The Sign Of Love

Not only has beautiful young Bettina Charlwood lost her beloved mother but, made all but destitute by her father's constant gambling, now she has to leave the French school her now-deceased Godmother had financed. Now death strikes once more as her chaperone dies on the ferry from to Dover - and Bettina is saved by an earnest young gentleman called Lord Eustace Veston. Arriving home, she and her father are invited by the famous Duke of Alveston to accompany him on a trip to Egypt for the historic opening of the Suez Canal. Another surprise awaits when she finds her father has also invited the Duke's half brother, whom he hopes she will marry. And that half-brother is none other than her Good Samaritan, Lord Eustace. But while Bettinna finds the Duke almost impossibly handsome and awe-inspiring, Eustace, by contrast reveals himself to be a mean-spirited 'do-gooder' - and something of a bully to boot. And despite Eustace's assumption that she will happily marry him, she soon finds the magnificence of the Duke hard to resist.

Dame Barbara Cartland was one of the most successful and well-known of all British romance novelists and was undoubtedly the most prolific, writing 723 books in her long lifetime of which 675 are romantic novels and include 160 brand new titles that are currently being published as the Barbara Cartland Pink Collection. She wrote across a wide variety of genres, but is of course most closely associated with romance, and with her stories of chaste heroines, dashing heroes and everyone finally living happily ever after. Barbara was a colourful character in many senses of the word and was as well known for her controversial and witty interviews and absorbingly exciting life story as she was for her bright pink clothes and extravagant appearance. To read Barbara Cartland's life story is to be impressed that someone could fit so much into only one life. As well as writing a staggering number of books, she was also involved with great advances in many diverse fields from aviation to alternative medicine and helped many groups who she perceived as being unfairly treated, from midwives in poor working conditions to Romany gypsy children who wanted to be allowed to attend school. She was fascinatingly contradictory in her interviews and novels, Barbara often extolled the virtues of traditional relationships between men and women and falling in love, but hers is the story of a driven, independent-minded woman who was unafraid to turn her hand to anything which interested her and right wrongs Barbara Cartland is synonymous with traditional romantic fiction, but her life story is perhaps just as engrossing as her fiction