_______________ 'A biography that sparkles with enthusiastic research and empathetic writing' - Sunday Times 'A small jewel of a biography' - The New Yorker 'A

Born in 1900 to a promiscuous American oil heiress and a British army captain, Marion Barbara Carstairs realised very early on that she was not like most little

A fascinating biography of the woman champion motorboat racer of the 1920s who in the '30s bought and became 'ruler' of an island in the British West Indies. 'J

When the married Isabella Robinson was introduced to the dashing Edward Lane at a party in 1850, she was utterly enchanted. He was 'fascinating', she told her d

British eccentric Marion "Joe" Carstairs was a world-class speedboat racer, heiress to the Standard Oil fortune, ruler of her own Caribbean Island--and a cross-