The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries) (40 page)

Set against the turbulent events of the 1890s and moving from the Western Isles of Scotland to London society, from slum life in Edinburgh to a palazzo in Venice, and finally to the battlefields of the Boer war,
The Daughters of Blane
is the passionate and ultimately triumphant story of three women who refuse to fit the mould society has made for them.

Green Grow the Rushes

In the summer of 1900, a group of young people are brought together in the decaying splendour of the Quarro, a Scottish country house owned by the down-at-heel Lennox family. As their lives touch, new alliances are formed – some doomed to failure and bitter despair, others that will endure against the odds to bring lasting happiness.

A sweeping, panoramic survey of turn-of-the-century Scottish society – from country house to industrial slums, bohemian free-thinking to High Tory Politics – Green Grow the Rushes is peopled with a cast of memorable and vividly realised characters.

“Smart’s characters have a feel of authentic life and move in and out of a backdrop which cunningly incorporates political change, trade union rebellion, suffragette noise and good food”
– The Sunday Times

The Wild Garden

Kate Mackenzie is on the brink of success as an artist when she meets Gabriel Erskine, twenty-two years her senior. She’s not looking for a relationship, but Gabriel’s understanding of paintings and his outlook, so different from that of her friends, captivate her. Six months later, she moves into Allansfield, the beautiful house in rambling gardens on Gabriel’s estate in Fife. She doesn’t know him well, but what better way to change that than by living with him?

Touching, involving and honest,
The Wild Garden
is an utterly contemporary novel about life’s choices, love’s different aspects, and second chances.

The Lark Ascending

When Chris Adam receives a proposal from wealthy young Guy Lindsay, her family are delighted – this would be a fine match indeed for a daughter of the Manse. Chris is tempted, for she is attracted to Guy, but her vocation is to be a composer, and instead of marriage she chooses to study music in Edinburgh.

There Chris meets Angus Bretton, who has been sent down from medical school in disgrace. Though he seems strangely restrained after the passionate Guy, Chris falls deeply in love with him, and it is Angus who comes to her rescue when events conspire against her and all her dreams are in ruins. But Angus is not all that Chris imagines him to be and their happiness is shortlived. A chance meeting with Guy gives Chris a glimpse of the fulfilling life she might have had – but now Guy is married to one of Chris’s friends.

As war breaks out across Europe in 1914, tragedy, betrayal and scandal lie ahead before Chris can fulfil her musical destiny and stand by the side of the man she loves.

Reckless Griselda

On an impetuous journey to stop her father making an unsuitable marriage, Griselda Farqharson meets dashing Tom Thorpe. They fall instantly in love and into trouble. After she indulges in a sensual clandestine encounter with him, Griselda is forced to face the consequences of her reckless disregard for the rules of society. For this is England in 1816 and Tom is a wealthy baronet, caught up in a net of emotional entanglements and family conflicts. Determined to do the right thing and preserve Griselda’s reputation, he must face the ruin of his own. As a whirlwind of scandal engulfs them, will Griselda and Tom be able to transform their passionate attraction into a true and lasting happiness or will their love be destroyed by it?

Moving from the Norfolk countryside to the fashionable drawing rooms of London,
Reckless Griselda
is a hot-blooded regency romantic comedy that asks the question: should you let your heart rule your head?

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