Another hard to find great old book, with a much younger gorgeous wife married to an aristocratic, rich older man that started out adoring her and ended up a frail invalid from suffering a stroke after catching her in an indiscretion with a younger man, that's where the tale really starts, and what happens following that makes for a fascinating story right to the end. (Amazon)
Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Lowndes, née Belloc (5 August 1868 – 14 November 1947), was a prolific English novelist.
Active from 1898 until her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting incident with psychological interest. Two of her works were adapted for the screen.
Born in Marylebone, London and raised in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France, Mrs Belloc Lowndes was the only daughter of French barrister Louis Belloc and English feminist Bessie Parkes. Her younger brother was Hilaire Belloc, whom she wrote of in her last work, The Young Hilaire Belloc (published posthumously in 1956). Her paternal grandfather was the French painter Jean-Hilaire Belloc, and her maternal great-great-grandfather was Joseph Priestley. In 1896, she married Frederick Sawrey A. Lowndes (1868–1940). Her mother died in 1925, 53 years after her father.
She published a biography, H.R.H. The Prince of Wales: An Account of His Career, in 1898. From then on, she published novels, reminiscences, and plays at the rate of one per year until 1946. In the memoir, I, too, Have Lived in Arcadia (1942), she told the story of her mother's life, compiled largely from old family letters and her own memories of her early life in France. A second autobiography Where love and friendship dwelt, appeared posthumously in 1948.
She died 14 November 1947 at the home of her elder daughter, Countess Iddesleigh (wife of the third Earl) in Eversley Cross, Hampshire, and was interred in France, in La Celle-Saint-Cloud near Versailles, where she spent her youth.
Actually, read in the manybooks edition, which has no typos.
Oh, Lowndes. Her books are like potato chips: pleasant to eat, and then you move on. This one has more "nutritional value" than others I've read: there's a lot of exploration of complex human emotions.
Characters are rich and complicated, with believable motivations. Not a lot of action; this is a book about how we screw up our lives (with the help of someone narcissistic). It's a bit disjointed, but it's an agreeable read.