Books by Jessica Stirling

Set in 1878, this is the story of Biddy and Innes, two young girls from a large crofting and fishing family on the Isle of Mull, whose world is thrown into confusion by the arrival of a handsome young shepherd. Tragedy follows when they both fall in love with the same man.

The Martindale sisters are about to embark on a reckless journey of deceit, rivalry and betrayal that reaches a thrilling and romantic climax as the Titanic sails for New York...At first, handsome, freewheeling Clive Cavendish does not appear to be an ideal catch for Julie. But when a whirlwind seduction leads to love and marriage and Clive's ambitious schemes begin to pay off Julie is more than happy to be the wife of an up-and-coming painter and the mother of his children.Anna's suitor, Howard Buskin, is rich, moody and reclusive. He prefers painting Dartmoor's brooding landscapes to courting the beautiful young woman his mother has chosen to be his bride and from the first their uneasy, loveless marriage totters on the brink of crisis.Only when American art collector Teddy Norris enters their lives with a proposal that Howard cannot ignore, and an easy-going charm that sweeps Anna into a tempestous affair, do the sisters begin to question their loyalty to their husbands and to each other. A loyalty that will be tested to the limit on the first, and last, Atlantic crossing of the White Star's new super-liner, the unsinkable Titanic - a voyage not all of them will survive.

A wonderful story of love, intrigue and snobbery set in Ayrshire in the 1930s.Christine Summers is a pretty young teacher in a country school and the apple of more than one man's eye.But Christine has no intention of sacrificing her independence to marry anyone, least of all Charley Noonan, the rough-tongued young farmer who has been pursuing her for years. When she meets lonely widower Alan Kelso, however, Christine finds herself falling in love. Alan has also caught the eye of pony breeder Beatty McCall. Passionate, experienced and unscrupulous, Beatty is willing to offer him more, it seems, than Christine can ever hope to match. But sometimes all it takes to fall in love is dancing to the Paradise Waltz...Rich in tangled affections and intriguing characters, in THE PARADISE WALTZ Jessica Stirling captures all the pain and humour of life in a small, gossip-ridden village in the time between two world wars when wireless and the cinema were changing everyone's ideas about romance.

About fifteen years after the events in the last book Fay Ludlow, battered daugher-in-law of Innes, seeks refuge with her unknown mother-in- law on Mull with the abusive Tarrant men expected to follow her.

An epic of love, greed and betrayal set on the beautiful, remote Isle of Mull . . . Innis and Biddy Campbell have married well - Innis to the handsome shepherd Michael Tarrant, Biddy to rich Austin Baverstock. But Biddy is now a widow, only too accustomed to keeping herself aloof from life and love while Innis, now the mother of three young children, has found that marriage is not the idyll she expected. Then into their lives, still sheltered from a changing world by Mull's very remoteness, come two men. For Biddy, happiness may have come last. But it is Innis who has the hardest choices to make.

The Burnsides move from Glasgow s tenement slums to the sunny new suburbs of Flannery Park brings hope to all members of the family. But heartbreak awaits among the tidy gardens and green lawns and soon seventeen-year-old Alison is forced to take on responsibility for her out-of-work father and brothers and put her own ambitions aside.Love as well as loss threatens Alison s future, however, and leads her into a relationship with teacher Jim Abbott, an affair which her brothers, even the brooding Henry, are powerless to understand, let alone prevent. Throughout the Depression years of the early 30s, the Burnsides united by a shared heritage yet divided by their dreams square up to the challenge of poverty and fight to hold the family together, whatever the cost.

Lizzie Conway has clawed her way out of the worst slums of the Gorbals, all for the sake of her three daughters, her most prized possessions. She would do anything to protect Polly, Babs and poor, deaf Rosie. In this tough part of Glasgow, there are many dangers - physical and moral - facing women. And the girls themselves seem sometimes to be determined to make marriages as unwise as the one that landed her with crippling debts, three small children and no man to take care of them . . . But Lizzie is a fighter, and - to her surprise - so are more than one of her girls.

The compelling second novel in the Stalker Trilogy, which began with The Spoiled Earth and continues with The Dark Pasture, set in the Lanarkshire mining village of Blacklaw in the bleak 1870s. In Edinburgh, Drew Stalker studies law, determined never to return to the grinding poverty of his childhood.Mirrin, the most restless and vital of them all, takes to the road and begins her journey, from tinker's camp to hiring fair, to a glittering future on the music-hall stage. And the Stalkers who remain in Blacklaw join a violent and bloody riot when the mine-owner Houston Lamont pushes them, at last, too far. The Stalker Trilogy: 'Family ties, family strengths and weaknesses, ambition, greed loyalty and love . . . the story is compelling.' Daily Telegraph 'I would strongly recommend it to anyone with a taste for family sagas.' Scotsman

When Holly Beckman inherits a quarter share of James Aspinall's antique shop, his dissolute son David and snobbish daughter Andrea are outraged. But the girl from the back streets of Lambeth has already faced enemies more daunting than the Mayfair smart set.Aided by her grandfather, Holly defies her father's drunken rages, her brother's criminal plans and David Aspinall's seductive charms. But she has one weakness. Christopher Deems, a handsome poet scarred by the Great War, drives Holly to a fateful decision between love and ambition. She cannot know that tragedy waits down each shadowed path . . .'She writes in bright colours with bold, confident strokes.' Glasgow Herald