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Lady Aurelia's Bequest
Lady Aurelia's Bequest
Oct 6, 2024 9:22 PM

Author:Sheila Walsh

Lady Aurelia's Bequest

In Cordelia Darcy, Shelia Walsh has created one of her most delightful heroines ever. From a modest colonial background in America, she arrives in Regency London during the autumn of 1811 and makes it her stage.

Before ever she steps foot in London though, Cordelia has already become part of a dangerous diplomatic intrigue as the result of her shipboard encounter with a fellow American: Drew Harvey. Working to secure peace between England and America, Mr Harvey enlists Cordelia's help as a courier - thereby drawing her into the sights of his own very determined enemies.

Despite these shadows playing around her, Cordelia Darcy's first London Season is a resounding success - as if in tribute to the godmother whose bequest made it possible. And for all that she stands at the heart of a conspiracy that gathers force daily, Cordelia's story is also one of a beautiful young girl entering Society, falling in love for the first time and learning to identify her own feelings.

With her use of period detail providing a sumptuous Regency backcloth throughout, Shelia Walsh combines each separate thread of Lady Aurelia's Bequest into a first class romantic thriller.

Reviews

Andre [writes] sensual, empowered stories enveloped in heady romance

—— Publishers Weekly

What woman can resist a rugged, heroic fireman? This first book in the Hot Shots Men of Fire series captures the spirit of these sexy men perfectly. And the heroine is just as strong and compelling

—— Romantic Times

WILD HEAT is a roller coaster ride. Don't miss it.

—— Catherine Coulter

It is a work of maddening brilliance and gripping originality, deceptively casual in style, but vibrating with wit, intellect and ambition

—— Richard Lloyd Parry , The Times

Which other author can remind you simultaneously of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and JK Rowling, not merely within the same chapter but on the same page? Viewed through the "post-modern" lens, his exemplary blend of a light touch and weighty themes, of high literature and popular entertainment, ticks every box. Posh and pop, sublimity and superficiality, history and fantasy, trash and transcendence: they switch positions and then fuse

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

Eerie, suspenseful and packed full of gorgeous ordinary details and provocative extraordinary events, Murakami takes weighty themes and delivers a compulsive tale that is funny, fresh and intensely surreal. Unmissable

—— Marie Claire

A postmodernist mélange of fantasy worlds, dystopias, alternate realities and genre pastiches, all overlaid on an unsuspecting contemporary Japan. They are the sort of fiction that usually attracts a cult following, but Mr Murakami's cult spreads across the globe

—— Wall Street Journal

A surreal twist on the formula of David Nicholl's One Day; fate preventing two soulmates from getting together from getting together for decades... Stieg Larsson enthusiasts may enjoy the novel too as Aomame could be Lisbeth Salander's Japanese cousin... What makes Murakami cool as well as popular is has metaphysical mischievousness, his playing around with the idea of alternate realities... Every time you open 1Q84, you get the sensation of falling down the rabbit hole, into a unique and addictive world

—— Sunday Express

The novel of the year... such are Murakami's gifts, both in terms of his imagination and his skills as a writer, that the near-magical world he conjures seems real and tangible

—— Word

His default setting as a writer lies in documenting a muted alienation - Kafka with an iPod - and solace, in his books, tends to be found in the sudden human connection of sex and longing, but mostly his characters, like his readers, are left to figure things out on their own with shifting and partial information to go on

—— Observer

1Q84 is an extraordinary feat of sustained imagination

—— Evening Standard

[One of] .. the best books to really get your teeth into this winter... Part thriller, part love story, the first print run sold out in one day in the author's native Japan

—— Grazia

A whole host of Murakami icons from talking cats to one-way portals all contribute to this rich and often perplexing mix. But ultimately, 1Q84 is a simple love story that ends on a metaphysical cliff-hanger... a delicious paranormal stew

—— Independent on Sunday

It is natural that his work should enchant younger readers, to whom the problems of being are still fresh, as well as others who never grew out of such puzzlements - that his books should send an outstretched hand of sympathy to anyone who feels that they too have been tossed, without their permission, into a labyrinth

—— Guardian

An extraordinary love story. Murakami is renowned for his exceptional imagination and this book does not disappoint; he weaves a myriad of worlds, beliefs and themes together in a moving combination. Compelling and bewildering, there's nonetheless something profoundly human and stark in simplicity at the heart of this love story: the power of true love.

—— Aesthetica

Fans, however, will recognise many elements in this fantastical tale, which at its twisted heart is another boy-meets-girl love story but which encompasses the ominous power of cults, a teasing preoccupation with quotidian mundanity, a sackload of music and literature references and a healthy dose of the downright bizarre.

—— Siobhan Murphy , Metro

Masterful… Nine hundred and twenty-five pages of riveting, intriguing, irresistible journeying through the characters’…interior worlds

—— David Carless , Psychologist

Weird and wonderful characters…the prose is beautiful, moving and the story is fascinating. Highly recommended

—— Helena Lang , Sainsbury's Magazine
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