Simon Camish is an embittered, timid barrister, too busy with his own problems to take note of Rose Vassiliou across a dinner party table. But only a few years before, Rose had frequently been in the news, an heiress who turned her back on family money in the name of independence. Now she is a single parent in a decaying house, trying to raise her three children while her ex-husband takes legal action against her. When Simon finds himself drawn into her affairs, he will discover - despite what Rose may wish - that the power of money is ultimately inescapable.

Brought up in a stifling, emotionless home in the north of England, Clara finds freedom when she wins a scholarship and travels to London. There, she meets Clelia and the rest of the Denham family: brilliant and charming, they dazzle Clara with their flair for life, and Clara yearns to be part of their bohemian world. But while she will do anything to join their circle, she gives no thought to the chaos that she may cause... In this captivating story of growing up and moving on, Margaret Drabble explores what it means to leave a disregarded childhood and family behind. WINNER of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction

Jessica Speight, a young anthropology student in 1960s London, is at the beginning of a promising academic career when an affair with her married professor turns her into a single mother. Anna is a pure gold baby with a delightful sunny nature. But as it becomes clear that Anna will not be a normal child, the book circles questions of responsibility, potential, even age, with Margaret Drabble’s characteristic intelligence, sympathy, and wit. Drabble once wrote, “Family life itself, that safest, most traditional, most approved of female choices, is not a sanctuary; it is, perpetually, a dangerous place.” Told from the point of view of the group of mothers who surround Jess, The Pure Gold Baby is a brilliant, prismatic novel that takes us into that place with satiric verve, trenchant commentary, and a movingly intimate story of the unexpected transformations at the heart of motherhood.**

Just thirty-eight-years-old, Anthony Keating's already survived both a divorce and a heart attack. He has left the BBC for the dangerous life of property speculation in the boom-and-bust 1970s, and is brooding on the oil crisis, galloping inflation and the slump in his grand house in the British countryside. His only stroke of good luck in an otherwise collapsing life is his new lover, the beautiful actress Alison Murray. But when Alison's daughter Jane is arrested while traveling in Eastern Europe, Alison rushes to try and save her, and Anthony soon follows and finds himself caught by the strife and hardships of the communist bloc. Set against a backdrop of the Cold War and the political turmoil that led England to Margaret Thatcher, The Ice Age tells the story of three people desperately seeking firm ground amidst chaos with Margaret Drabble's characteristically "high degree of intelligence and irony" (The New Yorker).