For that is what it is: the story of a young English girl's growth towards maturity in the 1930s. We see Mary at school in Kensington and on holiday in Somerset; her attempt at drama school; her year in Paris learning dressmaking and getting engaged to the wrong man; her time as a secretary and companion; and her romance with Sam. We chose this book because we wanted to publish a novel like Dusty Answer, I Capture the Castle or The Pursuit of Love, about a girl encountering life and love, which is also funny, readable and perceptive; it is a 'hot-water bottle' novel, one to curl up with on the sofa on a wet Sunday afternoon. But it is more than this. As Harriet Lane remarks in her Preface: 'It is Mariana's artlessness, its enthusiasm, its attention to tiny, telling domestic detail that makes it so appealing to modern readers.' And John Sandoe Books in Sloane Square (an early champion of Persephone Books) commented: 'The contemporary detail is superb - Monica Dickens's descriptions of food and clothes are particularly good - and the characters are observed with vitality and humour. Mariana is written with such verve and exuberance that we would defy any but academics and professional cynics not to enjoy it.'

    Playing Booth DeWitt's cruel ex-wife in his semiautobiographical film is the chance of a lifetime. Not only that, she's secretly in the middle of a custody battle for her brother's son. The last thing she has time for is a complicated relationship with a moody screenwriter, yet Ariel can't get sexy Booth out of her mind. Ever since his very public breakup with his ex-wife, Booth has had serious trust issues. All the same, he can't help it when Ariel makes her way into his life--and into his heart.THE BEST MISTAKEEx-model Zoe Fleming is now a hardworking single mom--and she wouldn't have it any other way. That being said, she needs a tenant to share household expenses. What she gets is confirmed bachelor J. Cooper McKinnon. Coop has no intentions of settling down anytime soon, but when he meets Zoe's son, Keenan, he can't help but bond with the young boy--and fall for his independent mother. But Zoe has zero room in her life for a man! Either this was a recipe for disaster or the best mistake she's ever made. Previously Published.