Marion Halligan

A delightful, witty, humorous and serious book about the way we live now, as expressed in our relationship with food and gardens.If you can manage to simultaneously practice laziness and purity you will eat pretty well, because the food will be simple and good.'In prose as sensuous and seductive as a fine wine and a tasty dish, Marion Halligan takes us with her on a wandering journey into her novels, between past and present, across continents and on long sea voyages, with even a sojourn or two in France. The Taste of Memory has us sitting in gardens - or labouring in them - as well as at tables. And it celebrates the great oral tradition of cooks throughout time who pass on recipes out of the love of friends and food.The Taste of Memory invites us to look at the world and find it good.WINNER 2004: Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in the English - Rest of the World section for the Best Food Literature Book category.

The eagerly-awaited sequel to the bestselling The Apricot Colonel is another charming novel of fruit preserving, cross-dressing . . . and murder. Cosy crime at its very best.All is not as it seems in the calm, well-ordered streets of the nation's capital. After the turbulence of their courtship, Cassandra and the colonel have settled into wedded bliss - only to have it shattered by a death far too close to home. A friend's daughter is found dead from a drug overdose - a tragic suicide. But when her unfinished manuscript turns up containing an explosive expose of the local child prostitution scene, suicide turns to murder.With characteristic panache, much reading between the lines, and a magnificent wardrobe of women's clothes (his), Cassandra and her colonel set out to find the truth in this eagerly awaited sequel to The Apricot Colonel.

Marion Halligan at her lighthearted and wryly humorous best in a tale of mystery and murder, of beauty and yearning, and of a surprising love.A beautiful man, and all she can do is tinker with his proseFor Cassandra, an editor, books are easy. It's real life that's the challenge: it doesn't sit quietly and let itself be fixed. Right now Cassandra's life seems far too heavy on the suspense, while the romance is distinctly unconvincing.But that was before the murders started. And before she suspected that her own name was on the killer's hit listMurder, match-making and the dark arts of book editing: The Apricot Colonel is Halligan at her light-hearted best.