Miss Hawkins looked at her watch. It was two-thirty. If everything went according to schedule, she could safely reckon to be dead by six o'clock.' But by the day's end, events have taken a dramatic turn and Miss Hawkins is sentenced to live. Forcibly retired, she is presented by her colleagues with a five-year diary. Programmed since childhood to total obedience, Miss Hawkins slavishly follows her dairy's commands until the impossible happens – she meets a man. As a last reprieve from the horrors of loneliness she embarks on a determined full-scale mission to taste life's secret pleasures – and pains– until the cup runs dry...
George Verrey Smith, a suburban teacher, is bored. Bored with his wife, his life, his job. He endures each bleak day with his joyless wife named Joy. The only bright spot in George's life is Sunday. On Sunday George looks his best. On Sunday George dresses up. On Sunday, George becomes Emily. Adorned in his wife's discarded dresses, a blond wig and a slathering of make-up, George feels at ease in drag. It is during a stint as 'Emily' that one of George's colleagues is murdered. George is a prime suspect and must remain in his alter-ego as a genteel older woman to avoid arrest. Will he remain as Emily for the rest of his life? Would he be happy to do so? Booker Prize winner Bernice Ruben's witty and intelligent novel is as entertaining as it is unusual. 'An absorbing book. It's tightly constructed, with a vivid and entertaining plot...Bernice Rubens is capable of powerful writing' - Book World
The killer's modus operandi is the same in each instance: strangulation, always with a guitar string, pulled tight from behind until life is taken. And though the murders are happening up and down the country, there is one other similarity that Inspector Wilkins can't help noticing. Each and every victim is a psychotherapist... Donald Dorricks is on a mission. Nine shrinks to go and his crusade is complete. Yet, even after giving himself up and confessing to the killings, he still protests his innocence. And just as Inspector Wilkins struggles to catch the killer, Dorricks' wife Verine attempts to understand the reasoning behind the murders. Then as her husband's tale emerges, it reveals a past peppered with secrets from which Donald had never been able to escape. Until now ... A black comedy that mixes whodunit and whydunit, Nine Lives is the unsettling story of a very English murderer - a novel of suspense, strangulation and psychotherapy. 'A glorious black comedy...to sum up in three words: wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.' - The Daily Mail
In a rare foray outside that natural home, Booker Prize-winner Bernice Rubens penned these memoirs 'while I still have a memory'. Poignantly, the highly-acclaimed author, literary bon-vivante and celebrated film-maker died shortly after completing them. She wasn't quite expecting that but nor, as she reveals in these pages, did she expect to become a writer. It wasn't the sort of thing that happened to girls born in Glossop Terrace in Splott, the 'unmentionable and indisputable armpit of Cardiff'. In this delightful evocation of her own life, Rubens escorts us, with a flotilla of anecdotes, away from that armpit through her wartime childhood, her first 'major folly' (studying English at University) to stints as a teacher, lady's maid and actress before stumbling upon a career that bemused her until the end of her days. 'What shall I do,' was her constant internal refrain, 'when I grow up?' Bernice Rubens died in the autumn of 2004.
At 'The Hollyhocks' old people's home, the inhabitants are 'waiting for the scythe'. But while they are waiting...Lady Celia is running a blackmailing business on the side, Mr Cross keeps a tally of fellow residents' deaths on the back of his wardrobe, and then there is the rabid old Scots nationalist, and Mrs Green, a woman with a mysterious past. Hardly surprising in this environment that Mrs Bellamy decides she can't take any more and slits her throat. When Matron hushes it up because it would be bad for business, Lady Celia sees an opportunity to expand her blackmailing operation. Meanwhile two new incomers disturb the life of the home further; Mrs Feinberg, a sprightly Jewish woman of whom the other residents are immediately suspicious, and the elegant Mr Rufus. Hidden pasts, unusual sexual preferences and wickedly dark humour are mixed to delicious effect in Bernice Rubens' wonderful new novel.
