Dinah Lampitt
Banishment
As Shadows Haunting
The King's Women
Pour The Dark Wine
To Sleep No More
Fortune's Soldier
The Silver Swan
Sutton Place
About the Author
Bibliography
More Bibliographical Details
Writing as Deryn Lake
Banishment
Nichola Hall, acclaimed actress and collector of men, has an infamous reputation. Sensual, lithe and utterly sexy, Nichola is a hedonist without remorse - or friends. So when she wakes up from an experiment in hypnosis to find herself in the body of Arabella, beautiful step-daughter of the unappealing Sir Denzil Loxley, she is hardly equipped for life in the seventeenth century.
Shocked to discover she has an attractive Parliamentarian lover and a new-born child, and is in the camp of the losing Royalists, Nichola's main objective is to get back to her own time. Yet she can hardly explain what has happened without risking being accused of witchcraft. And anyway, there is a more immediate problem to confront: the lecherous attentions of Sir Denzil.
Rescued by one of the King's noblemen, the dashing Lord Joscelin Attwood, Nichola suddenly realises she is rather enjoying playing the part of Arabella. Then slowly, insidiously, she finds that the part is becoming more real than her own identity. And it dawns on her that she is no longer acting. The old heartless Nichola Hall has actually fallen in love. And she is ready to face the dangerous wiles of her step-daughter, to deny herself the delights of Prince Rupert and to brave the bloody fighting for the sake of a loved one who has brought her back across the centuries.
Romantic, raunchy and intriguing, BANISHMENT is a compelling story set against the evocative, wonderfully crafted backdrop of the Civil War.
As Shadows Haunting
Sidonie Brooks is a talented, modern-day musician who finds acclaim easier to come by than lasting love. Torn between her feelings for a dedicated Irish doctor and a mercurial Russian violinist -and forever fending off the advances of her ex-husband - she seeks solace in the diaries of Lady Sarah Lennox. Soon she is caught up in the scandals and intrigues of the gorgeous Sarah whose behaviour sets society alight in 1760.
Arriving fresh from Ireland, Lady Sarah Lennox takes London by storm. To the delight - and envy - of the gossips, the Prince of Wales, the future George III, makes no secret of his obvious admiration. Sarah's relationship with George is to go beyond speculation however, beyond the point of no return - if only the prince's future was his own to decide.
Redolent with Georgian wit and vigour, this is the compelling story of two vibrant, enchanting women who glimpse each other first in astonishment, then in affinity across the centuries.
"Sympathetically told, and the lives of the twin heroines touch and part in a very convincing manner" The Times
"She has a strong sense of history and an uncanny ability to bring it to life. "Daily Mail
The King's Women
France in the early fifteenth century, at its head a mad king and a queen whose appetites for sensual pleasure could never be sated. The great warlords of Burgundy and Armagnac rise up to seize the crown - the birthright of one fawn-like small boy, the Dauphin Charles, upon whom the future of all France depends.
Only Yolande, the courageous, elegant Duchess of Anjou, Queen of Sicily, understands the poor child's predicament and gathers him into her beautiful airy chateau to grow up unhampered by the terrible affairs at court. But Yolande herself is not free from turmoil. A fleeting visit from the young Earl of Richmond has brought a passion into her life that she cannot quell and a shameful secret that threatens her standing as the cool-headed ruler of her husband's domain.
Yet it is from this unlikely union of stately duchess and fiery young nobleman - one of the most magnificent love stories of history - that will spring the kingdom's hope: an innocent girl who will ride at the head of the dwindling French army and lead them to triumph over the English, reinstating Charles as the most dazzling king that France would ever know.
A masterpiece of a novel, THE KING'S WOMEN brings to vibrant life a time of glory and dissipation when astrologers and churchmen alike wielded enormous powers and when the winding path of Fate chose women to shape the destinies of men.
'A meaty dish of lust and medieval intrigue' Maureen Owen, Daily Mail
'Ingenious, long and highly readable' Philippa Toomey, The Times
'Best writer of her kind' Kent Messenger
Pour The Dark Wine
In Pour The Dark Wine, Dinah Lampitt again shows her ability to interweave fact and fiction to create an historical novel of impact and passion. The story of the rise and fall of the Seymours was dramatic in its own right and her imaginative skills and impeccable research cast new light on one of the most exciting periods in English history.
The Seymours were one of the most powerful families under the Tudors. Jane became Henry VIII's third wife. Thomas married his widow and engaged in an ambiguous relationship with the young Elizabeth while Edward became Protector but ended his life on the scaffold.
This novel reinterprets the role of Jane and looks in detail at the life of Thomas, the most glamorous of the Seymours. Introducing into the story the astrologer Zachary, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Norfolk, who played a pivotal role in the Sutton Place trilogy, Dinah Lampitt has given us her strongest novel yet, a triumph of storytelling based on actual historical fact.
"A cracking good plot. "The Times
To Sleep No More
This powerful new saga from the popular author of the Sutton Place novels presents a brilliant evocation of three fated characters fighting their destiny across the centuries.
In the fourteenth century, Oriel de Sharndene, the beautiful daughter of a Sussex landowner, is married off to the retarded brother of the Archbishop of: Canterbury; three centuries later, Jenna Mist, wife of the village carpenter, is hanged for witchcraft; in the eighteenth century, a highwayman captures the love of the delightful Henrietta Trevor - three apparently unconnected events. This panoramic novel skilfully interweaves past and present, fact and fiction, exploring the enigma of reincarnation through the ages.
