First Lady

Michael Dobbs returns to the subject that made him a household name -- the high drama and machinations of the political world. This is HOUSE OF CARDS for the 21st century, an insider's view of the dynamics of power by a writer who has had a privileged seat at the court of government for many, many years. This time the king maker is a woman, Camilla Hastings, mid-thirties, attractive, self-sufficient, ambitious. This is the story of her transformation from dutiful political wife to masterful manipulator of the entire political process at Westminster. She is a woman who is driven by the failings of men and the greed of others to take over their system and undermine it, to repay them in kind. In this battle she has two great allies -- the intuition and determination of a wronged wife, and the blind ineptitude of Westminster men.

Michael Dobbs was born in the same hour as Prince Charles. It doesn't seem to have done him too much harm. In the years since then he has become a doctor of philosophy, a senior adviser to both Margaret Thatcher and John Major, a Deputy Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, a regular presenter of BBC TV's Despatch Box and a columnist for The Mail on Sunday. In his spare time he has written books ranging from the best-selling House of Cards trilogy that became a hugely popular TV series to his recent brilliant series of historical novels about the life of Winston Churchill. He tries to live quietly with his wife and four sons near a pub and a church in Wiltshire.