Standalone Novels In Publication Order
- The Sixth Seal (1969)
- Speaking Terms (1969)
- Jumping the Queue (1983)
- Haphazard House (1983)
- The Camomile Lawn (1984)
- Harnessing Peacocks (1985)
- The Vacillations of Poppy Carew (1986)
- Not That Sort of Girl (1987)
- Second Fiddle (1988)
- A Sensible Life (1990)
- A Dubious Legacy (1992)
- An Imaginative Experience (1994)
- Part of the Furniture (1997)
Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order
- Part of the Scenery (2001)
- Darling Pol (With: Patrick Marnham) (2017)
Standalone Novels Book Covers
Non-Fiction Book Covers
Mary Wesley Books Overview
The Sixth Seal
After a mysterious catastrophe befalls much of the earth, Muriel, her son Paul, and his friend Henry must learn how to survive in this new, barren, and disturbingly empty world. By the author of A Dubious Legacy.
Speaking Terms
Written in 1969, this is a story of animals outwitting the worst of human beings. The author also wrote ‘The Sixth Seal’, ‘Haphazard House’ and ‘Speaking Terms‘.
Jumping the Queue
Recently widowed, Matilda Poliport’s meticulously planned bid for graceful oblivion is foiled. Later she foils the suicide attempt of another lost soul, Hugh, on the run from the police, and life begins again for them both. But life also throws up nasty secrets and awkward questions, both from Matilda s past and her present.
Haphazard House
When eleven year old Lisa Fuller and her younger brother Josh buy a house in the country with their winnings from a horse race, their whole family encounters strange and wonderful chaos in their new home.
The Camomile Lawn
A vivid picture of wartime London and Cornwall through the eyes of five cousins. Behind the large house, the fragrant camomile lawn stretches down to the Cornish cliffs. Here, in the dizzying heat of August 1939, five cousins have gathered at their aunt’s house for their annual ritual of a holiday. For most of them it is the last summer of their youth, with the heady exhilarations and freedoms of lost innocence, as well as the fears of the coming war. The Camomile Lawn moves from Cornwall to London and back again, over the years, telling the stories of the cousins, their family and their friends, united by shared losses and lovers, by family ties and the absurd conditions imposed by war as their paths cross and recross over the years. It is an extraordinarily vivid and lively picture of wartime London: the rationing, imaginatively circumvented; the fallen houses; the parties; the new found comforts of sex; the desperate humour of survival all of it evoked with warmth, clarity and stunning wit. And through it all, the cousins and their friends try to hold onto the part of themselves that laughed and played dangerous games on that camomile lawn.
Harnessing Peacocks
A compartmentalized life becomes entangled. Hebe listens in the darkness of the hall to a family conference. Her stern grandfather and the others are discussing Hebe’s unexpected pregnancy. The decision, unanimous, is that it be terminated. Hebe, dissenting, flees into the night. Twelve summers later she is living happily alone with her son in a seaside town where he is receiving an expensive education. Hebe has organized her life oddly but well. She has two chief talents in life cooking and making love and these she has exercised with dignity, in privacy and for profit. It is when separated strands of the web of Hebe s life becomes entangled that the even tenor of her days is threatened, and her life changes.
The Vacillations of Poppy Carew
This lively and entertaining romp through England and Africa. The Vacillations of Poppy Carew opens with two key events: the departure of Poppy’s thoroughly detestable lover, Edmund, for a richer woman, and the death of her father who, to the irritation of the nursing staff, dies in the midst of raucous laughter. Poppy follows her father s dying wish and organizes a fun funeral complete with black plumed horses and a suspicious number of glamorous women. Present at the funeral are three men who are determined to become her suitors. However, the treacherous Edmund shows up as well and, discovering that Poppy is now heiress to a fortune, abandons his new love interest and whisks Poppy off to Africa, where she embarks on a series of chaotic adventures. Will she escape Edmund s clutches? If so, with whom of her three suitors will she escape?
Not That Sort of Girl
At the age of 18, Rose met Mylo at a party, and the two fell instantly in love. But only a year later, Rose married the wealthy, secure Ned. Now 50 years later, Ned has died, and Rose is looking back on her two relationships.
Second Fiddle
A deft and delicate comedy of sexual manners, given rich substance and animation by the author’s brilliant dialogue, fine wit, and irrepressible instinct to tell a story superbly.
A Sensible Life
She was a thin, lonely child with huge eyes and an extensive vocabulary of French foul language. Amongst the elegant middle class British families holidaying in Dinard in 1926 leading their privileged lives of secure routine pleasures Flora was a ten year old misfit. Ignored by her self absorbed parents, unloved, and pitied by the pleasant, stylish people in Brittany that summer, Flora was peripherally included in their gracious circles. And there, meeting kindly civilised people for the first time, she fell in love with Cosmo with Hubert with Feix. It took forty years for the love affairs to be explored, consummated and finally resolved.
A Dubious Legacy
Henry brought his new bride, Margaret, to Cotteshaw in 1944. On the threshold she gave him a black eye and went straight to bed where she remained, apart from the occasional malevolent outburst, for the rest of her life. Two young couples became regular if uneasy house guests over many years, listening, speculating, keeping a watchful eye on Margaret’s door until finally, piecing together the gossip and the rumours, they found themselves tangled in the web of Henry s life.
An Imaginative Experience
A traveller on an InterCity train returning to London smells the burn of the breaks as it hisses to a stop in the middle of the countryside. He sees a white faced woman leap from the train and race to the aid of a sheep stranded on its back, unable to rise, in a field. Righting it, she turns, and he sees her face is full of tragedy. And not, he thinks, because she pulled the emergency lever and will face retribution. Considering tragedies of his own, he does not intrude, but the image lodges in his mind: a strange but familiar despair, unable to ignore the desperation it recognizes in others. From these seeds Mary Wesley draws out a plot of unforgettable impact of loss, of release, of a necessarily comic acceptance of fate, of love the ‘imaginative experience.’ Rich in character and wit, and powerfully moving, this is a novel of the heart’s pain and deliverance.
Part of the Furniture
When Juno Marlowe finds herself caught in the middle of a London air raid, she is quickly rescued by an elegant gentleman who offers her shelter and a mysterious invitation to his father’s country estate. The next morning he is dead, and she is once again alone with nowhere to go. At seventeen, Juno is used to feeling invisible, but now, without family and friends, she finds herself desperately in need of companionship, some warm clothes, and above all, a life as more than Part of the Furniture. How Juno finds this and more is beautifully related in this irresistible novel from one of our most enchanting writers.
Part of the Scenery
Mary Wesley, through images and text, looks back over her life in England’s wild and mysterious south west peninsula. The book captures her memories from her early visits to Polzeath in Cornwall in 1914 to the present day living and working in Totnes.
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