Catherine Gaskin
Personal Information
Description
Catherine Gaskin (2 April 1929 – 6 September 2009) historical fiction and romantic suspense. She was born in Dundalk Bay, Louth, Ireland in 1929. When she was only three months old, her parents moved to Australia, settling in Coogee, a suburb of Sydney, where she grew up. Her first novel This Other Eden, was written when she was 15 and published two years later. After her second novel, With Every Year, was published, she moved to London. Three best-sellers followed: Dust in Sunlight (1950), All Else is Folly (1951), and Daughter of the House (1952). She completed her best known work, Sara Dane, on her 25th birthday in 1954, and it was published in 1955. It sold more than 2 million copies, was translated into a number of other languages, and was made into a television series in Australia in 1982. Other novels included A Falcon for the Queen (1972) and The Summer of the Spanish Woman (1977). Catherine Gaskin moved to Manhattan for ten years, after marrying an American. She then moved to the Virgin Islands, then in 1967 to Ireland, where she became an Irish citizen. She also lived on the Isle of Man. Her last novel was The Charmed Circle (1988). She then returned to Sydney, where she died in September 2009, aged 80, of ovarian cancer. *Goodreads
Books
A falcon for a queen
Tells the story of Kirsty Howard, who leaves China when her parents die and seeks out her grandfather in Scotland. It is a strange world she finds at Cluain - an arrogant and lonely old man running one of the finest whisky distilleries in the world with two women running the house.
Family affairs
A saga for today, set amid the sophisticated parties, political scandals and financial upheavals of Britain and Australia. Kelly expected only a life of poverty and shame. However with her extraordinary capacity to love and survive, she became the heart of the grandest family in Britain
The Charmed Circle
A spellbinding new novel by Catherine Gaskin, bestselling author of The Ambassador's Women** THE WORLD WAS THEIRS... Three beautiful, talented daughters of famous parents, they seemed to have everything - wealth, glamour, and an idyllic life in the English countryside... even as was raged over London. But in one explosive moment, their lives were changed forever... From war-weary Britain, to the Scottish highlands, to the power portals of Washington, D. C., the three sisters are propelled into a world that will profoundly test their strength and courage. United by family love and loyalty, torn by bitter tragedy, they each come to know the joy of dazzling triumph... and the despair of an international scandal that once again jeopardizes all they hold dear... THE CHARMED CIRCLE Catherine Gaskin's compelling new saga of privilege, power, and personal triumph
Edge of Glass
THE CULLODEN CUP showed the art of the Irish glassmaker at its peak. But now the great Sheridan factory at Cloncath lies idle - the craftsmen are old, the buildings decaying around them, and the family have no money to revive the industry. MAURA D'ARCY last of the family, now on the verge of a brilliant modelling career, journeys to Cloncath to reclaim the Culloden Cup, stolen from her mother. The glassworks have a strange fascination for her, as does her unknown cousin. CONNOR SHERIDAN desperately seeking a way to save the Sheridan name, is a man trapped by past glory and the harsh realities of the present. He sees Maura only as a dangerous rival, and in his relentless determination to rebuild the glassworks to their former glory, Connor is a man who cannot afford to lose a single battle...
I Know My Love
THEY WERE THREE MAGNIFICENT AND POWERFUL PEOPLE.... First there was Emmy. Beautiful and patient. A woman desperately in love with her husband, but willing to sacrifice that love for his happiness. Then there was Rose. More beautiful than Emmy, and consumed by a fierce, relentless passion. A woman married to one man, but wanting another. Even if that man belonged to Emmy. And there was Adam.The man both these women wanted.The man caught between the one he loved and the one he desired most.
The Property of a Gentleman
Upon the death of her father, Eve Somerville is shocked to learn that to secure her inheritance she must marry their neighbor, coldly handsome Marcus Fitzalan. As she and Marcus start to learn more about each other, her cousin Gerald, her father’s heir, comes to take possession of the entailed estate. Gerald secretly dreams of sabotaging the planned marriage so that Eve will forfeit her inheritance back to him.
Sara Dane
Here is an unforgettable woman. A woman as strong and as beautiful as the raw new country she helps to carve from the wilderness. A woman of fierce pride, yet gently devoted to her children, and possessed with an undying vision about the future of her land, Sara Dane epitomizes the heart of her untamed country — Australia. Set in the colorful days of the late Eighteenth and the early Nineteenth Centuries, Sara Dane unfolds the history of New South Wales, from its beginnings as a penal colony to the day when it could lift its head in contentment and peace. From the day in 1792 when young Sara, savagely sentenced in England to transportation on a trumped-up charge, came ashore at Botany Bay, until the day she returns triumphantly wealthy and prominent to her native London, her story rings with the fire of a great passion. Sara's story is also the story of the men who loved her — Richard Barwell, her childhood love who possessiveness followed her thousands of miles; Andrew Maclay, whose strength and cunning combined with hers to produce an empire; Jeremy Hogan, the Irish rebel, whose presence meant security as Sara faced the crises of convict outbreaks, giant floods, and armed rebellion with resolution. And then there was Louis de Bourget, the mysterious French emigre' whose love for her beauty and order brought a peace to Sara's life she had thought impossible. But throughout her life, Sara held to her own personality tenaciously. All of Sydney knew her as a shrewd business-woman, magnificent, unconventional — but above all, a woman.
Blake's Reach
Born illegitimately, Jane Howard inherits nothing but the fiery hair and indomitable spirit of her mother's family, the Blakes. When Anne Blake dies, it is Jane who seeks to restore her debt-ridden London manor house with profits from smuggling along the Kent coast. Then Charles Blake returns, fleeing the French Revolution, to claim his inheritance.
The summer of the Spanish woman
The dramatic blockbuster that takes you from the windy shores of Ireland to the sun-baked earth of Spain; this is a gripping story of family pride, forbidden love, secrets and lies. Beginning at the turn of the last century and spanning the First World War and the Spanish Civil War, The Summer of the Spanish Woman is another spellbinding page-turner from the pen of the bestselling author of The Property of a Gentleman and Sara Dane. When her grandfather dies without leaving a male heir, Charlotte Drummond and her mother are forced to leave their family home, Clonmara. A distant cousin, Richard Selwin, inherits her grandfather's estate and the title of Lord Blodmore. He also claims Charlotte's heart, but a cruel twist of fate prevents them from being together. Charlotte and her mother begin a new life in the Spanish town of Jerez among the families and vineyards of the great Spanish sherry dynasties. There she discovers the surprising secrets of her grandfather's younger life, and the mystery surrounding “the Summer of the Spanish Woman” many decades before. As Charlotte learns more about the events of that long-ago summer she realises that its far-reaching consequences stretch into the present. Drawn into a web of deceit and vengeance, her destiny is shaped by both her enemies and her allies in this foreign land. And she must confront Isabel, Marquesa de Pontevedra, whose presence casts light or shadow over those whose lives she seeks to control. A brilliant family saga which paints a vivid picture of life among the sherry makers of early twentieth century Spain and the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War.
The Ambassador's Women
In November 1930 two strangers meet in St James's Park. Geraldine Penrose is the wife of an aristocratic British diplomat. American Ginny Clayton belongs to a family whose name commands influence. From this chance meeting grows a friendship that will link the two families.