From the bestselling author of The Other Boleyn Girl.From the bestselling author of The Other Boleyn Girl.Bristol in 1787 is booming, from its stinking docks to its elegant new houses. Josiah Cole, a small dockside trader, is prepared to gamble everything to join the big players of the city. But he needs ready cash and a well-connected wife.An arranged marriage to Frances Scott is a mutually convenient solution. Trading her social contacts for Josiah’s protection, Frances enters the world of the Bristol merchants and finds her life and fortune dependent on the respectable trade of sugar, rum and slaves.Once again Philippa Gregory brings her unique combination of a vivid sense of history and inimitable storytelling skills to illuminate a complex period of our past. Powerful, haunting, intensely disturbing, this is a novel of desire and shame, of individuals, of a society, and of a whole continent devastated by the greed of others.“Philippa Gregory’s historical storytelling skills are borught vividly to life by Jenny Agutter.”Choice March 1998“I don’t expect to be happy,” Frances Scott told her uncle. “I hope for a comfortable position and a husband who can provide for me. It cannot be worse slavery than governessing.”And Josiah Cole, a man of stubborn ambition, certainly intended to provide intended to provide for his new wife, an impoverished daughter of the aristocracy whose connections would give him his entry into the innermost circle of Bristol’s wealthy merchant community.Josiah traded in spices and sugar – and in slaves. Slaves he intended Frances should tutor into first rate servants to sell to the rich. And as she taught their first English lesson, she looked into the alien, handsome face of Mehuru, a man of power in his own land. For the first time in her life Frances was able to look at a man and know that she could command him …But what Frances could not command was the desire that grew between slave and mistress, the desire that led to love and the death of both …Philippa Gregory’s 'A Respectable Trade' is a novel rich in all the passions as she explores the horrors of slavery and the pragmatism of those who made their wealth from it.Philippa Gregory is an established writer and broadcaster for radio and television. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh. She has been widely praised for her historical novels, including Earthly Joys, Virgin Earth, A Respectable Trade, The Queen's Fool, The Virgin's Lover, The Constant Princess and The Other Queen, as well as her works of contemporary suspense. The Other Boleyn Girl is now a major film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana. Philippa Gregory lives in the North of England with her family.Requires internet connection for purchase, plus iPod or other Audible-compatible player or iTunes software on Mac OS X or Windows
Pubblicato da: HarperCollins Publishers