Böcker av Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

An omnibus edition featuring Bill Slider novels volumes 7: Shallow Grave and 8: Blood Sinister.

1720: political intrigue besets the kingdom as the Stuarts try to claim the throne occupied by the Hanoverians and the Morlands have to use all their wiles to keep their fortunes intact.Jeremy Morland, sole heir to his father's will, has no option but to marry to cold-hearted Lady Mary to secure Hanoverian protection and safeguard his inheritance. Then the rebellion of '45 and the bloody massacre at Culloden thrust his daughter Jemima into the spotlight as the saviour of the family. Independent, single-minded, and a rare beauty, Jemima is a capable caretaker of the Morland heritage. Although Morland Place and its lands suffer from the excesses of her dissolute husband, Jemima's quiet courage earns her an abiding love and loyalty...

In 1851 the fortunes of the Morland family are more buoyant than they have been for years. Morland Place is recovering under Benjamin's steady hands - happy at last with Sibella. Charlotte, now Duchess of Southport, is shortly to give birth to hersecond child and on the point of opening her modern hospital for the poor. Cavendish's engagement to the ethereally beautiful but slightly silly Miss Phipps causes a stir in the drawing rooms of Mayfair and his wedding causes his family some misgivings. Then the storms in Europe spill in to Britain when the army is forced to defend Turkey against the Tsar. Within weeks Cavendish is in the Crimea and disappears in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Another moving and beautifully portrayed episode in the riveting Morland saga.

1795: the shadow of Bonaparte has fallen across Europe and touches each member of the far-flung Morland family.As the century draws to a close, Jemima Morland wearily ackowledges that her life is also nearing its end, but she has scant peace as her unpredictable children behave ever more incomprehensibly: James's marriage to Mary Ann is closer to falling apart; Lucy's marriage de convenance is in the balance - her affair with Lieutenant Watson is an open scandal.Mary bears a daughter on board her husband's ship during the battle of the Nile; and William supports a mistress whose marriage cannot be dissolved.Jemima's death appears to unite the family but, as ever with the Morlands, the future holds more peril than hope.

1772: Althought George III reigns over a peaceful England, his colonies in the Americas are claiming independence and a tide of revolutionary fervour is gripping France.Allen Morland and his beloved wife Jemimas work unstintingly to bring Morland Palace back to its former glory. Their seven children often bring them heartache, but they are sustained by their love of each other.The Mordland adventurer, Charles, emingrates to Maryland in persuit of the heiress Eugenie, but finds himself in the midst of the American claim for indepdence. Meanwhile, Henry, the family's bastard offshoot, pursues pleasure relentlessly but pennilessly until he finds a niche for himself in the fashionable Parisian salons, whilst outside revolution creeps closer...

1689: the Resoration enabled the Morland family to restore their own fortune, but now the Jacobite rebellion brings another threat to their security.Annuciata Morland, fiercely loyal to the Stuart cause, follows her beloved king, James II, into exile. She leaves her gentle grandson, Matt, to oversee Morland Place in her absence. Without her wise presence, Matt finds himself in an arranged marriage to India Neville and at the mercy of a woman as heartless as she is beautiful. After a lonely and sheltered life he lurches between the exquisite pain of love and the torment of deep despair.When James III - the Chevalier - returns to claim the Stuart throne, the Morlands are reunited in one country. Death and defeat threaten them, but their loves and loyalty prove stronger than kingly ambitions...

1659: Cromwell's protectorate is drawing to a close, and the restoration of the monarchy can only improve the fortunes of the Morland family.The years of civil war and their aftermath have left Morland Place in dire straits, but with the return of the King, Ralph Morland believes he can rebuild the family estates. For his beautiful and ambitious cousin, Annunciata, the Restoration means a journey to London - one that leads to the amours and intrigues of Charles's court and to the unlocking of her mysterious past.A new and kinder age is dawning - a time for healing wounds - but more uncertainty, conflict and sorrow await both Ralph and Annunciata before they can find peace and forgiveness...

1820: the landscape of England is undergoing sweeping change as the country pioneers the steam-driven machine age.The Morlands, too, face change: Cousin Africa returns from St Helena to startle society with her unconventional ideas; Lucy brings her sons home from their Grand Tour, brimming with ideas for their future. In Manchester, Sophie and Jasper meet fierce oppostion to their plans for re-housing the factory hands; while in London, Rosamund enters a bizarre agreement with her husband Marcus, with bitter consequences.And at Morland Place, James and Heloise watch their two sons approaching manhood. Benedict delights equally in love and locomotives, while Nicholas, the heir develops a taste for more unusual pleasures- and an impatience to claim his inheritance.

1815: Napoleon's escape from Elba and the preparations for battle entangle the Morland family in a web of romance and heartbreak.The Allied Army is gathering in Flanders, and where the army is, the fashionable world must go- so London society hastens to Brussels to enjoy the most exhilarating Season ever. For Heloise it brings a renewed acquaintance with her former suitor, to Duc de Veslne-d'Estienne; while Rosamund must finally come to terms with her feelings for her cousin Marcus; and for Sophie, a meeting with an enigmatic French major could well alter her future.But as romance flourishes in a warlike atmosphere, the looming shadow of battle only makes the dancers whirl more feverishly, and when the Army marches out to face the might of the French at Waterloo, one question is in every heart: which of them will not come back?

In this omnibus edition Detective Inspector Bill Slider has three murders to investigate: the deaths of a conductor, a critic and an erotic dancer.

1833: the industrial age is sweeping through England and the Stephensons are planning the greatest engineering scheme ever undertaken- a railway line from Liverpool to London.At Morland Place, Nicholas had hoped that his brother Benedict, had been banished forever, but railway fever has brought Benedict back to Yorkshire as an engineer on the Leeds & Selby line. It is a lonely life and he fears he will never be wealthy enough to marry his new love, Miss Fleetham. Nicholas fears that Benedict is not only a threat to his inheritance but to Morland Place itself, as plans to bring the railway to York will desecrate the estate.The conflict between the brothers mirrors the nation's battle between the old and new, but the Morland feud seems certain to end in tragedy and no-one the victor.

1831: as England emerges from the post war depression, the country is changing, and the birth pains of the Reform Act bring it to the brink of revolution.The violent times breed violent acts, both outside and inside the Morland family. Sophie's life is shattered by a hideous crime. Rosamund learns that achieving her dreams brings as much pain as pleasure. Heloise, mourning her beloved James, lets control of Morland Place fall into chaos- Benedict has to flee his home and makes a life amongst the railway pioneers, while Nicholas now has the freedom to indulge the dark side of his nature.And amongst them all stalks the deadly, invisible threat of cholera.

1788: the bloody revolution in France causes upheaval in the Morland family.Henri-Marie Fitzjames Stuart, bastard offshoot of the Morland family, strives to protect his daughter, Heloise, his mistress, Marie-France, and their son Morland. To this end, he binds Heloise to a loveless marriage with a Revolutionary, and allies himself with the great Danton. But in the bloodbath of the guillotine and the fall of Danton, Henri-Marie loses his head and Heloise flees to England.She is welcomed with open arms by the family, and in Yorkshire Jemima proudly witnesses three marriages amongst her turbulent brood.At least three may be an heir to Morland Place, but the seeds of disaster have already been sown.