It was not fair, Lexy told herself for the thousandth time, that she - a Mannering - should be so plain. Often people would refuse to believe that she was a Mannering, for the family were noted throughout the theatrical profession, and beyond it, for their good looks. . .

The Mannerings travelled from town to town, playing a week here and a week there, in grim northern towns like Doncaster and Leeds and Sheffield, grim indeed in the 1850s. Every Sunday they downed scenery, packed up costumes and properties, and journeyed in dirty, smut laden railway carriages to their next theatrical venue, where often the audiences were few and unappreciative.

Apart from Lexy herself (who was reckoned hopeless at acting and spent most of her time on stage standing still and holding props), the other Mannerings were her little brother, Clem, whose long golden curls enchanted every audience; her mother, Seraphina, who looked like the angel she was named after; her father, Joshua, an impressive actor manager; Jamie the baby, and of course her older sister, Cecily, who had rejoined the company after years at a finishing school.

The theatre was the only life Lexy knew, but to Cecily it, and the dingy boarding houses in which the actors stayed, seemed squalid and provincial after the glories of "Miss Dingwater's Academy for Young Ladies", and she did everything she could to take as little part in things as possible, making much extra work and worry for poor Lexy.

Family tensions, petty rivalries, unexpected dangers and all the richly patterned life of the Victorian theatre are the ingredients of this compulsive novel by the author of The Swish of the Curtain, who has herself been on the stage.

ISBN: 0 86391 093 9
248pp Hardback
Our RRP £7.25