Agatha Christie
writing as Mary Westmacott
Absent in the Spring May
1997
The Burden May 1997
Unfinished Portrait May
1997
A Daughter's A Daughter May
1997
The Rose and the Yew Tree May
1997
Giant's Bread May 1997
Books written as Agatha Christie
About the Author photo by Photo
by Angus McBean/Havard Theatre Collection
Bibliography
Absent
in the Spring
Returning from a visit to her daughter in Iraq, Joan
Scudamore finds herself unexpectedly alone and stranded in an isolated rest house by
flooding of the railway track. This sudden solitude compels Joan to assess her life for
the first time ever and face up to many of the truths about herself. Looking back over the
years, Joan painfully re-examines her attitudes, relationships and actions and becomes
increasingly uneasy about the person who is revealed to her...
‘The one book that has satisfied me completely’ Agatha Christie
`I've not been so emotionally moved by a story since the memorable Brief Encounter...
Absent in the Spring is a tour de force which should be recognized as a classic.'
New York Times
The Burden
Laura Franklin bitterly resented the arrival of her
younger sister Shirley, an enchanting baby loved by all the family. But Laura’s
emotions towards her sister changed dramatically one night, when she vowed to protect her
with all her strength and love. While Shirley longs for freedom and romance, Laura has to
learn that loving can never be a one-sided affair, and the burden of her love for her
sister has a dramatic effect on both their lives.
Based on Agatha Christie's metaphor `Sometimes you
haven't the right currency. And then someone else has to pay...'
Unfinished
Portrait
Bereft of the three people she has held most dear -
her mother, her husband and her daughter - Celia is on the verge of suicide. Then one
night on an exotic island she meets Larraby, a successful portrait painter, and through a
long night of talk reveals how she is afraid to commit herself to a second chance of
happiness with another person, yet is not brave enough to face life alone. Can Larraby
help Celia come to terms with the past or will they part, her outcome still
uncertain?
`In Celia we have more nearly than anywhere else a portrait of Agatha' Max Mallowan
A
Daughter's A Daughter
Ann Prentice falls in love with Richard Cauldfeld
and hopes for new happiness. Her only child, Sarah, cannot contemplate the idea of her
mother marrying again and wrecks any chance of her remarriage. Resentment and jealousy
corrode their relationship as each seeks relief in different directions. Are mother and
daughter destined to be enemies for life or will their underlying love for each other
finally win through?
A novel in which mutual hatred leads to unhappiness;
but love and hate are very much akin...
The Rose and the Yew Tree
Everyone expected Isabella Charteris, beautiful,
sheltered and aristocratic, to marry her cousin Rupert when he came back from the War. It
would have been such a suitable marriage. How strange then that John Gabriel, an ambitious
and ruthless war hero, should appear in her life. For Isabella, the price of love would
mean abandoning her dreams of home and happiness forever. For Gabriel, it would destroy
his chance of a career and all his ambitions.
`Miss Westmacott writes crisply and is always lucid ... much material has been
skilfully compressed within little more than 200 pages' Times Literary Supplement
Giant's Bread
Vernon Deyre is a sensitive and brilliant musician,
even a genius. But there is a high price to be paid for his talent, especially by his
family and the two women in his life. His sheltered childhood in the home he loves has not
prepared Vernon for the harsh reality of his adult years, and in order to write the great
masterpiece of his life, he has to make a crucial decision with no time left to count the
cost... ‘When Miss Westmacott reaches the world of music, which she really
knows, her book suddenly comes alive and vivifies her characters with it.' New Statesman
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the
best-selling novelist in history. She wrote 80 crime mysteries and collection, and saw her
work translated into more languages than Shakespeare. Her enduring success, enhanced by
many film and TV adaptations, is a tribute to the timeless appeal of her characters and
the unequalled ingenuity of her plots.
She is known throughout the world as the Queen of
Crime. It was her sharp observations of the ambitions that drive people, their
relationships and the conflicts that erupt between them that added life and sparkle to her
ingenious detective stories. When, writing as Mary Westmacott, she turned this
understanding of human nature away form the crime genre, she created bittersweet novels,
love stories with a jagged edge, as compelling and memorable as the best of her work
All books in print can be ordered at the
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