A Dubious Legacy

Description

'A sophisticated cocktail of sweetness and cynicism' - Cosmopolitan Henry Tillotson, a generous, genial man who inherited his father's philanthropic attitude along with his beautiful house, rescues Margaret from a disastrous marriage in Egypt and brings her home to the West Country as his new wife. On the threshold she gives him a black eye and retires straight to bed where she remains, apart from the occasional malevolent outburst, for the rest of her life. Over the years two young couples become regular if uneasy houseguests, listening, speculating, keeping a watchful eye on Margaret's door until finally, piecing together the gossip, the rumours, the mystery, they find themselves and their children thoroughly tangled in the web of Henry's life...

Mary Wesley was born near Windsor in 1912. Her education took her to the London School of Economics and during the War she worked in the War Office. Although she initially fulfilled her parent's expectations in marrying an aristocrat she then scandalised them when she divorced him in 1945 and moved in with the great love of her life, Eric Siepmann. The couple married in 1952, once his wife had finally been persuaded to divorce him. She used to comment that her 'chief claim to fame is arrested development, getting my first novel Jumping the Queue published at the age of seventy'. She went on to write a further nine novels, three of which were adapted for television, including the best-selling The Camomile Lawn. Mary Wesley was awarded the CBE in the 1995 New Year's honour list and died in 2002.

Mary Wesley takes you by the hand and you follow wherever she takes you -- Kate Kellaway * Observer * Mary Wesley does it again, only more so... She marches straight into her tale, intriguing from the beginning, keeping up a pace that rarely slackens * Literary Review * Wesley breezes along with customary grace and nonchalance, sniping maliciously at her characters while giving them a more or less good time * Financial Times * Lively and entertaining * The Times * Wesley's books are a delight...a beautifully crafted tale, very sexy, very funny, I just didn't want it to end * Sunday Times (Perth) *