Grace Kilmichael, the well-known painter, is running away. She's escaping her husband, and his wandering eye, her bullying grown-up children, and the tiresomeness of being herself. En route to Split and Dubrovnik, Grace travels through Paris and Venice, and to the glories of Torcello. Here she meets Nicholas - fascinating, rebellious, completely unsuitable (and half her age). Thrown into turmoil by their relationship, it is not until Grace arrives in the remote, unspoilt beauty of the Illyrian coast, among the wildflowers and peaceful villages, that she can truly begin to find enlightenment. Both farcically funny and full of wisdom, this is a classic novel of escape and rediscovery, set against the glorious Illyrian spring. 'Excellent . . . at once romantic and tough, absurd yet realistic, escapist yet down-to-earth.' - Jenny Uglow 'This is the most intelligently escapist novel - and scandalous for its time. What astonishes is its freshness....

Anne Bridge, much beloved author of many works of fiction, focuses here on a point in her life that very nearly ruined her husband, and the prospects of her entire family. Whilst away with her ailing son in Switzerland, Bridge learns that her husband is not only to lose his position with the Diplomatic Service, but will also be leaving with his good name in tatters. This blow is all the more troubling because it was completely unexpected – the result of what Anne thought a minor transgression perpetrated four years previously – and she must rally herself in order to deal with the practical implications of such a change of fortune. But Anne Bridge is not a woman to sit by and meekly accept such an injustice. Within two weeks she is back in London, fighting tooth and nail to clear her husband's name. This fascinating retelling of true events through letters, telegrams and her own account written in 1928, the year of the debacle, offers a glimpse into the normally...

Fleeing from her failed marriage, Rose Pelham seeks sanctuary in Peking, China, with her cousins, Anastasia and Antony Lydiard. The romantic attentions of Captain Hargreaves are a welcome distraction from her woes, but in the society of Anglicised 1920's Peking, it is hard for such relationships not to draw notice and create scandal. A long trek to the 'Mountain of a Hundred Flowers' offers a chance to escape prying eyes, but Rose's intellectual cousins cannot stop Captain Hargreaves from joining them, along with the most disagreeable Roy Hellier. The trip is fraught with peril, as the 'T'ao-Pings' or 'masterless soldiers' – cut loose from the feudal Chinese armies – are roaming the country, terrorising villagers and leaving turmoil in their wake. Faced with the realities of the dangerous journey, the five become close, and relationships shift and change under the pressure. But back in the reality of society, it is time for Rose to make some very hard choices...

Philip Jamieson, husband of Julia (who has appeared in earlier Ann Bridge stories as the enchanting Miss Probyn) decides that she shall go to his house in the Pyrenees while he himself has to be in the Middle East on a special mission, as they are expecting their first child. It is a very male decision: the village is remote, with few facilities. In fact it proves to be most unsuitable and inconvenient. Fortunately, Julia is succoured by efficient and attentive neighbours. There are, for instance, Nick and Dick, the twin sons of Lord and Lady Heriot, who live at Pau: there is also Bonne-court, climber, guide and hunter (who is not averse to conducting far more secret business). Above all Julia secures the companionship of the 'angelic Luzia', daughter of the Duke of Ericeira; who is among Ann Bridge's best creations. The 'emergency' proves to be of a double nature - one of espionage as well as of domestic crisis, and the reader is firmly held in the grip of the intricate and...

Julia Probyn, like most people, knew very little about anonymous numbered accounts in Swiss Banks. Until her cousin, Colin Munro, asked her to look into the matter of one containing a fortune, for his fiancée Aglaia Armitage, left to her by her Greek grandfather. Then Julia learned a great deal.But besides bonds and debentures, old Mr. Thalassides, proved to have left documents of vital interest to the British Secret Service, and to other Powers as well, in the vault with them. When these disappear, the hunt begins...Ann Bridge brings her characteristic wit, suspense and sense of adventure to the third book in the Julia Probyn series.**

Ann Bridge takes the little-known country of Albania for her background recreating the primitive grandeur of the country. The Albanian way of life demonstrates a noble standard of values that is rapidly disappearing under the pressure of modern materialism. Our protagonist is an unhappy and disillusioned young widow who travels to Albania as the result of a chance encounter on the Istanbul express. A fellow passenger tells her that there she will find a life that contains something far more satisfying than the restless gaiety of her cosmopolitan clique. Later, living in the feudal household of an Albanian prince, absorbing an atmosphere of immemorial dignity, and enjoying the friendship of two remarkable women – one a mature and cultured English writer, the other a wise old American doctor – she comes to understand what he had meant. And when, for the second time, she is faced with a tragic outcome to hopes of happiness in love, she is able to find solace...

Readers of The Portuguese Escape will remember Hetta Páloczy, the young Hungarian girl who eventually marries Richard Atherley of the British Diplomatic Service. The Episode at Toledo takes us to Spain, not only to the world of Embassies, Military Intelligence, and Cold War intrigue, but into a little-known area of Spanish life. Here Hetta accidentally uncovers a Communist plot to assassinate an American Admiral during his visit to inspect a NATO base; a marked woman once more, she takes refuge in Portugal in the baroque palace of Gralheira. But again, among the tranquil scenes of Portuguese harvest-time and vintage, peril lurks; an attempt is made on her own life, and another on her return to Madrid. After this, at her husband's insistence, she is sent with her unborn child to the Western Highlands of Scotland, to stay under the auspices of her old friend Julia Probyn, a familiar figure from several previous books. In this one, however, the accent is mainly on Hetta Atherley,...

