Books by Mary Lovell

After carrying their story around for years, a mother and daughter share their personal recollection of a tornado hitting their hometown. Sally was in the middle of the storm, and Mary, her daughter, was across town on the other end of the phone. Experience their heart-wrenching account as Mary received what she thought would be the last phone call from her mother.

The first Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722) was a soldier of such genius that a lavish palace, Blenheim, was built to honor his triumphs. Succeeding generations of Churchills sometimes achieved distinction but also included profligates and womanizers, and were saddled with the ruinous upkeep of Blenheim. The family fortunes were revived in the nineteenth century by the huge dowries of New York society beauties Jennie Jerome (Winston's mother) and Consuelo Vanderbilt (wife to Winston's cousin).Mary S. Lovell brilliantly recounts the triumphant political and military campaigns, the construction of great houses, the domestic tragedies, and the happy marriage of Winston to Clementine Hosier set against the disastrous unions of most of his family, which ended in venereal disease, papal annulment, clinical depression, and adultery.The Churchills were an extraordinary family: ambitious, impecunious, impulsive, brave, and arrogant. Winston-recently voted "The Greatest Briton"-dominates them all. His failures and triumphs are revealed in the context of a poignant and sometimes tragic private life.