Sir Alfred Dreyfus is in jail, innocent of the charges against him, guilty of a lifetime of denial. Headmaster of one of Britain's most prestigious schools, knighted for his services to education, he has built a distinguished career whilst carefully concealing his Jewish roots. When he is falsely imprisoned for a horrific crime, he realises it is not just his enemies who have difficulty with his identity.
Amy Evans retained all her life the squat nose of her childhood, stubbed on to her face like a plasticine afterthought, a chin too long for any practical purpose, and eyes so close together that it seemed the sole function of the bridge of her nose was too keep them apart. For comfort she would go down to the beach, where the breeze from the sea blew into her face her share of the beauty to which her brother had so liberally helped himself. The gulls would wait for her to leave, no matter how long she stayed, for they were real gentlemen - the only gentlemen she was ever to meet in her life. Now in her late fifties, Amy faces a struggle on two fronts. Loneliness looms the larger as the chance of finding love grows more remote. Survival depends on the outcome of her search for a love object, and I Sent a Letter to My Love set in Porthcawl on the coast of South Wales, tells the moving and unsentimental story of Amy's bold play for happiness, and her dangerous success. The richly comic gifts, the wit and inventiveness that distinguished all Bernice Rubens' work are reinforced in this novel by a maturity and depth of compassion for her characters.
Resting in a hospice for the terminally ill, Annie is dying. Supported by her oldest friend, Clemmie, who listens and sympathises, she looks back over her life. Each woman has had a disappointing marriage: Clemmie to a man who turned out to be gay; Annie to a man who left her under tragic circumstances. Gradually Annie reveals her story. At 18 a GI whom she never sees again impregnates her in the back of a truck. Living alone with her mother, she brings up her daughter to believe the child's father is a dead war hero. After a few years Annie marries Eric, a charming man. However when Mary, her daughter, discovers the truth she is horrified and goes to the US - to Milwaukee - to try and locate her genuine father. She returns with a man who claims to be him, but Annie is highly suspicious. Is Mary trying to get her revenge on the mother - and subsequently Eric - whom she feels betrayed her by lying about her true parentage?
Madame Sousatzka is a gifted piano teacher who specializes in child prodigies and hosts her lessons in the dilapidated London home she shares with three other eccentrics: a 'countess' in retirement, a gay osteopath, and a 'woman-of-the-evening'. Madame Sousatzka's newest student is an astonishing talent, and in her hands, the new boy will blossom into musical genius. But the public cannot hear him yet: until his debut he belongs to Sousatzka and her bizarre hot- house tenants. One day he will be a great pianist - until that day he must play only for Sousatzka ... This moving and entertaining novel by Booker Prize-winning author Bernice Rubens was adapted into the 1988 film starring Shirley MacLaine. 'A story of delectable charm and wit. Passionate, comical, touchingly unaware of oddity, Madame Sousatzka is Ms Rubens' most engaging creation, inimitable and unforgettable.'-The Times
1947: One year before the Israeli War of Independence and Palestine is still under the British Mandate. However, young Israelis are flocking to the leadership of Menachim Begin and his Irgun terrorist movement in an attempt to overthrow their rulers. Two British sergeants are kidnapped by the Irgun. They will be executed unless there is a widespread amnesty for the Irgun freedom fighters - and so begins a hunt throughout Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the whole of Palestine to find and liberate the two innocent young men. Based on a true story, THE SERGEANTS' TALE illuminates an historical episode, and also has enormous contemporary poignancy.
Bronwen's life has been tainted by her killing of a man who tried to rape her in the lane behind her parents' house. She tells nobody about the incident but her guilt manifests itself in the frequent nosebleeds she has at awkward moments. Fifty years later, she is still living her life sentence.
America & Britain have always had a "special relationship" but when the President & Prime Minister were lovers at University who parted tragically can they put their personal feelings aside to deal with an international crisis?
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