sleepy English village of Padmore has been hit with a bomb in the shape of the new schoolteacher, Kay Roper. Forthright, eccentric, her face made up in "glorious Technicolour," Miss Roper has the villagers in thrall. Her girls worship the ground she walks on, the women hang on her every word, and the men languish in the trail of her Parisian perfume.<br>But questions surround her: Why does a well-bred woman have an ointment for crabs at the ready when a colleague runs screaming from the school toilets? How can she breed sexual revolution yet never be seen to practice it? Why does she rail against "the gangrene of fascism" yet fraternize with the Italians in the local POW camp? These paradoxes, so tantalizing and liberating for the inhabitants of Padmore, unravel years later to reveal that Kay Roper had more secrets than anyone dreamed.<br>Selected as one of the Books of the Year by London's Daily Telegraph, War Paint is a compelling, compassionate, and refreshingly witty novel centered around one of the most unforgettable characters to emerge in recent fiction.</p>

War Paint

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

St.Martin's Press

It is 1942, and the sleepy English village of Padmore has been hit with a bomb in the shape of the new schoolteacher, Kay Roper. Forthright, eccentric, her face made up in "glorious Technicolour," Miss Roper has the villagers in thrall. Her girls worship the ground she walks on, the women hang on her every word, and the men languish in the trail of her Parisian perfume. But questions surround her: Why does a well-bred woman have an ointment for crabs at the ready when a colleague runs screaming from the school toilets? How can she breed sexual revolution yet never be seen to practice it? Why does she rail against "the gangrene of fascism" yet fraternize with the Italians in the local POW camp? These paradoxes, so tantalizing and liberating for the inhabitants of Padmore, unravel years later to reveal that Kay Roper had more secrets than anyone dreamed. Selected as one of the Books of the Year by London's Daily Telegraph, War Paint is a compelling, compassionate, and refreshingly witty novel centered around one of the most unforgettable characters to emerge in recent fiction.

Genre Fiction

St. Martin's: Griffin

"A novelist who knows exactly what he's doing and does it resoundingly well." Peter Ackroyd Henry Checket and Peggy Thurston have been forgotten by society. They spend their final years in an old people's home run by the domineering Veronica Fairhurst. Each brings a past life that they neither want nor are able to forget. As their relationship develops, they each discover much about their true selves, including a shared inclination to rebellion.

Lot's Wife (U)

Humor & Satire

Ulverscroft

Forties' child

Routledge& Kegan Paul

Special school

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

Routledge and K. Paul

Some Mothers I Know: Living with Handicapped Children

Some Mothers I Know: Living With Handicapped Children

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Taylor & Francis Books Ltd

He's much better, he can smile now: Children learn to live

David&Charles

In the mining village of Padmore, years after the death of local school teacher, Miss Roper, a question mark hangs over her head: who was she, who was the father to whom she devoted herself, and was her friendship with the Italians in the local POW camp allit seemed?

Allison Busby

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