Playing With Fire

Playing With Fire - a game for adults in which there are no winners, only losers

This neatly woven story has three friends-and-neighbours couples at its heart...the scene is set for some passionate fallout

Diana Appleyard is a writer, broadcaster and freelance journalist for a number of national newspapers and magazines. She worked for the BBC as an Education Correspondent, before deciding to give up her full-time job to work from home, a decision which formed the basis for her first novel, Homing Instinct. She lives with her husband Ross and their two young daughters in an Oxfordshire farmhouse. Her other novels Homing Instinct, A Class Apart, Out of Love and Every Good Woman Deserves a Lover, are also published by Black Swan.

Three couples, friends and neighbours... Tom, lazy and charming, looks after the children and thinks about writing a novel while his ambitious wife Sarah pursues her career as a journalist.Nat is married to the unstylish Cassie, who spends her life in jodhpurs, but although an ill-matched couple they have a strong and enduring marriage. Laure, the beautiful half-French wife of Gerard, is being shut out of his life because of financial worries. 
 
One winter's evening, Laure and Tom dance together at a local ball, and suddenly a world of possibilities opens up between them. Can they can forget the troubles of their own home lives and find a new excitement, a new solace? It's only a game, after all, not for real...But playing with fire can hurt, as they both find out.

Out Of Love

When does the ideal marriage turn sour - and why does the perfect couple break up?

'Very, very true and touching... packs a huge emotional punch'

Diana Appleyard is a writer, broadcaster and freelance journalist for a number of national newspapers and magazines. She worked for the BBC as an Education Correspondent, before deciding to give up her full-time job to work from home, a decision which formed the basis for her first novel, Homing Instinct. She lives with her husband Ross and their two young daughters in an Oxfordshire farmhouse. Homing Instinct, A Class Apart, Out of Love and her most recent novel, Every Good Woman Deserves a Lover are all published by Black Swan.

It has been an idyllic summer, Tess reflects, as she packs up the Cornish holiday home in preparation for plunging back into the cold reality of normal life. An idyllic summer, and there will be more - so why does she feel awash with a nameless fear about returning home? 
 
Alone at the holiday cottage for one last night with her young daughter - Mark and the boys have already returned home to London - she has the time, and the silence, to take stock of her life. A life, which, on the surface, has everything a woman could want. So why, now the children are growing up, does she want more? The dramatic decision she takes that night sets her off on a quite new journey - but one for which she may need the courage to travel alone...

A Class Apart

A hilarious expose of the English class system - which is still very much alive and kicking, whatever the government may say.

A light and entertaining read with likeable characters

Diana Appleyard is a writer, broadcaster and freelance journalist for a number of national newspapers and magazines. She worked for the BBC as an Education Correspondent, before deciding to give up her full-time job to work from home, a decision which formed the basis for her first novel, Homing Instinct. She lives with her husband Ross and their two young daughters in an Oxfordshire farmhouse. Homing Instinct, A Class Apart, Out of Love and her most recent novel, Every Good Woman Deserves a Lover are all published by Black Swan.

Class? It doesn't exist any more, so we're told. We're not supposed to be conscious of subtle class differences. We no longer look down on people because of their accents, their education or the car they drive. Or do we? 
 
Lucy Beresford knows her middle-class family thinks she's married beneath her when she gets together with the devastatingly sexy Rob. He's gorgeous, he's thoughtful, he's clever - but he's undeniably working class. Her parents cannot believe that she would choose him above Max, her so-suitable former boyfriend - who is truly one of us. Gradually the differences between Rob and Lucy - at first so unimportant - begin to loom large, as they argue over how the house should be decorated, how the children should be educated, and whether the evening meal should be called 'dinner' or 'tea'. 
 
In this funny, contentious and brilliantly observed novel, Diana Appleyard scratches the surface to reveal the petty snobberies which still exist in most of us, and which make Rob and Lucy...A Class Apart.Class? It doesn't exist any more, so we're told. We're not supposed to be conscious of subtle class differences. We no longer look down on people because of their accents, their education or the car they drive. Or do we?Lucy Beresford knows her middle-class family thinks she's married beneath her when she gets together with the devastatingly sexy Rob. He's gorgeous, he's thoughtful, he's clever - but he's undeniably working class. Her parents cannot believe that she would choose him above Max, her so-suitable former boyfriend - who is truly one of us. Gradually the differences between Rob and Lucy - at first so unimportant - begin to loom large, as they argue over how the house should be decorated, how the children should be educated, and whether the evening meal should be called 'dinner' or 'tea'.In this funny, contentious and brilliantly observed novel, Diana Appleyard scratches the surface to reveal the petty snobberies which still exist in most of us, and which make Rob and Lucy...A Class Apart.

Homing Instinct

Carrie faces the dilemma of deciding between full time work or staying at home with her small children.

'A fabulous, funny novel...This wonderful book is essential reading for mothers trying to do it all'

It's time to start thinking the unthinkable... 
 
Carrie Adams, successful television producer, mother and wife, is about to return to work. Baby Tom has fallen in love with the new nanny; six-year-old Rebecca isn't too keen, but hopes the nanny will at least be better organised than Mummy. Carrie meanwhile is desperate to reinvent herself from housewife to svelte career woman. 
 
Because this is what today's women do, don't they? They're smart, successful, glamorous wives and perfect part-time mothers. They can be brilliant at work and brilliant in bed. Carrie lives by the maxim that working full-time is no problem as long as she has the right childcare, and has never doubted for a moment that this is her path in life - until reality begins to hit home. She isn't happy, the children aren't happy, and husband Mike -until recently trying desperately to be a New Man - is now becoming more and more detached from family life. She begins to think the unthinkable. Perhaps, just perhaps, she doesn't have to do all this...

Diana Appleyard

Sara never doubted her husband, the successful, handsome Matt. Then his best friend blurts out the horrible truth - that he has a bright young girlfriend to match his glittering career. 
 
Unable to bear the pain and humiliation, Sara decides to get away. To get right away - to Cornwall, where in a dilapidated cottage by the sea she hopes to find... healing? Ora new life? 
 
With a surprised urban dog and the minimum of baggage, she discovers that she can manage on her own. That she is still an attractive, desirable woman. That she can be her own person, and dance to her own music. 
 
She might go back. Maybe. Or perhaps the future lies in a quite different direction altogether ...

Diana Appleyard

Praise for Too Beautiful To Dance

An intelligent, uplifting novel

Books by Diana Appleyard

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