UNITED KINGDOM AUTHOR · FICTION · CHILDREN
Jill Paton Walsh
Also known as: Jill Paton-Walsh, Gillian Paton Walsh
Gillian Honorine Mary Herbert, Baroness Hemingford, (née Bliss; 29 April 1937 – 18 October 2020), known professionally as Jill Paton Walsh, was an English novelist and children's writer. She may be known best for her Booker Prize-nominated novel Knowledge of Angels and for the Peter Wimsey–Harriet Vane mysteries that continued the work of Dorothy L. Sayers.
SHE ACHED.
— from Torch, 1989
Most acclaimed
Grace
Long before she became a princess, Grace Kelly was a legend, a fabled movie star whose aloof and aristocratic bearing belied a deep sensuality within. Grace the icon and Grace the woman were two very different creatures, and now celebrated biographer Robert Lacey has managed to unearth the secrets beneath her serene surface. In Grace, he presents the first balanced portrait of a complex, deeply conflicted actress, wife, and mother who dared to make her dreams come true. Lacey, who has written definitive books on Queen Elizabeth II, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Ford family, gained unprecedented access to Grace's friends and colleagues. He weaves an extraordinary story that begins in Philadelphia, where Grace's father, an Olympic athlete and local hero, often shunned his shy and sickly daughter. Grace was determined to win the attention of her father and the world. While carefully cultivating the image of the white-gloved young lady, she became a surprisingly brazen, even reckless, young woman. She fell into bed with her best friend's husband, her drama teacher, and some of the most glamorous film stars of her era, including Clark Gable and William Holden. . By the time Grace met her prince, she had flirted repeatedly with the altar, only to have her parents veto her choices. Rainier, however, won over Grace and her family in a whirlwind courtship, cemented by a secret correspondence. Lacey writes of Grace's joy at her wedding and her gradual disenchantment with her cloistered palace life. He reveals that after ten years of marriage to Rainier, Grace was deeply wounded by his arrogance, petulance, and autocratic treatment of her. As she approached middle age, the princess found herself living a separate life from Rainier in Paris, battling with her headstrong and willful daughters, and seeking the affection she craved from a succession of handsome young men. To her public, however, Grace always maintained the image of Her Serene Highness, the adored princess who had achieved perfect happiness. She worked hard at her official and charitable duties and was devoted to her people. Grace was deeply mourned when her car careened off a narrow road in September 1982. Lacey provides revealing new details about the accident and the circumstances surrounding Grace's medical care and death. Grace is a haunting tale of a beloved tragic heroine.
Torch
1989
"Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!" is the advice Teresa Rae Wood shares with the listeners of her local radio show, Modern Pioneers, and the advice she strives to live by every day. She has fled a bad marriage and rebuilt a life with her children, Claire and Joshua, and their caring stepfather, Bruce. Their love for each other binds them as a family through the daily struggles of making ends meet. But when they received unexpected news that Teresa, only 38, is dying of cancer, their lives all begin to unravel and drift apart. Strayed's intimate portraits of these fully human characters in a time of crisis show the varying truths of grief, forgiveness, and the beautiful terrors of learning how to keep living.
Babylon
Elisabeth is a woman whose curiosity and passion far exceed the borders of her quiet middle-class life. She befriends a neighbor, organizes a small dinner party. And then, quite suddenly, finds herself embarked with him on an adventure that is one part vaudeville and one part high tragedy. A quiet novel of manners turns into a police procedural thriller. Her motivations for risking everything she has are never transparent. In a world where matters of life and death are nearly always transported to a clinical setting, whether it be a hospital or a courtroom, here each character must confront them unassisted.