by Weldon, Fay
We hope you enjoyed this book.
Fay Weldon
More books by Fay Weldon
An invitation from the publisher
First published in Great Britain in 1996 by Flamingo
First published in the UK in 2013 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Fay Weldon, 1996
Cover image © SniegirovaMariia
The moral right of Fay Weldon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781781857977
Head of Zeus Ltd
Clerkenwell House
45-47 Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.headofzeus.com
Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Copyright
About this Omnibus
Now in her ninth decade, Fay Weldon is one of the foremost chroniclers of our time, a novelist who spoke to an entire generation of women by daring to say the things that no one else would. Her work ranges over novels, short stories, children’s books, nonfiction, journalism, television, radio, and the stage. She was awarded a CBE in 2001.
Comprising 14 novels and 3 short story collections, the most comprehensive omnibus of the wickedly witty Fay Weldon available.
Contains: Down Among the Women; Female Friends; Little Sisters; Praxis; Polaris; The Shrapnel Academy; The Rules Of Life; The Heart of the Country; Leader of the Band; The Cloning of Joanna May; Darcy’s Utopia; Moon Over Minneapolis; Growing Rich; Life Force; Splitting; Wicked Women; Worst Fears.
Also by Fay Weldon
Down Among the Women
“Down among the women. What a place to be!”
Wanda has raised her daughter Scarlet to be as tough and independent as she is. When Scarlet finds herself a single parent at the age of twenty, she is frightened.
Her friends are no happier: Sylvia, a born victim; respectable Jocelyn, hopelessly trapped in her dull, bourgeois existence; Audrey, who finally breaks out of her conventional life; and Helen, beautiful, vibrant, and doomed.
Can these women break the straps of convention and become who they really want to be?
Set in 1970s London, following the lives of a group of friends, this comic and classic novel is about identity, friendship and what happens when women turn on each other.
To read Down Among the Women, click here.
Growing Rich
A turbine-driven fantasy of love and revenge, values and morals.
Carmen is sixteen when she catches Bernard Bellamy’s eye. Unfortunately for Carmen, Bernard has just made a deal with the devil: his mortal soul in exchange for the fulfilment of all his desires. And he wants Carmen to be his wife.
Carmen is not so easily swayed, but can she resist all the obstacles – and temptations – the devil can throw at her?
To read Growing Rich, click here.
Little Sisters
Elsa, who has not a penny to her name except the scrapings from last week’s pay packet, goes with her rich, 48-year-old friend and employer, Victor, to spend her 19th birthday in the household of his millionaire friend, Hamish.
Elsa’s not really very good at typing, though she tries. Would she do better as a good-time girl? A weekend in the country with her suave new lover and his millionaire rifiends prioves that life and love are both more magical and more murderous than Elsa had ever supposed, and that the sixties are better escaped than returned to…
To read Little Sisters, click here.
Praxis
A portrait of a woman through time. Controversial, disturbing and witty—Fay Weldon’s most ambitious novel.
Praxis Duveen is a truly modern heroine, buffeted and battered by life, by women and by men, by herself – wry, funny, pretty innocent, knowing – yet surviving. Her story begins in the 1920s in the seaside town of Brighton. When we leave her in the in 1970s, in London, she has become – despite herself – a world-famous women’s leader.
To read Praxis, click here.
The Cloning of Joanna May
Joanna May thought herself unique, indivisible – until one day, to her hideous shock, she discovered herself to be five: though childless she was a mother; though an only child she was surrounded by sisters young enough to be her daughters – Jane, Julie, Gina and Alice, the clones of Joanna May.
How will they withstand the shock of first meeting? And what of the avenging Carl, Joanna’s former husband and the clones’ creator: will he take revenge for his wife’s infidelity and destroy her sisters one by one?
To read The Cloning of Joanna May, click here.
The Rules of Life
A voice beyond the grave provides us with the rules of life, love and laundry.
Gabriella Sumpter is dead. But in 2004, her voice returns, from beyond the grave, to recall the details of what she calls “the course of a selfish and most agreeable life” – her own.
She tells of her long-time lover, Timothy Tovey, and the battles with Janice, his wife... of Stavros, her ‘Greek waiter’... of Walter James, who burns down her house in a fit of jealous pique. And through this tale of loves lost and cast aside, Gabriella tells us the rules of life she has picked up along the way.
To read The Rules of Life, click here.
The Shrapnel Academy
Named after the exploding cannonball, The Shrapnel Academy houses a mix of truly disparate characters in this eruptive saga by bestselling author Fay Weldon.
