The Secret Life of William Shakespeare (60 page)

JUDE MORGAN

An Accomplished Woman

Clever, self-reliant Lydia Templeton once scandalised society by rejecting Lewis Durrant, the county’s most eligible bachelor. Ten years later, although she remains cheerfully unmarried, others still seek her advice on their love lives; including her godmother’s ward, who has managed to promise herself to two men at once. But, as affairs become increasingly tangled, Lydia finds that her own heart is not perhaps the closed book she once thought.

Witty, absorbing and intensely, intelligently pleasurable,
An Accomplished Woman
is a brilliantly entertaining novel of eighteenth-century love and misunderstandings.

Praise for Jude Morgan:

‘Many struggle and fail to don the mantle of Georgette Heyer. If anyone comes close, it is Jude Morgan’ Elizabeth Buchan,
Sunday Times

‘Rich, authentic, beautifully written … I have not been better entertained all year’ Tracy Chevalier

‘Unputdownable. Stunningly well researched, its multi-stranded epic qualities can’t fail to hook and seduce’
Guardian

‘Flamboyant, confident and endlessly inventive … both entertaining and elegant’ Hilary Mantel

‘Morgan has pulled off an epic feat of both imagination and research … brings these clever, unconventional women vividly to life’
Marie Claire

978 0 7553 0769 2

JUDE MORGAN

Symphony

In 1827 Harriet Smithson, a beautiful and talented young Irish actress, makes an unusual decision – she joins an English company in the bold experiment of taking Shakespeare to Paris.

With the ferment of revolution in the air, the new generation is longing for a new kind of passionate, spontaneous art. And to Harriet’s astonishment, it is embodied in her
La Belle Irlandaise.
In the midst of this frenzy she finds herself pursued by an intense young composer, Hector Berlioz. So begins a painful and profound love affair. She is his muse; his obsession; and Berlioz’s
Symphonic Fantastique,
inspired by Harriet, will change music forever.

SYMPHONY is an audacious, brilliant and haunting novel, set against a background of nineteenth-century theatre, Romantic art, music and revolutionary Europe. But at its heart lies the story of two lives transfigured and destroyed by genius, inspiration, and madness.

Critical acclaim for Jude Morgan:

‘I have not been better entertained all year’ Tracy Chevalier

‘Unputdownable. Stunningly well researched, its multi-stranded epic qualities can’t fail to hook and seduce’
Guardian

‘Compellingly written and stylish with it’ Joanna Trollope

978 0 7553 2773 7

JUDE MORGAN

A Little Folly

Sir Clement Carnell was the most domineering of fathers, and his death has left his grown children, Louisa and Valentine, with a sense of release and anticipation. While Valentine throws open their Devonshire estate to their fashionable London cousins, Louisa is free to reject the man her father chose as her prospective husband: Pearce Lynley, a man of his own stamp.

Soon the temptations of Regency London beckon. For Valentine, this includes Lady Harriet Eversholt, beautiful, scandalous, and very married; while Louisa, encountering suitors old and new, finds freedom of choice as daunting as it is exciting. Will the opportunity to indulge, at last, in a little folly lead to fulfilment – or disaster?

Praise for Jude Morgan:

‘Many struggle and fail to don the mantle of Georgette Heyer. If anyone comes close, it is Jude Morgan’ Elizabeth Buchan,
The Sunday Times

‘The characters are wonderfully drawn – some seem to have stepped out of the pages of Jane Austen, others from those of Georgette Heyer. This is the best Regency I have come across for a long time’
Historical Novels Review

978 0 7553 0767 8

Also by Jude Morgan

A Little Folly

Charlotte and Emily

An Accomplished Woman

Symphony

Indiscretion

Passion

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE SECRET LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Copyright © 2012 by Jude Morgan. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

First published in Great Britain by Headline Review, an imprint of Headline Publishing Group

First U.S. Edition: April 2014

eISBN 9781250025043

First eBook edition: February 2014