Lettice Cooper – författare

On a cold winter's afternoon, Alberta Mansbridge waits at a table set with teacups for eight, musing over her guests. The ex-jailbird Barry, the nephew and his ghastly new flibbertijibbet of a wife, the Italian playboy, the old friend with whom she had so recently fallen out... Alberta returns upstairs to get herself ready. When the guests arrive, the door is locked and there is no response to their knocking. Alberta has been murdered, and with no sign of robbery or break in, the killer must have been somebody she let into the house herself - somebody who was due for tea on Sunday. Inspector Corby is soon on the case, faced with eight suspects without a concrete alibi between them - and a raft of motives steeped in mystery which will take him from London back to Alberta's roots in Hithamroyd, Yorkshire in search of the truth. First published in 1973 but written in the vintage mystery mode, Lettice Cooper uses her literary sensibilities to deliver a strong detective story with a well-brewed psychological depth.

Rediscover the brilliance of Fenny in the Mermaid Collection – timeless classics by pioneering female authors, beautifully reissued to enchant today’s readers.A richly evocative coming-of-age novel, Fenny follows a young English governess who falls deeply in love with Tuscany in 1933, even as she faces the pain of unrequited love and the shadows of political unrest.With a foreword by Jennie Godfrey‘The strange city through which they drove was the scenery of a dream . . .’Yorkshire teacher Ellen Fenwick has never been abroad.But when her mother dies, this young woman finds herself taking a position as governess to an English girl in Florence in the summer of 1933. Little does Ellen realise how this girl, Juliet, and her family will claim her.For as the summer passes, Ellen falls so in love with Italy and her new home that she cannot bear to leave – even when her own hopes of love are cruelly thwarted. Even when the shadow of war falls across the country, she doesn’t flee but clings on – for her friends, for those she loves more than herself.Ellen – selfless, big-hearted, accepting – cannot know what is coming. Yet, she will not face it alone . . .Praise for Lettice Cooper:‘A writer of quiet but strong, deep and varied gifts’ Sunday Telegraph ‘A storyteller of adventures of the heart’ Jilly Cooper

Rediscover the brilliance of Fenny in the Mermaid Collection – timeless classics by pioneering female authors, beautifully reissued to enchant today’s readers.A richly evocative coming-of-age novel, Fenny follows a young English governess who falls deeply in love with Tuscany in 1933, even as she faces the pain of unrequited love and the shadows of political unrest.With a foreword by Jennie Godfrey‘The strange city through which they drove was the scenery of a dream . . .’Yorkshire teacher Ellen Fenwick has never been abroad.But when her mother dies, this young woman finds herself taking a position as governess to an English girl in Florence in the summer of 1933. Little does Ellen realise how this girl, Juliet, and her family will claim her.For as the summer passes, Ellen falls so in love with Italy and her new home that she cannot bear to leave – even when her own hopes of love are cruelly thwarted. Even when the shadow of war falls across the country, she doesn’t flee but clings on – for her friends, for those she loves more than herself.Ellen – selfless, big-hearted, accepting – cannot know what is coming. Yet, she will not face it alone . . .Praise for Lettice Cooper:‘A writer of quiet but strong, deep and varied gifts’ Sunday Telegraph ‘A storyteller of adventures of the heart’ Jilly Cooper

Flora is a young Oxford lecturer, whose love affair with a married man has ended in tragedy. She faces a bleak, empty world. Following an ill-fated flight to a villa in Tuscany, and the collapse of her warm friendship with Lalage, an Oxford colleague, Flora is close to breakdown. She is rescued by her understanding family and by her return to Oxford, where she finds release from her own emotional problems in those of her most brilliant student, Nan, who seems about to sacrifice her career on the alter of revolutionary politics. Lettice Cooper explores and illuminates the varied contrasts of generations, classes and beliefs, and is equally absorbing in the smaller world of university rivalries and gossip, or the hot-house jealousies and intrigues in an Italian villa. Above all, this book illuminates the personality of a young woman at a crisis in her life.