On the anniversary of the Eve of the Battle of Waterloo, an assortment of unusual dinner guests gather for what should be a peaceful weekend at a remote country house.
But fate provides a snowstorm, making escape impossible; lust, jealousy, bigotry, chauvinism, and pure greed provide the other essential ingredients for a weekend that erupts into a free-for-all of sex, mutiny, and murder…
To read The Shrapnel Academy, click here.
Worst Fears
Beautiful and talented, Alexandra Ludd is a star on the stage in London and a queen at her home in the country. But her husband, the great theatre critic Ned Ludd, has just died of a heart attack and her perfect world is about to fall apart.
In the days between his death and the funeral, Alexandra learns more about her husband than she ever knew in his life and comes face to face with her own blind naïvety. She’s up against good friends and bad rivals, the highs of denial and the lows of her worst fears coming true.
As grief shakes everyone ar
ound her, what goes on behind closed doors is fast becoming the talk of the town.
To read Worst Fears, click here.
Darcy’s Utopia
If you ruled the world, what would you do?
Scandalous Eleanor Darcy, wild young wife of a world-famous economist, sketches her vision of Utopia to two journalists, Hugo Vansitart and Valerie Jones. In glorious detail, she describes an earthly paradise of peace, love and technological progress where sex is plentiful and money does not exist. Such is Eleanor’s charisma that, to their own astonishment, Hugo and Valerie abandon their families to succumb to some erotic impulses of their own.
From the storyteller who is constantly measuring the moral pulse of men and women, Darcy’s Utopia is an uproarious and subversive riff on the age-old battle of the sexes.
To read Darcy’s Utopia, click here.
Female Friends
Marjorie, Grace and me. How foolishly we loved, and murderous we are. We have had six children between us, but have done to death, as if to balance the scales, some six of our nearest and dearest. And though the world does not acknowledge such deaths as murder, we know in our hearts that they are.
—
They first met as children in 1940s London. Thirty years later, the three friends make their way through an almost unrecognizable post-war society, coping with oppressive husbands, children, parents, and the messy business of life.
From bestselling author Fay Weldon comes a brilliantly witty and caustic, yet deeply compassionate novel exploring the lives and loves three women and a friendship that endures all that life can throw at them.
To read Female Friends, click here.
Life Force
Nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then everything happens…
Many years earlier, Leslie Beck entered the lives of four female friends—some married, some not, some more innocent than others. Now he is back to stir old desires and rivalries, to revitalise, if he can, the secrets, passions and infidelities of the past.
From bestselling author Fay Weldon comes a novel about pleasure—how we pursue it, how it fits into our lives, how we judge it. The life force must not be denied. More than just a mischievous, glorious novel, here is a literary handbook to all our pasts and, with any luck, our futures.
To read Life Force, click here.
Splitting
How many characters make up one woman’s personality?
There is certainly more to Lady Rice than her husband realizes - at least three other people currently share his wife’s body. And when Sir Edwin Rice decides to apply for divorce, these other personalities begin to emerge…
A darkly comic portrait of one woman’s shattering response to divorce.
To read Splitting, click here.
Moon Over Minneapolis
In this superlative anthology, Fay Weldon introduces readers to a cast of mothers, children, wives, and lovers—all of them unforgettable, timeless female characters. In “Subject to Diary,” a successful forty-ish career woman sits in an abortion clinic pondering motherhood.
In “The Year of the Green Pudding,” a woman who seems to doom everyone and everything she touches vows never to fall in love again. And an analyst’s office is the setting for a series of stories that feature four female patients—including a murderer—who lay bare their souls.
To read Moon Over Minneapolis, click here.
Polaris
In “Christmas Lists—A Seasonal Story,” the endless lists created by a suburban couple become a metaphor for marriage, family, and enduring love. In “Delights of France or Horrors of the Road,” a woman goes to a psychiatrist to cure her sudden, inexplicable paralysis, unaware that her constant bragging about her brilliant physicist husband conceals a raging fury. “Redundant! or the Wife’s Revenge” takes place in a plastic surgery ward, where Fay Weldon finds an ironic humor. The title story, Polaris, introduces newlyweds Meg and Timmy, whose union is tested when Timmy is called away to naval duty and Meg discovers a shocking secret.
To read Polaris, click here.
The Heart of the Country
When Natalie’s husband, Harry, kisses her and their two children goodbye, departs for the office, and never returns, Natalie immediately blames herself. If she hadn’t been cheating on her husband every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, he never would have left her for his secretary, a local beauty queen...
