Valerie Lawson

When the ship sails on, death follows in its wake.What if you witness a murder on a cruise ship?How long before the killer tries to silence you too - forever?It's the 1960s and Margaret Hargreaves is newly on board the SS Ocean Star as a laundry maid. Her nightmare begins when she mistakenly enters the wrong cabin after a party. What she sees could be enough to send the murderer to jail for life. Which means he'll do whatever it takes to stop her from talking.As the danger increases, Margaret realises that there's only one man who can help her. But he's very hard to find, as there are over a thousand passengers and crew on board.Can she get to him before the killer finally succeeds in murdering her?The Ship Sails On is the debut novel from Valerie Lawson - whose own experience of serving on a cruise ship in the 1960s comes through on every page. Not only does she bring us an exciting adventure, but also an extremely colourful cast of characters - with illicit liaisons, wild partying, drag shows, some very coarse language - and plenty of booze. There are even desperate diamond smuggling plots as well It all makes for a very vibrant backdrop to Margaret's dangerous adventure.

The story of Mary Poppins, the quintessentially English and utterly magical children's nanny, is remarkable enough. She flew into the lives of the unsuspecting Banks family in a children's book that was instantly hailed as a classic, then became a household name when Julie Andrews stepped into the starring role in Walt Disney's hugely successful and equally classic film. Now she is a sensation all over again-both on Broadway and in Disney's upcoming film Saving Mr. Banks. Saving Mr. Banksretells many of the stories in Valerie Lawson's biography Mary Poppins, She Wrote, including P. L. Travers's move from London to Hollywood and her struggles with Walt Disney as he adapted her novel for the big screen. Travers, whom Disney accused of vanity for "thinking she knows more about Mary Poppins than I do," was a poet and world-renowned author as tart and opinionated as Andrews's big-screen Mary Poppins was cheery and porcelain-beautiful. Yet it was a love of mysticism and magic that shaped Travers's life as well as the very character of Mary Poppins. The clipped, strict, and ultimately mysterious nanny who emerged from her pen was the creation of someone who remained inscrutable and enigmatic to the end of her ninety-six years. Valerie Lawson's illuminating biography provides the first full look at the life of the woman and writer whose personal journey is as intriguing as her beloved characters.