Joanna Trollope

Roger Fouts fulfilled humankind's age-old dream of talking to animals by pioneering communication with chimpanzees through sign language. His decades of groundbreaking work with these amazing animals - who share more than 98 percent of our DNA - made scientific history as their unprecedented dialogues opened a window into chimpanzee consciousness and the origins of human language and intelligence. Now, in Next of Kin, Fouts tells the dramatic story of his personal and professional odyssey from novice researcher to celebrity scientist to impassioned crusader for the rights of animals. At the heart of this captivating book is Fouts's magical thirty-year friendship with Washoe, whom we watch grow from a mischievous baby chimp fresh out of the NASA space program into the matriarch of a clan of chimpanzees who fill these pages with tales of humor and heartbreak, pathos and love. Living and conversing with these sensitive creatures has given Fouts a profound appreciation of how much we share with our closest biological relatives, and what they can teach us about ourselves. Fouts also describes the crisis of conscience he faced when he discovered that hundreds of chimpanzees were being subjected to perilous biomedical experimentation in laboratories across America. At significant risk to his own career, he became an outspoken advocate for improved conditions for animals in research labs, and devoted himself to rescuing this lost generation of chimpanzees.

When Richie dies unexpectedly, Chrissie must now tell the truth to their three daughters: their parents were never married. There is more shock to come when his will is read: he ever forgot the wife and son he left behind years ago. Now two families must confront their losses - and each other.

For 20 years Anna Bouverie, a vicar's wife, had served God in a diversity of ways. She has been everything a priest's wife should be. She irons his surplices (badly), delivers the parish newsletter, and scrimps to get by on a pittance, all the while keeping up appearances. Struggling to get by on the pittance salary that the church pays her husband,she becomes embittered when she sees her children going hungry. But, she rarely complains and never rebels. When her husband, Peter, fails to gain promotion to Archdeacon and retreated into isolated bitterness, Anna realizes that she's willing to do whatever it takes to save herself... and finds the inner strength to fix their situation. She rebels, and tastes independence for the first time since she left university. Anna took a job in the local supermarket. Soon she found herself admired by three very different men.

The Logans were an enchanting and admirable couple. Archie had snatched Liza from her own engagement party to someone else, wooed her, swept her off to his father in Scotland, and finally married her. Now bedded firmly into country life-three children, Archie the village doctor, Liza a teacher, everything comfortable, funny, affectionate, they awaited the arrival of Archie's father, the brilliant Sir Andrew Logan, a widower for over thirty years. When his city-clean Rover stopped in the drive, Sir Andrew was not alone. Beside him was a golden lady in caramel suede, a warm, witty, desirable widow whom everyone-except Archie-adored at once. Archie saw his father's mistress as the worm in the bud of his perfect life - a life that was to be wrenched apart before he and Liza could re-create their world. The story is about a man's mid-life crisis and a woman's fear of failure. It is about fathers and sons, sex and love, loyalties and identities.

In the rustic town of Aldminster, a crisis looms. Funds are short and the cathedral is in need of major repair. Some hope to finance the work by abolishing the costly boy's choir-while others are aghast at the idea. Drawn into the fray is Sally Ashworth, the lonely mother of a ten-year-old chorister. She is anchored only by her unexpected love for the brilliant choirmaster-and by her young son, whose melodic voice may be the only thing that can unite a divided community.

In Britannia's Daughters, best-selling novelist Joanna Trollope examines the contribution of women in building and sustaining the British Empire. She draws on a vast range of sources, including diaries and letters home. She provides a panoramic picture of the countless women who departed Britain for India, Australia, the Far East, Canada and Africa — often in search of opportunities unavailable at home. Here are penniless pioneers and governors' wives, missionaries and prostitutes, explorers and army nurses. They people this book as they peopled the Empire — their astonishing courage and endurance, their remarkable personal stories are vividly and enthrallingly recaptured.

On the day that Maria Beresford celebrated her eighteenth birthday in Bombay, in faraway Burma the formidable and unpredictable Queen had ordered eighty members of the royal family to be clubbed to death. On that day in 1879 Maria knew nothing of Mandalay, the fairy-tale City of Gems. The selfish, difficult but beautiful daughter of a failed tea-planter devoted herself only to pleasure and social advancement. But when her father was sent to Burma, and she had to accompany him, she became embroiled in an exotic world of political intrigue. Her friendship with the Queen - a dangerous and mercurial figure - and her growing closeness to Archie Tennant, a young man who had come east to seek his fortune after the ruin of his family business, brought her both power and menace, and the key to her destiny.

When Captain Edgar Drummond learns he is to serve his first commission in the Crimean war, he brings with him his two sisters, Blanche, the beauty, and Sarah, the bright, eager intelligent one. It will, after all, only be a skirmish. Slowly, as the horrors of the Crimea begin to pervade their lives, the sisters true qualities begin to emerge. Blanche discovers her physical beauty and unabashed frivolity have no place in the harsh world of war and she behaves disgracefully. Edgar, stiff and conventional, finds his obsession with reason and order ineffectual amidst the chaos of war. He cannot cope with his job, not looking after his sisters. Only Sarah finds the courage to take an active role in the war, to protest against the horrors to which the common soldiers are subjected. Her love for the unconventional newspaper man who opens her to reality is thwarted first by her wicked, winsome sister, then by the vagaries of war, but eventually they are brought together in a dirty, slum like room on the quayside at Scutari.

The Reverend Henry Harding, parson to the excellent living of Stoke Abbas, was a handsome and prepossessing man. Unfortunately fate had seen fit to bless him with a family of extremely plain and unprepossessing children. Caroline was the least offensively plain according to Lady Lennox, but the entire Lennox family also admitted that Caroline was the most insignificant person in the county of Dorset. Caroline, already twenty-six, was bullied by her elder sister, was nervous in company, and had no prospects at all. She had one golden memory, of an admirer when she was eighteen, but John Gates, nephew to the Lennox family, had gone to India and forgotten her. Or so she thought. When Lady Lennox summoned her and said that Johnny Gates had sent a proposal of marriage, Caroline at first declined. She suspected that somehow Lady Lennox--for reasons of her own--had contrived and pressured her erswhile suitor into proposing. But within a few short weeks tragedy had overtaken Caroline. The little contentment and security she had known vanished from her life and left her no option but to accept Lady Lennox's offer. In October of 1776, Caroline Harding set sail for India, to a new life, and a man she had not seen for eight years.

On Friday nights a group of six different and disparate women meet. They range in age from Jules, who is 22 and wants to be a DJ, to Eleanor, who is a retired professional and walks with a stick. And then one of them meets a man and the whole dynamic changes. The bonds that have been so closely forged are tested.

Rose Woodrowe is getting married to Tyler Masson - a wonderful, sensitive man who is head-over-heels in love with her. The only problem? This isn't the first time for either of them, and their five grown-up children have strong opinions on the matter... Who to listen to? Who to please? Rose and Tyler are determined to get it right this time, but in trying to make everyone happy, can they ever be happy themselves?

The Grey House is the answer to everything in Alice Jordan's perfect life. It seems to be the ultimate achievement of her outwardly happy marriage — a loyal, if dull husband, three children, two cars and now the house. So why does she feel as if something crucial is missing? As Alice and her family settle themselves into village life the something missing becomes something huge and then breaks, scandalizing the village, opening up old wounds. But because of it, Alice begins to feel that there is hope and humour, understanding and compassion in the new life she must build for herself. (– from the back cover of 1990 Black Swan edition)