Fay Weldon

This collection of 11 short stories vary widely in theme, while remaining avowedly feminist, sometimes bitter, sometimes angry, yet always handled with wit, irony and courage. In "Alopecia", a lost sense of sisterhood brings tragedy. In "Threnody", a women's commune is gently mocked.

Isabel Acre has kept the secret of her out-of-wedlock son for seven years, has worked at her marriage and career, and forgotten the past. But when her son's real father stands for the US Presidency, her careful facade begins to crumble.

Madeleine wants revenge. She is the ex-wife and chief persecutor to Jarvis, an architect. For Jarvis has a new life with a new wife and a new baby. Jarvis is content, or thinks he is. Until Madeleine uncovers new familial links in the disruption she creates.

This novel explores the conflicts which underlie even the most conventional of lives - the eternal struggle between female and male, the spirit and the flesh, reason and desire. A young couple acquire a cottage in Somerset, Liffey moving to live there while her husband stays on in London.

When painter Walter Wells auctions off a portrait of socialite Lady Juliet wearing a Bulgari necklace, chaos ensues as Grace McNab Salt, just out of jail from trying to run over her millionaire ex-husband's new wife Doris, falls in love with Walter, and Doris becomes obsessed with the necklace and will do anything to get it, in a wild and wicked novel filled with spite, revenge, romance, and love. Reprint.

Take one wealthy businessman fresh on his second marriage to an avid, successful young woman; one ex-wife who happens to be a saint; one artist, and a portrait for sale; two women wearing Bulgari necklaces: add a touch of the supernatural, a big dose of envy, stir, and see what happens.

Smart, sexy, and infinitely charming, Rhode Island Blues tells the story of Sophia Moore, a loveless and guarded thirty-four-year-old film editor in London who believes that her only living relative is her stormy and wild grandmother Felicity. Troubled by her mother's long-ago suicide and her father's abandonment, Sophia overworks, incessantly contemplates her past, and continues a flat sexual affair with the famous director of her latest film. But when she travels to Rhode Island to help Felicity settle into a retirement center, she begins to unravel mysteries about her family history while Felicity learns to gamble, falls in love, and uncovers the truth about the center's evil nurse Dawn. A hilarious tale of family secrets, nursing-home high jinks, and late-life love, Rhode Island Blues is Fay Weldon at her witty best.

A witty, astutely observed study of sexual politics in contemporary society which centres on an all-female reading group. Oriole wants to study contemporary authors, while Anne prefers well-known classics. Pondering the relative merits, the women reveal themselves, their personalities echoing the literary heroines. But not everyone is there for literature. Nefarious designs are uncovered and tensions rise to a dramatic climax.5 women, 2 men

Twenty madcap tales profile people with therapists who destroy marriages and family ties, husbands and lovers whose greatest cruelty is their indifference, and clever women steering the perils of domesticity. Reprint. NYT.

A collection of 19 tales about the way we live now, as lovers, partners, children, parents. Or alone. Stories of passion, desire, and necessary restraint; of the near future, the recent past; of old habits, new technology; of won't-be mothers and would-be fathers; and of houses, ancient and modern.

After returning home from a stint on the London stage to find her husband mysteriously dead and her female friends suspiciously smoothing over the details, an actress begins losing her mind in finding her worst fears confirmed. Reprint. K.

Alexandra is an actress, beautiful and lauded. In the eyes of the world she has everything a woman could want: husband, home, child, income, good looks, good friends, the plaudits of the crowd and the affection of neighbours. However, all fate has to do to bring her down is snip a single strand.

A collection of stories from the hyper-real world of Weldonia, where self-deprecation rules, where a bully can believe he is a victim, a blackmailer see herself as a healer and an artist's slave be sure she is free.

Sir Edwin Rice has decided to divorce Lady Angelica. She has behaved intolerably and is accused of abuse, violence, bestiality and lesbianism. But there is more to Angelica than her husband realizes - she is a wife, a tart, a star, a secretary and a brooding chap called Ajax. She is Everywoman.

A darkly comic novel about divorce follows a woman's psychic unravelling in the face of her impending break-up, which is matched by the shattering of her own personality into a cacophony of contending inner voices. Reprint. K. NYT.

Sir Edwin Rice has decided to divorce Lady Angelica. She has behaved intolerably and is accused of abuse, violence, bestiality and lesbianism. But there is more to Angelica than her husband realizes - she is a wife, a tart, a star, a secretary and a brooding chap called Ajax. She is Everywoman.

This is a collection of stories by Fay Weldon, a writer concerned with sexual warfare. This anthology features oafish men, conniving women, blameless and infamous behaviour by both sexes, seduction, rejection and alimony.

'ONE OF OUR VERY BEST WRITERS' Sunday Times'A tour de force'The Times'Intoxicating'Daily Telegraph'Devilishly delightful'New York Times Book Review'Beautifully and compellingly written'Sunday Express'Audacious'Times Literary SupplementTHE BESTSELLING CLASSIC TALE OF A WOMAN SCORNED, FROM A MUCH-LOVED BRITISH AUTHORRuth Patchett never thought of herself as particularly devilish.Rather the opposite in fact - simply a tall, not terribly attractive woman living a quiet life as a wife and mother in a respectable suburb. But when she discovers that her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy that she becomes truly diabolic. Within weeks she has burnt down the family home, collected the insurance, made love to the local drunk and embarked on a course of destruction and revenge. A blackly comic satire of the war of the sexes, The Life and Loves of a She Devil is the fantasy of the wronged woman made real.PRAISE FOR FAY WELDON'She's a Queen of Words'Caitlin Moran'A national treasure'Literary Review'The literary equivalent of a stiff drink, a dip in the Atlantic in January, a pep talk by a mildly sadistic coach'New York Times'Times have changed and Weldon is one of the people who have changed them'The Times'One of the great lionesses of modern English literature'Harper's Bazaar'Fay Weldon's voice is as unmistakeable as her acerbic wit'Financial Times

Annette and Spicer make a perfect pair. But on this, the first day of the rest of their blissful lives, Spicer fails to kiss Annette goodbye, as he leaves for the office. The years of marriage shift and change: the rock of Annette's marriage may be sand.