The Ladies of Missalonghi - Softcover

McCullough, Colleen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380704587 ISBN 13: 9780380704583

Publisher: Avon, 1988

Synopsis

Sometimes fairy toles can come true-even for plain,shy spinsters like Missy Wright. Neither as pretty as cousin Alicianor as domineering as mother Drusilla, she seems doomed to aquiet life of near poverty at Missalonghi, her family's pitifullysmall homestead in Australia's Blue Mountains. But It's a brandnew century-the twentieth-a time for new thoughts and boldnew actions. And Missy Wright is about to set every self-righteous tongue in the town of Byron wagging. Because she hasjust set her sights on a mysterious, mistrusted and unsuspectingstranger ... who just might be Prince-Charming in disguise.

About this title

About the Author:

Colleen McCullough is the author of The Thorn Birds, Tim, An Indecent Obsession, A Creed for the Third Millennium, The Ladies of Missalonghi, The First Man in Rome, The Grass Crown, Fortune's Favorites, Caesar's Women, Caesar, and other novels. She lives with her husband on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific.

From Publishers Weekly:

Like a box of chocolates, this short novel by McCullough is seductive and satisfying; readers will want to devour it in one sitting. Set in the early 1900s in the tiny town of Byron, nestled in the Australia's Blue Mountains, it tells of the blossoming of Missy Wright, 33-year-old spinster and poor relation of the town's ruling family, the Hurlingfords. Missy, her widowed mother and crippled aunt live in genteel poverty, victims of the Hurlingford inheritance policy that gives riches and power to the male members of the family, who heartlessly abuse the women they dominate. Plain, painfully thin and doomed to dress always in serviceable brown, shockingly dark-haired in a clan of luminous blondes, Missy seems fated for da dreary future until a distant cousin, a divorcee, arrives from Sydney. Under her tutelage, Missy acquires spunk, hope and the means to a happy ending. This is an endearing tale, exuding an old-fashioned sentimentality, yet wittily told. McCullough indulges in gentle social satire, even as she uses the stock character of a mysterious stranger to introduce suspense and romance. As miniaturized in scale as The Thornbirds was vast, this first volume in Harper's new Short Novel Series again demonstrates the author's narrative skill. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; Reader's Digest Condensed Books selection; Literary Guild alternate; author tour.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Avon
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0380704587
• ISBN 13: 9780380704583
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 189