Ann Widdecombe's The Clematis Tree opens deceptively with a party in a sunny Surrey garden. It is a happy day, with relations and friends celebrating the christening of Mark and Claire's new daughter, Pippa. Jeremy, their young son, spots a pet rabbit racing across the large garden and rushes through the main gate and out into the lane. A speeding sports car knocks him down and although Jeremy survives, he is now severely brain-damaged. Widdecombe shows how a middle-class couple and their family are forced to cope with a catastrophe they never imagined could happen to them. Although also drawing on her parliamentary knowledge, The Clematis Tree is about people - at work, on holiday, living day by day - and how they, in their different ways, react when death threatens. What is Claire's guilty secret, she who is so outwardly efficient in dealing with Jeremy in his utterly dependent state? Mark ponders escape, but has he the nerve? Does the attention lavished on Jeremy foster Pippa's resentment? Can Claire's wealthy, self-made father provide a solution? And what effect does Claire's younger sister, Sally, an MP, have when she launches a Private Member's Bill that would legalise euthanasia?

Clematis Tree

Widdecombe, Ann

Literature & Fiction

Weidenfeld Nicolson Ltd

Catherine Dessin is 15 and still at convent school when the Germans enter Paris in 1940. Her parents are patriots and she is taught to hate the enemy, but two years later she falls in love with a senior and married German officer, defying the anger of her family and friends.Catherine grows up abruptly when Klaus, the German officer, realizes the evil of the regime he is serving. Klaus now struggles with his own conflict of loyalties—between Catherine and his family and between his patriotic duty and his hatred of Nazism.

An Act of Treachery

Literary

Orion Publishing

Klaus-Pierre is the love-child of a young Frenchwoman and a senior, married German officer. Klaus-Pierre never knew his father, who was killed before he was born, and his mother was rejected by her family of patriots and resistance workers. Cared for by his German family, Klaus-Pierre is loved and happy—but as he grows up in a Europe where old enemies are learning to cooperate, he tries to make his own "Act of Peace" with his French relatives. The result is a horrifying confrontation between the two families when they meet in Provence.

An Act of Peace

Jason Kirk is a thirty-two year old teacher who believes he is happily married, until he returns home one day to find that his wife has left him, taking their two young children with her. Suddenly Jason finds the role of father denied to him as he is separated from his children and reduced to the role of visitor. The law is weighted against him, and his wife produces a series of excuses to withhold contact. Jason, who had wanted to bring his children up on a daily basis, not only has to face the pain of this loss but endures the misery of persecution by the Child Support Agency.

Father Figure

Contemporary

For many years Ann Widdecombe was best known as a forthright Member of Parliament and for her broadcasting and journalism. Her popular success on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing transformed that perception as literally millions of viewers followed her each week on the 2010. These are the memoirs of a woman who joined the old Conservative party in 1964, was politically formed by the 1970s, and saw Thatcherism from the inside in the 1980s—then ministerial office and later the Shadow Cabinet. It is also a book for people who struggle with moral dilemmas even if they are not converts to Roman Catholicism like Ann: for those who love the countryside and for those who like to be highly entertained by some trenchant views on the Coalition, Fathers 4 Justice, the MPs' expenses scandal, and the state of the nation.

Strictly Ann

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Magna Large Print Books

orion#

Genre Fiction

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Books by Widdecombe, Ann

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Widdecombe, Ann. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Clematis Tree

An Act of Treachery

An Act of Peace

Father Figure

Strictly Ann

Strictly Ann

An Act of Treachery

An Act of Treachery

Father Figure

An Act of Peace