V. A. Stuart
Description
Violet Vivian Finlay was born on 2 January 1914 in Berkshire, England, UK, the daughter of Alice Kathleen (née Norton) and Sir Campbell Kirkman Finlay. Her father was the owner and director of Burmah Oil Company Ltd., whose Scottish family also owned James Finlay and Company Ltd. The majority of her childhood and youth was spent in Rangoon, Burma (now also known as Myanmar), where her father worked. During her life, she frequently journeyed between India, Singapore, Java and Sumatra. Although Vivian is well-known by the surname of Stuart, she married four times during her lifetime, and had five children: Gillian Rushton (née Porch), Kim Santow, Jennifer Gooch (née Stuart), and twins Vary and Valerie Stuart. Following the dissolution of her first marriage, she studied for a time Law in London in the mid 1930s, before decided studied Medicine at the University of London. Later she spent time in Hungary in the capacity of private tutor in English, while she obtained a pathologist qualification at the University of Budapest in 1938. In 1939, she emigrated to Australia with her second husband, a Hungarian Doctor Geza Santow with whom she worked. In 1942, she obtained a diploma in industrial chemistry and laboratory technique at Technical Institute of Newcastle. Having earned an ambulance driver's certificate, she joined the Australian Forces at the Women's Auxiliary Service during World War II. She was attached to the IVth Army, and raised to the rank of sergeant, she was posted to British XIV Army in Rangoon, Burma in October 1945, and was then transferred to Sumatra in December. After the WWII, she returned to England. On 24 October 1958, she married her fourth and last husband, Cyril William Mann, a bank manager. She was a prolific writer from 1953 to 1986 under diferent pseudonyms: Vivian Stuart, Alex Stuart, Barbara Allen, Fiona Finlay, V. A. Stuart, William Stuart Long and Robyn Stuart. Many of her novels were protagonized by doctors or nurses, and set in Asia, Australia or other places she had visited. Her romance novel, Gay Cavalier published in 1955 as Alex Stuart got her into trouble with her Mills & Boon editors when she featured a secondary story line featuring a Catholic male and Protestant female who chose to marry. This so-called "mixed marriage" touched nerves in the United Kingdom. In 1960, she was a founder of the Romantic Novelists' Association, along with Denise Robins, Barbara Cartland, and others; she was elected the first Chairman (1961-1963). In 1970, she became the first woman to chair Swanwick Writers' Summer School. Violet Vivian Finlay Porch Santow Stuart Mann passed away on August 1986 in Yorkshire, at age 72. She continued writing until her death.
Books
Hazard's Command
The Crimean War is at its peak as the winter of 1854 sets in, and Commander Phillip Hazard of the 31-gun, steam-screw frigate Trojan is sent to bring troop reinforcements from Constantinople to Eupatoria. On the way, he must handle an overbearing young nobleman with a taste for blood and the pitiless power of a raging storm.
The Heroic Garrison
General Havelock's Moveable Column - a force of barely a thousand men--has fought its way through to the heroic garrison defending the Residency in Lucknow. They must hold firm until the relieving force reaches them. Colonel Alex sheridan volunteers for a dangerous mission, but is captured. He is soon called upon to fight a much more personal war - assassination of the very man who ordered the deaths of his wife and child!
The Cannons of Lucknow
Cawnpore has been retaken by British soldiers, but they have come too late to stop the slaughter perpetrated by the mutinous Indian army.
The Sepoy Mutiny
The sepoys, native soldiers serving in the British army, are massing in response to a prophecy predicting the end of the reign of the British East India Company. Alexander Sheridan—in command of a scratch cavalry force of civilian volunteers, unemployed officers and loyal Indian soldiers stands against atrocities on both sides of the conflict, judging all by their merit rather than by the color of their skin or the details of their religion.
Black Sea Frigate
The Crimean War is at its peak as the winter of 1854 sets in, and Commander Phillip Hazard of the 31-gun, steam-screw frigate Trojan is sent to bring troop reinforcements from Constantinople to Eupatoria. On the way, he must handle an overbearing young nobleman with a taste for blood and the pitiless power of a raging storm.
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Escape from hell
In this final book of the Hazard series, Stuart brings Commander Hazard facing the dangers and betrayals that come with command and war. With the Sepoy Mutiny still threatening British lives in India, Commander Phillip Hazard volunteers to accompany a special army force to rescue the besieged British garrison at Ghorabad. Hazard and the men of the Shannon's Naval Brigade are put under the command of Colonel Cockayne, a cavalry officer whose own wife and daughter are among those caught in the siege.
Like victors and lords
Sheridan 1 Captain Alex Sheridan, hero of the series that bears his name, commands a unit of the East India Company in the heat of the deadly battles of the Crimean War. Despised by the aristocratic generals of the regular army, Sheridan and his corps of volunteers must face both the rigors of combat and the treachery of men who should be allies. In the end, both the Light and the Heavy Brigades must charge into the arms of the enemy and win the day - or die trying. This thrilling first installment of the Sheridan series combines history and supposition in a deft interweaving of fact and fiction.