Edwina Currie Bücher

Elaine Stalker, neu gewählte Abgeordnete, hat hart für ihre Wahl ins Parlament gearbeitet. Doch die eindeutig männliche Atmosphäre im House of Commons ist ein feindliches Umfeld für eine attraktive, ehrgeizige Frau, und Elaine ist frustriert, wenn ihre Talente ignoriert werden. Roger Dickson, ein einflussreicher Abgeordneter, bietet Elaine ein offenes Ohr. Zunächst ist ihre Beziehung rein beruflich, doch eine gemeinsame Leidenschaft für Politik erweist sich als anziehend, und nächtliche Sitzungen bieten reichlich Gelegenheit für Gespräche privaterer Natur.

In an age when the fastest growing group in society is the single middle-aged, the divorced, the separated and the never-married, Edwina Currie's new novel tackles this group. Their swelling ranks include those terrified by singledom and those liberated by it; ageing Lotharios, happy bachelors of both sexes and every orientation, and smart women determined to be more than pretty adjuncts to selfish men. But they're not chasing the same outcomes as poor, man-hungry Bridget Jones. Not for them the home mortgage, marriage and children: they've been there, done that, and got the scar tissue to prove it. Hetty Clarkson is an attractive but rather empty-headed woman who once worked in TV. She believed marriage was for life and her lifestyle was traditional. She comes home one day to find her philandering husband in bed with another woman. Her cosy, complacent world implodes: nothing remains. Driven beyond endurance, she divorces him, only to face the future.

Teenage schoolgirl Helen Majinsky and her friend Colette are part of a small circle that entertains hopes of leaving Liverpool through the route of college entrance. They play truant from school to see the Beatles play the cavern and they think of boyfriends. But there are forces as dark as the undertow of the Mersey and Helen's relationship with her admired father, diffident mother and feckless younger brother and their desire to keep their aspiring daughter within the family unit, are an inhibition to her dreams of leaving. It is when Helen meets a handsome American serviceman from the local base at Burtonwood that she realises her schoolgirl evasions are not enough, forcing her to confront awkward realities. Through him she finds the means to break the chains of the old life, and her guide through the hidden dangers of the new.

Politicians are amongst the most reviled and distrusted of all professionals. Nevertheless, honourable men and women do put themselves forward to help run the country, whether out of conviction, altruism, vanity or ambition. Under pressure - from the electorate, from colleagues, from what Harold Macmillan called 'events' - how can they maintain their integrity? How do they learn to anticipate trouble - and to avoid it? When press and public are increasingly bored with the serious parliamentary debate and prefer 'human interest' stories and sleaze, how can individuals in public office maintain a private life without exposure or disgrace? How might they undermine their enemies - or gain on rivals who get too close - and should they? How do their families and loved ones cope - especially when loyalty is under strain. Edwina Currie's third political novel, after the number one bestselling A PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIR and A WOMAN'S PLACE, opens with an election resulting in a victory for a party not dissimilar to New Labour...