To read The Heart of the Country, click here.
Leader of the Band
Sandra Harris—wife, astronomer (known for discovering the planet Athena), television phenomenon, and “professional searcher after truth”—has had an epiphany. She leaves her boring attorney husband and runs off with Mad Jack Stubbs, her trumpet-playing lover, and his groupie entourage, for a tour of Southern France. Pursued by her husband, Mad Jack’s wife, and the paparazzi, Sandra lives entirely for the moment—and great sex. In between, she ponders her past (institutionalized mother, Nazi war criminal father) while trying to ignore the deafening tick of her biological clock...
To read The Leader of the Band, click here.
Wicked Women
Victims, liberators, blackmailers, healers, and ghosts—they’re just a few of the fascinating men and women you’ll meet in this stellar, boundary-defying anthology.
From a heartless lover to a therapist who’s exposed for being a child hater, Weldon’s characters search for meaning, betray their vows, take pleasure in others’ misfortunes, or get pushed out of the family manse by their grasping offspring...
To read Wicked Women, click here.
~
THE LOVE & INHERITANCE TRILOGY
The Love and Inheritance trilogy is a family saga set between 1899 and 1906. The aristocratic Dilberne family lurch from wild wealth, to bankruptcy, and back again, their fortunes dependent on the new steam-powered automobiles, Spiritualist gatherings and Christmases at Sandringham. But as the century turns, the rigid rules of society begin to soften...
Following lives and loves upstairs and downstairs, and brimming with Fay Weldon’s trademark wit, wisdom and warmth, this is a trilogy to treasure.
I. Habits of the House
In the dying days of Victoria’s reign, the events of a single turbulent morning herald bankruptcy and ruin for the Earl of Dilberne. His wife, the Countess Isobel, believes the solution is to marry off their handsome, wilful son to a rich and pretty heiress from the Chicago stockyards. It’s a clash of cultures and principles that rocks the household from parlour to pantry.
Gold mines fail, bankers plot, bad girls flourish, the London fog descends, Royalty intervenes and unlikely lovers triumph. Habits of the House, the first book in the Love & Inheritance trilogy, is a ravishing portrait of the fin de siècle from one of our best-loved British authors.
Habits of the House is available here.
II. Long Live the King
With London Society in a frenzy of anticipation for the coronation of King Edward VII, the Earl and Countess of Dilberne are caught up in lavish preparations. Yet Lady Isobel still has ample time to fret, and no wonder with a much longed-for heir on the way, an elopement, family tragedy, a runaway niece and a gaggle of fraudulent spiritualists to contend with…
Fay Weldon once again draws her readers into the lives and loves of the aristocratic Dilberne family, as they embrace not only a new century, but a new generation – a generation with somewhat radical views…
Long Live the King is available here.
III. The New Countess
The King had foreign tastes; a French chef would have to be brought in and where could one find such a one at short notice? Existing staff would have to move up and share beds, which always made them sulky and resentful just when they should not be. Pathways must be constructed so the ladies would not get their feet muddy as they joined the men, and field kitchens erected so that dishes could be served hot and claret warmed. At least the King’s champagne – he had to have champagne when shooting, though frugal enough with alcohol otherwise �
� would be cold enough. Isobel found her heart beating hard and her breath coming short. Five months to prepare for one weekend – it was a monstrous task.
The New Countess is available here.
About the Author
One of the most successful advertising copywriters of her generation, Fay Weldon’s credits as a writer of fiction include classic novels like The Life and Loves of a She-Devil and Growing Rich, and the pilot episode of the original TV series ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’. In 2001 she was awarded a CBE for services to literature. She has seven sons and stepsons and one stepdaughter, and lives on a hill in the west of England.
To find out more about Fay Weldon, visit her website, www.fayweldon.co.uk, follow her on Twitter, @Fay_Weldon, or like her on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/fayweldon.writer.
Reviews
“Rarely have I read a book that grabs you so fast in the opening scene, then keeps up the pace until the very last page. Goodbye sleep. Hello First Daughter.”
Jeffery Deaver
“Last Snow catapults high above the bar of great thrillers.”
Nelson Demille
“A controlled, satisfying and highly characteristic tour-de-force, astringent and startling.”
Financial Times
“Confirms her genius for improvisation.”
Observer
“Witty, entertaining and intelligent”
Times Literary Supplement
“Fay Weldon’s novels are sharp as needles. This latest has such a fine point it almost draws blood.”
Daily Mail