Set in the village of Mayfield in Sussex, To Sleep No More opens in the tumultuous reign of Edward III when monarch and Church struggled for supremacy and ambitious noblemen aimed to better themselves by marrying their daughters well. Oriel accepts the Archbishop's half-witted brother Colin de Stratford to please her father but soon falls in love with the dashing Gascon squire, Marcus de Flaviel. A strange and touching friendship develops between the three but, when Oriel becomes pregnant, suspicions are aroused and Marcus disappears without trace.
But their souls cannot rest and the story follows them through the times of witchcraft persecution under James I to the troubled Georgian period when highwaymen and smugglers held sway.
Using the wealth of historical detail which made her Sutton Place trilogy such a success, Dinah Lampitt presents an enthralling picture of undying love, linked across the centuries by the enchanting Sussex village of Mayfield, where the Archbishop's palace still dominates the surroundings.
"Dinah Lampitt researches her books with care and weaves facts into a story that is satisfyingly romantic and impressively researched." Publishing News
Fortune's Soldier
'She was quite the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
"I want to marry you, Captain Webbe Weston," she said, falling on one knee before him."Will you accept my proposal!"
He laughed, cracking forward in a guffaw."Get up at once," he said.
"No I will not. John Joseph, will you marry me!"
"No, Lady Horatia," answered the owner of Sutton Place,"I most certainly will not."
So began one of the greatest love stories of the nineteenth century: that of Lady Horatia Waldegrave, daughter of the sixth Earl Waldegrave, and Captain John Joseph Webbe Weston, soldier of fortune for the Austrian Emperor and heir to the curse of Sutton Place.
The last of the Westons, sad Melior Mary, has been dead for many years, but the curse laid by Queen Edith in 1048 is as strong as ever, drawing not only John Joseph and Horatia into its web, but also Major John Wardlaw - Jackdaw - the limping spy descended from the magic house of FitzHoward.
FORTUNE'S SOLDIER combines mysticism, witchery and an incredible love story as the paths of three families cross.
FORTUNE'S SOLDIER completes the SUTTON PLACE trilogy, a highly acclaimed history of the curse that was to hang over all those fated to own the doomed manor of Sutton
"Fantastic entertainment ... an island of pleasure, of magic and mystery," Mollie Hardwick, Books and Bookmen
"Deliciously spook-ridden" Daily Telegraph
The Silver Swan
'From somewhere deep in the house a cry rang out - a cry so distressing, speaking as it did of terror and night-fright - that John Weston felt his blood chill and every hackle on his body rise. He was not a nervous man but that terrible sound brought back to his mind something that he had long ago dismissed - the legend of the curse of Sutton Place. But John Weston, the last male descendant of Sir Richard the builder, did not believe in the evil that had dogged his ancestors, and put all the ill-luck down to coincidence.
THE SILVER SWAN tells not only his story but also that of his beautiful silverhaired daughter Melior Mary and her fatal desire for two men; one a strange orphan boy from Calais, the other Prince Charles Edward Stuart - the Young Pretender himself. The pages swarm with the great characters of history - Alexander Pope the deformed poet, Captain Charles Wogan the Jacobite spy, Princess Clementina Sobieski the bride of the Old Pretender and Joseph Gage the Rake Hell and dandy. All were destined to know and love Melior Mary but she was damned by the ancient spell of her mansion house.
In this colourful novel, the second in the SUTTON PLACE trilogy, Dinah Lampitt continues the story of the unfolding of the curse laid by Queen Edith of England in 1045 and how its power had grown stronger with the passing of the centuries; how Giles the Fool haunted the Long Gallery with his laughter and tears; and how the descendants of Dr. Zachary the astrologer are caught up once more into the web of wickedness spun by the doomed manor of Sutton.
"Fantastic entertainment… An island of pleasure, of magic and mystery" Mollie Hardwick, Books and Bookmen
Sutton Place
'The richest man in the world was dying and as he wandered in that wild, never-never land that lies between the end of life and infinity, he dreamed.' But as Paul Getty gasped his way to death he had no idea of the curse-ridden history of his magnificent mansion - Sutton Place.
The malediction of a Viking Queen who had suffered there was to lie on the land for centuries trailing evil in the lives of the men and women destined to live there. Getty himself believed there to be a curse on his family but had no conception of the awful truth that affected not only the Gettys but Robert Malet, William the Conqueror's henchman; Hugh Despenser and his homosexual lover; Edward II and Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent.
SUTTON PLACE tells of the casting of the curse at the nearby well by Edith, King Knut's niece, and of the evil it exuded over the Tudor builder of the mansion, Sir Richard Weston and his family. Richard's son falls victim to the curse, dying beneath the executioner's blade, his death warrant signed by Henry VIII. In this gripping novel, the first in a trilogy, Dinah Lampitt explores the scourge which affects the inhabitants of Sutton Place, including Anne Boleyn during her struggle for the Queen's crown, press baron, Lord Northcliffe, and Getty himself. It is a dark destiny which hangs over those fated to own the doomed manor of Sutton.
'Deliciously spook-ridden ' Daily Telegraph
About The Author
Dinah Lampitt was born in Essex - daughter of a Bavarian eccentric and a Welsh witch - but spent her formative years in a haunted cottage in Chiswick. For a time she worked for Woman, The Times and the Evening News. A chance meeting with one of the Getty family took her to Sutton Place and her first serious novel was born.
The Sutton Place trilogy established Dinah as a major novelist. Dinah also writes under the pseudonym Deryn Lake whose novels have been highly successful.
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
Banishment
(Hodder & Stoughton,
1994)
As Shadows Haunting
(NEL,
1993)
The King's Women
(Hodder & Stoughton,
1992)
Pour The Dark Wine
(Michael Joseph,
1989)
To Sleep No More
(Michael Joseph,
1987)
Fortune's Soldier
(Muller,
1985)
The Silver Swan
(Muller, Blond & White,
1984)
Sutton Place
(Muller,
1983)
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