Rachel Billington – författare

''It''s highly readable and is written with wisdom and compassion'' Kate Saunders, THE TIMES''Moving and poignant'' STAR MAGAZINE''A well-wrought, honest book that is generous with its insights and tender in all the right places'' DAILY EXPRESSThirteen-year-old Dan hasn''t returned home and his parents don''t know whether he''s run away, been kidnapped - or something worse. For one family the world as they know it is about to fall apart. At first Dan is sleeping rough, revelling in his independence. But with every passing day, his world is becoming darker and more frightening. A hundred thousand children run away each year. Most come back. But will Dan?Dan''s mother, Eve, a drama teacher, can''t focus; his father, Max, only knows how to flee his own demons; and his aunt, Martha, while trained to control difficult situations as a prison officer, struggles to hold it all together. Dan''s story is told against a grown-up drama of love and shifting loyalties and two sisters who were best friends until Max came between them. Gradually, all three begin to recognise just how badly they have failed the missing boy.Rachel Billington has written a tense and emotional novel about the day-to-day existence of a contemporary family living through their worst nightmare. Anguish and hope move across the pages until the final breath-taking denouement.

A sweeping historical drama, based on the true and enduring love of Thomas Cochrane and Maria Graham.''Touching and dashing in equal measure'' SPECTATOR''Intense and moving'' THE LADY''Rachel Billington imagines their intense relationship in this engrossing novel'' CHOICEChile, June 1822. Maria Graham, a young British widow, watches as her compatriot Admiral Lord Cochrane sails triumphantly into the Valparaiso Bay, fresh from leading the Chilean fleet to victory over the country''s Spanish rulers.Cochrane, a popular yet outspoken hero of the Napoleonic wars, is drawn to Maria, a woman whose intelligence and spirit of adventure rival his own. Yet their intense and extraordinary relationship must contend with a climate of uncertainty, political turmoil and civil war.Inspired by Maria Graham''s own journals, MARIA AND THE ADMIRAL vividly brings to life the story of one woman who tested the limits of society, and of her enduring love for one of the most colourful figures of her age.

''An utterly gripping page-turner'' SPECTATOR''Heartache, soul searching and finger pointing swirl around this complex tale of a dysfunctional, yet powerful family'' DAILY MIRROR''A gripping tale to satisfy all lovers of a finely twisting plot'' DAILY TELEGRAPHOne cool March morning in London, MP Leo Barr is told that his brother, Charlie, is dead. He has hanged himself from a chestnut tree in the grounds of a mental hospital. His family reacts in different ways. Charlie''s mother, Imogen, sees no point in pretending that life is still worth living - he was always her favourite. Leo and his lawyer brother Roland fight, as they always have over Charlie. The fourth brother Ron, a Catholic priest, must break the news to Charlie''s wife, presently in HMP Holloway. In the days following Charlie''s death the conflict builds among members of this diverse and complex family. Who really loves whom? What are the motives behind Roland''s fixed antagonism towards Charlie? Is Leo right to put his career on the line? Above and between them all is the larger-than-life figure of Charlie. He follows no rules, not even about dying, and it becomes clear that his tragedy is only part of a web of mystery and deceit that connects them all.LIES & LOYALTIES is a powerful human drama, at the heart of which one family - divided by rivalry and frustrated love and forced, at last, to learn the truth about themselves.

''This great romance reads like a thriller'' - BELLA''A real emotional roller-coaster of a read, and Billington expertly sustains the suspense'' - DAILY MAIL''A heady literary cocktail that hurtles towards its tragic denouement with this author''s characteristic flair'' - EASY LIVINGK, a middle-aged painter, has returned from a hermit-like existence in Chile to attend the wedding of a girl he once loved to the point of obsession. He arrives at the English country church to find it empty and silent. The wedding has been postponed. He drives back to his hotel - a place he''d visited many years before - opens a bottle of champagne and with it, a door to the past.When K first saw Claudia fifteen years before, he fell instantly and dangerously in love. He managed to forget he had a wife and a life already full. It was a coup de foudre; he became consumed by her. But Claudia was little more than a child then, twenty-four years his junior, beautiful but unformed. Perhaps it was no surprise that their love proved to be so destructive and ultimately tragic. Now, years later, he returns to find this new bride, his old love, is on the verge of a very different future. But the past, inevitably, awaits them both - and he is determined to take her back there...

''The novel is a reflection of the characters'' lives - vivid, dramatic and sometimes chaotic, with emotional volume turned up to full blast . . . a narrative of striking exuberance and generosity - THE TIMESConnie is the youngest member of a large Irish family and Ireland''s too small to contain her. She is beautiful and impulsive. Men love her, while she roars through life, never looking before she leaps - sometimes onto rocks. Nina is English and middle-class, the shy, thoughtful, daughter of an army officer. She marries her boyhood love and has two children before realising how unfulfilled she is, and that painting is her true passion. Fay is American and Jewish, the granddaughter of a holocaust survivor. She''s the ambitious one, who fulfils her dream of becoming a doctor before admitting a darker, more complex side to her nature. ''The female characters are so superbly drawn, so real, that you are reminded of the skill of the female novelists of the 19th century ... [the novel''s] brilliance lies in a combination of the author''s subtle observations - how jealous men can be of their wives'' friends, for example - and the absence of sentimentality'' - DAILY TELEGRAPH

''Pacy and occasionally steamy ... perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon'' YOU MAGAZINE''A beautifully written tale ... 4 Stars'' DAILY MAIL''Billington''s perceptive portrait of the complications of modern life is a Jane Austen for the 21st century'' GOOD BOOK GUIDE''She is in the front rank of those who write of women''s lives'' THE TABLETAlice Lightfoot is far too young to be a widow and a grandmother. Perhaps she''d been too young to be a wife, although she was happy enough at the time. Now, nearly three years after her husband''s death, the world suddenly seems to be changing.Her daughter expects Alice''s life to revolve around her grandchild, Lily, and everyone else seems to think that Alice must be looking for a new husband - after all, she''s such a WIFE. There doesn''t seem to be space to decide what Alice wants for herself: does she want a man around, or would independence give her the full life she craves?Alice is a woman at a turning-point, coming out from the protection of a long marriage into the hurly-burly of the wider world. She has far-reaching choices to make and the seriously unexpected to face...

''GLORY is as near to a British ''War and Peace'' as any contemporary novelist is likely to come'' SPECTATOR''Heart-wrenching novel of loss, love and survival'' WOMAN & HOMEA poignant and compelling story of three lives torn apart by the Battle of Gallipoli.Arthur Tarrant, an Oxford graduate headed for his uncle''s law firm, changes path leaving behind his fiancée Sylvia and joins the army, destined for Gallipoli. There, his life becomes entwined with that of Fred Chaffey, a country boy from Dorset. Glory tells of the fatal errors made by the leaders of the army, the heroism of the men, and the struggles to understand the situation while nurturing relationships in the most strange and difficult of circumstances.