Books with author Michael Jeffries

Dear Sir,...I feel I should inform you that your mother is very ill. If you wish to see her before it is too late, you should come at once.Sincerely,Mrs. Camilla StuartPierce Waverly, the Earl of Devonmont, has led an unabashed rogue’s life, letting no woman near his heart. Inexplicably abandoned as a child to be raised by distant relatives, he never forgave his parents, refusing to read any of his mother’s letters after his father’s death. Then came a letter that shook his resolve. A Christmas visit to Montcliff might prove his last chance to discover the truth of his past, and come to terms with the stranger he calls “Mother.”But two surprises await him at Montcliff. His mother is perfectly healthy, nowhere near a deathbed, as her meddling lady’s companion led him to believe. The second is Camilla Stuart herself, a lively vicar’s widow, too bright and beautiful not to arouse the scoundrel in Pierce. Though she alone is reason enough to prolong his stay, he is soon faced with other tantalizing riddles: What secrets lie in his mother’s past to explain his childhood abandonment? Why is the captivating Mrs. Stuart so determined to mend the breach between mother and son? Meanwhile, Camilla herself is caught up in love’s complications since the arrival of the irresistible earl. As his bold flirtation and suggestive whispers draw her dangerously close, can anything protect her vulnerable heart? If they are destined to share real happiness, there must be honesty between them—yet telling him the truth about her own life may shatter that chance.None of them can predict the startling revelations to come. Or the secrets, both heartening and shocking, divulged between a mother and son, and between two lovers haunted by their respective pasts, that will make Christmas night at Montcliff one to remember—and the glorious night after, one to treasure for a lifetime.

Language: EnglishPages: 241 (8 B/W Illustrations)Preface This study was researched and written at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, where I was a fellow from October 1985 to August 1987. I am indebted to Wolfson College, Oxford, for granting timely leave to accept this fellowship. I am particularly grateful to the former director of the Institute, M.N. Sinha, and the present director, Margaret Chatterjee, for the invaluable help they gave me in numerous ways. Neither my family nor I shall forget the peace and good company we enjoyed in the former vice regal lodge and its inimitable surroundings where the Institute is located. My wife, along with me also held a fellowship at the Institute, and we received 'many acts of kindness from the fellows and staff. Our sons will increasingly relive the wealth of non-human life inhabiting this great place properly. We never chanced upon the ghost of the viceroys but the flying foxes, monkeys, bats and lesser beasties jazzed up their stay very much. The book had its origins in a more general plan to review the main features of Tibetan Buddhist hagiography that would have concentrated not only on the lives of Pemalingpa and the Sixth Dalai Lama but also on such disparate figures as Dorjieff, the Buriatlama and agent of Russia (his verse autobiography having recently come to light) and the nineteenth-century Nyingmapa master from Amdo, Shapkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol (whose own autobiography is surely one of the greatest products of the literary tradition in Tibet). However, in the end they appeared such strange bad-fellows that I decided finally to concentrate on the two who formed a most natural pair. In pursuing them I was a

Pierce Waverly, the Earl of Devonmont, has been estranged from his mother for most of his life. When his mother's new companion, Mrs. Camilla Stuart, writes to tell him that his mother is seriously ill, he goes home. But when he learns that the lovely widow tricked him in order to effect a holiday reconciliation, he refuses to stay unless she meets his "terms".

Deep under Britain is a secret country called Inferus, whose strange peoples - the Gigans, Auctors and Minutis - have evolved a technologically advanced civilization both like and unlike our own. Cars, phones and lifts are common, but crime and violence are not. Until, that is, a group of revolutionaries plot to destroy Inferus unless they are allowed to leave for the "Overworld". In a desperate bid to save their country and its way of life, the inferusian government turns to three human children and their dog - their mission: to hunt down the criminal mastermind behind the plot. Time though, is running out...Witty, fast paced and wonderfully imagined, this children's thriller should appeal to boys and girls between 9-12 years old.