Books by Nancy Parsons

In her eighth decade, and feeling compelled to comment on what "she got out of it all," Nancy Parsons offers this collection of casual essays. It's a mixed dish of memoir, social comment, and rant, loosely organized around the subject of aging, and seasoned with a healthy helping of humor. With the right attitude, growing older is an adventure. It would be a shame to miss it.

H.H. Willoughby is a forger by profession, and he wants to write his memoir. To do this, he needs a ghostwriter so he engages Nell Bane. Willoughby is an endearing fellow-charming and engaging-but their partnership carries Nell to the limits of the law and causes her to wonder if she is aiding and abetting a criminal. Furthermore, the ominous presence of Willoughby's accomplice, Woodford Stone, haunts Nell and foreshadows trouble as the novel's action moves through museums, studios and art galleries. In The Ghost and the Forger, all the elements of a Nell Bane novel come into play: psychology, ethics and intrigue.

Nell Bane takes her ghostwriting skills to western Massachusetts to help Daniel Shirley write a memoir. Shirley believes he was the last person born in the Swift River Valley before it was drowned to create the Quabbin Reservoir, and he maintains that his life has been marked by this distinction. As Nell writes, she is drawn into the sad and amazing history of the Quabbin project that shifted the residents of Prescott, Dana, Greenwich and Enfield out of their homes in the beautiful Swift River Valley so the land could be flooded to create a water supply for Boston, eighty-three miles to the east. Nell gradually becomes aware that her mild and gentle client, Daniel Shirley, is obsessed with his legacy-a legacy of bitterness-and she comes to believe he might take drastic revenge upon the peaceful waters of the Quabbin Reservoir.The Ghost Lays The Ghosts To Rest is the fifth and final book in the Nell Bane series

Stuart Hammer hires ghostwriter Nell Bane to write a "word portrait" of his wife Ramona O'Hara-a companion piece to the oil painting he has commissioned from Nell's artist friend Ann Fitzmaurice. As they work, the women discover that Hammer not only idolizes his wife, but he idealizes her. And as they peel back the story to reveal the truth, they expose a reality that is quite different from the story Hammer imagines. And when reality and idealism clash, Nell finds herself with an ethics problem that spirals down into scandal.

Prentice and Arabella Eton, an elderly couple deeply-committed to their philanthropic interests, want to leave a legacy to their great-grandchildren that is more than financial. The Etons want the heirs to understand their family roots and heritage and to appreciate the stewardship that their inherited wealth will demand. The couple hires ghostwriter Nell Bane to write a double memoir that tells the individual and joint stories of husband and wife. When the Etons present the finished memoir to the great-grandchildren, they request Nell's presence and Nell finds herself mediating the differences between the generations and trying to diffuse the violent emotions that erupt.Ethics, psychology and intrigue are the hallmarks of a Nell Bane novel. As the ghostwriter delves into her clients' stories, she is drawn into their lives as well.

When Angela Shilliday discovers she isn't up to the task of authoring the biography of Dr. Andrew Povitch, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, she hires Nell Bane to ghostwrite the book. As they work, Nell begins to learn that her client, who appears to have everything, still wants more. Angela, in fact, wants everything and will apparently exceed all boundaries to get it. As the writing project proceeds, Nell Bane finds herself a reluctant witness to human ambition, deceit and grief. Ethics, psychology and intrigue are the hallmarks of a Nell Bane novel.

Nell Bane is a ghostwriter. When she begins to suspect that her high-powered and high-minded client, David Kernow, isn't quite who he projects himself to be, she begins to unwind his story and finds that her ethics--and possibly her life--are in jeopardy.