Julia Probyn-an old friend of many readers-is sailing off the west coast of Scotland. On the desolate island of Erinish Beg, she and her cousin are startled to see a sky-blue pole rise up out of the ground at their feet. Military Intelligence sends Colonel Jamieson to investigate this find. The action moves from the Erinishes to a tweed-shop in Tobermory, an archaeological dig on Lewis, an island off the County Mayo, and finally to a dramatic end in the Scillies. The mystery of the sky-blue pole is solved soon enough; but there is much journeying, heart-searching and danger for Julia before the whole system of espionage is laid bare. During these events Julia, more and more attracted to Colonel Jamieson, finds in him the man she will marry. Miss Bridge's many admirers will warm to this tale of love and adventure, full of authentic local colour, well informed about the cold war of science on which its plot is based.

Feride and Nilüfer, accustomed to the elegance and protection of an old, aristocratic society, were suddenly forced by their love for the men they had married to become pioneers for the freedom of their countrywomen! The revolution started by the sensational general Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had swept their husbands up in the fight for a new and modern Turkey, while Feride and Nilüfer were left behind. And so the two girls, escaping in coarse disguises from a palace overlooking the Bosporus, made their hazardous way to the Ankara to join their husbands. Through rain and mud and past glittering snowy peaks, the inexperienced creatures plunged into hardships they had never dreamed of - learning to cook, living with the roar of Greek guns, and fearing the horrors of military disaster. The magnetic Atatürk, having led his forces victoriously against the Greeks, proceeded to cajole and bully his people into doffing the veil and fez, wearing hats, using a new alphabet. He persuaded them...

Set in Budapest in the spring of 1941, Hope - a spoilt but attractive society girl and daughter of a leading American business man - finds herself playing the lead in a dangerous and most unexpected affair of underground intrigue, through the machinations of her journalist fiancé. During the course of her activities she falls in love with a Polish refugee, and at the moment when Germany invades Hungary, she is already deeply involved - both emotionally and politically. Bridge, herself an eye witness of these events, tells in moving and graphic terms the terrible story of Germany's 'protective' invasion; although it is presented in the form of an imaginative episode, the historical significance and accuracy are all too tragically evident. This admirable novel is at once a charming love story in the shadow of fear and disruption, a subtle and intimate portrayal of human beings in a time of crisis, and a most exciting narrative, set against the enchanting background of Budapest.

There is no subject on which outsiders are more ready to pass moral judgements than the Spanish Civil War; and no subject on which the judgement of outsiders is liable to be at once so categorical, so ill-founded, and so harmful.Bridge says of this piece "For my part, in writing this book, I have been determined to leave it to the Spaniards themselves, and to history, to appraise the true meaning of these tragic years, while attuning my heart and mind to the indestructible significance and nobility of the Spanish attitude to life - and death.

In Enchanter's Nightshade, Bridge presents her reader with a "period piece" of Italian provincial society and distributes our sympathies over a surprising range of characters, several of whom touch on individual tragedies. The lovely "Enchantress" in the late thirties; the little English governess in the early twenties, full of Oxford enthusiasms; the ardent youth, Giulio; Marietta, that delightful child, puzzling over the problems into which she is plunged by the disaster which overtakes her beloved English instructress; the old Marchesa, whose hundredth birthday looms all through the book; above all perhaps the wise, patient Swiss governess - all these in turn claim our affection or our pity. Ann Bridge shows here an intensity of feeling and a dramatic power which may come as a surprise after the gentle restraint of her earlier books. But for all the characters who are capable of forging happiness for themselves, the doors open, at the end, on possibilities of future...

The last thing recently widowed Julia Probyn expects to find on the lush and charming island of Madeira is a clue to her husband's mysterious death, for Colonel Jamieson perished somewhere in the wilds of Central Asia while on a top-secret mission for British Intelligence. No sooner does Julia arrive at Madeira with her infant son and his devoted Nanny, however, than a series of strange, sinister, but apparently unconnected events begins thrusting itself upon her. Displaying her usual intuitive flair for deduction, Julia soon concludes that, for some reason, the Russians are experimenting with a powerful new chemical on Madeira's wild sheep. But why? And why was she told that her husband died "because he went out without wearing his respirator"? A small Madeiran peasant boy shows the same lethargic symptoms as the sheep, and-Julia suddenly realizes-as her husband had himself displayed shortly before walking into a Soviet ambush half a world away. Has she stumbled upon a testing...

While on her last assignment with British Intelligence in Morocco, the widowed Julia Probyn Jamieson meets and is strongly attracted to an Irish country lawyer, Gerald O'Brien, who is travelling with friends of hers. O'Brien has asked Julia to marry him but she delays her decision until he has met her five-year-old son Philip, who is somewhat hard to handle. Boy and man take to each other, and it becomes clear that Gerald will be an ideal stepfather. On his part, Gerald insists that she come to Ireland to see his modest home and meet his friends and neighbors before she makes up her mind, for his world is far different from the glamorous cosmopolitan one she is accustomed to. Julia's quiet vacation is interrupted when she stumbles upon a plot by an unknown land speculator who, with the unwitting aid of an attractive American woman and an Irish poet, is surreptitiously buying a strip of land along the coast for the purpose of building a huge resort hotel and casino. The intrepid...

This novel records the lives of a group of English diplomats in Budapest from the Spring of 1940, up to the entry of the Germans which compels them to leave in Easter 1941. Crossing the Russian frontier en route for Moscow and the U.S.A., an episode at once dramatic and distinctly comic, sees the characters' main pre-occupation as less about their own predicament than the desperate and sustained endeavour to send food and clothing to the 44,000 British prisoners-of-war in Germany, during those first months when no Red Cross Parcels from England reached the camps. A touching love-story, a personal tragedy, and a disconcerting glimpse of treachery are skilfully interwoven in this revealing book.