Virginia Ironside – författare

Marie may be ''getting on a bit'' but it''s certainly not getting her down. Her family around her and a man who loves her means that life is good - but nothing stays the same for long. Marie''s golden years are filled with as much drama - love, laughter and tears - as ever. Which just goes to show that getting on a bit does not mean giving up - or even growing up.

The debut novel of acclaimed writer Virginia Ironside, author of No, I Don''t Want to join a Bookclub, originally published in 1964, when she was aged just twenty. London, 1960s. A cultural revolution is taking place. Young people are finally being seen as a force to be reckoned with. But for eighteen-year-old art student Harriet and her Chelsea friends, this amounts to one thing: being''In''. The King''s Road swarms with people wanting to see and be seen; upper-class boys with faux cockney accents party with models, beatniks and photographers; teddy boys are good people to nod to in the street; transport caffs are the must-go places for food, and black men have suddenly become the people to know. Through Harriet''s eyes, Virginia Ironside paints a witty, tongue-in-cheek portrait of life in 1960''s London that will strike a nostalgic chord with all those who were there, and make all those who weren''t wish they had been.

''We are married now,'' said Richard softly. ''We may not be married in a church and you may not have taken my name, but here... here we are married.'' 19th century Devon. On the day Richard Applevale leaves for India, Elizabeth Shawcross gives herself to him, secure in the knowledge that he loves her, and that he will one day return to make her his wife. But Elizabeth soon finds herself pregnant with the child of a man she fears she will never see again, for she has heard nothing from India. Heart-broken and terrified of what will become of her and her child, she is forced to wed the arrogant Mr Whittle. With him she travels to the subcontinent, where she is confronted with her former lover. But once again, Richard and Lizzie are kept apart by circumstances out of their control. From acclaimed author Virginia Ironside, A Distant Sunset is a classic tale of adventure and romance.

I destroy everything I touch... don''t let me destroy you. When two strangers meet in a bank one day, sparks fly. Both are emotionally unstable but neither can resist the other and they embark on a passionate love affair. The constant threat of being torn apart by another woman does nothing to stifle the attraction between these lovers, only fuelling an obsessive relationship. As their lives become increasingly tangled, they realise their desire is both destructive and insatiable. From acclaimed author Virginia Ironside, a provocative and sensual novel about obsessive love.

Is it every woman''s fate to turn into her mother? This is renowned writer and journalist Virginia Ironside''s poignant and blackly funny memoir of life with fashion professor and media icon Janey Ironside. Stylish, beautiful and self-loathing, Janey Ironside was to lead a cultural revolution. In 1956 she became Professor of Fashion at the Royal College of Art, then an extraordinary appointment for a young mother. Discovering and promoting designers like Ossie Clark and Bill Gibb, she changed the way people dressed around the world and herself became a fashion icon. Yet the qualities that made her great - wit, talent and drive - did not bring happiness to either her or her family. Having grown up in colonial India, Janey suffered a painful childhood separation from her parents. She married dashing artist Christopher Ironside, but eking out wartime rations ill-suited a woman whose idea of divine punishment was ''to spend eternity washing up.'' Dress-making soon filled the void, while her daughter Virginia endured a string of au pairs, embarrassing outfits and acute loneliness. As Virginia fought to be her own person, plunging into the swing of the sixties as a rock journalist, she was caught between a father she adored and a mother bent on self-destruction. Now a renowned writer, she has drawn a startling portrait of a gifted woman in a time of extraordinary change. Blackly comic, beautifully written and deeply moving, JANEY AND ME reflects the universal struggle to emerge from our parents'' shadow.

Another year, another January, and Marie Sharp has written a new diary, dishing the dirt on how the cool grannies live today. And her drug cravings aren''t the half of it. There''s the handsome stranger who arrives as her new lodger. Is he all that he seems? There''s the new project - teaching art at a school, now that her grandchild-minding days are numbered. Not to mention the mad dog and the crazy new neighbour. And then there''s the lump, a frightening symptom of... what? Marie is back, courting laughter and disaster in equal measure. In her own inimitable style, she''s getting older... and loving every minute of it.

Marie is turning 69 this year, but there are no signs of her slowing down - she has a new male lodger (very into conspiracy theories), an intractable iPhone to wrestle with, and a trip to India to plan!As usual the year brings plenty of challenges as well as opportunities. Marie is burgled, which sends the street into uproar. Ex-husand David is still around and getting rather too close for comfort. Marie''s cat Pouncer is starting to look rather peaky (her conspiracy-theorist lodger is convinced someone is poisoning him), and probably worst of all, it seems her grandson Gene is getting too old to want to hang out with his granny any more. Maybe learning to graffiti and speak street slang will help win him back?Full of Virginia Ironside''s inimitable wit and featuring plenty of popular characters from this series, this is a hilarious and touching look at getting older from one of Britain''s best observers of relationships.