Bøger af Julie Kavanagh

NOW A MAJOR FILM BY RALPH FIENNES, THE WHITE CROW'A gripping account of an extraordinary life' Daily Telegraph Born on a train in Stalin's Russia, Rudolf Nureyev was ballet's first pop icon. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement - both on and off stage.Nureyev's achievements and conquests became legendary: he rose out of Tatar peasant poverty to become the Kirov's thrilling maverick star; slept with his beloved mentor's wife; defected to the West in 1961; sparked Rudimania across the globe; established the most rhapsodic partnership in dance history with the middle-aged Margot Fonteyn; reinvented male technique; gatecrashed modern dance; moulded new stars; and staged Russia's unknown ballet masterpieces in the West. He and his life were simply astonishing.'Magnificent, a triumph. Captures every facet of this extraordinary man' Mail on Sunday 'The definitive study of a man who, in his combination of aesthetic grace and psychological grime, can truly be called a sacred monster' Observer 'Undoubtedly the definitive biography' Sunday Telegraph

This riveting biography brilliantly explores the short, intense, and passionate life of the country girl from Normandy, who at thirteen fled her brute of a father to go to Paris. Almost overnight she became one of the most admired courtesans of the 1840s-the inspiration for Alexandre Dumas fils' The Lady of the Camellias and Verdi's La Traviata. With her aristocratic ways, elegant clothes and signature camellias, Marie was always a subject of fascination at the opera and the boulevard cafés. Her death at twenty-three from tuberculosis created such an outpouring of sympathy in the press that Charles Dickens, who was in Paris at the time, was amazed. "Everything is erased in the face of an incident which is far more important," he wrote, "the romantic death of one of the glories of the demi-monde, the beautiful, the famous Marie Duplessis."

A brilliant work of historical true crime charting a pivotal event in the l9th century that gripped the world and forever altered the course of Irish history.

Tanyth Harris has found a new home in Stow on the Wold, a small English market town but she hasn't outrun her past. When the bad dreams start up again, Tanyth starts to suspect an unearthly reason for them. When she meets Aiden Williams, she recognizes him as her lover from her nightmares. Aiden seeks a peaceful vacation, whilst investing for a documentary and was drawn to quiet Stow. When he rents a room from Tanyth, the past starts to merge with the present. The more Tanyth delves into the past, the more she finds herself entwined. Stow is not the quaint little town it seems on the surface with a sinister history of witchcraft and devilment. Can Tanyth overcome her past and truly embrace her future? Or will the past repeat itself and sentence her to a death at the hands of the man she loves?

Cameron Mackenzie loses his true love in a brutal attack, and blaming it on his mistress, she curses him and his friends to eternal life unless he can find his true love once again. After five hundred years of loneliness and guilt, Cameron meets Caitlyn, a woman who has recently divorced her cheating husband. Emotions spark between them, but for the wrong reasons and Cameron suspects she is the evil witch who cursed him. Caitlyn still reeling from the after-shocks of her broken marriage is attracted to the dark, broody Scot but he frightens her although she can't explain why. Something is happening in the remote Scottish hotel Caitlyn has come to experience and she begins to fear for her life. What is going on and what dark magic haunts her dreams? Can she escape with her life or is the brooding Cameron her destiny?

ONE OF THE TIMES' BEST HISTORY BOOKS OF 2021'The tale of the Phoenix Park murders is not unfamiliar, but Kavanagh recounts it with a great sense of drama... Kavanagh's account reminds me of the very best of true crime.' The Times (Book of the Week)On a sunlit evening in l882, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke, Chief Secretary and Undersecretary for Ireland, were ambushed and stabbed to death while strolling through Phoenix Park in Dublin. The murders were carried out by the Invincibles, a militant faction of republicans armed with specially-made surgeon's blades. They ended what should have been a turning point in Anglo-Irish relations. A new spirit of goodwill had been burgeoning between Prime Minister William Gladstone and Ireland's leader Charles Stewart Parnell, with both men forging in secret a pact to achieve peace and independence in Ireland - with the newly appointed Cavendish, Gladstone's protege, to play an instrumental role. The impact of the Phoenix Park murders was so cataclysmic that it destroyed the pact, almost brought down the government and set in motion repercussions that would last long into the twentieth century. In a story that spans Donegal, Dublin, London, Paris, New York, Cannes and Cape Town, Julie Kavanagh thrillingly traces the crucial events that came before and after the murders. From the adulterous affair that caused Parnell's downfall to Queen Victoria's prurient obsession with the assassinations and the investigation spearheaded by the 'Irish Sherlock Holmes', culminating in a murder on the high seas, The Irish Assassins brings us intimately into this fascinating story that shaped Irish politics and engulfed an empire. This is an unputdownable book from one of our most 'compulsively readable' (Guardian) writers.

Rudolf Nureyev had it all: beauty, genius, charm, passion, and sex appeal. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement, for both men and women, on or off the stage. With Nureyev: The Life, Julie Kavanagh shows how his intense drive and passion for dance propelled him from a poor, Tatar-peasant background to the most sophisticated circles of London, Paris, and New York. His dramatic defection to the West in l961 created a Cold War crisis and made him an instant celebrity, but this was just the beginning. Nureyev spent the rest of his life breaking barriers: reinventing male technique, ';crashing the gates' of modern dance, iconoclastically updating the most hallowed classics, and making dance history by partnering England' s prima ballerina assoluta, Margot Fonteyn--a woman twice his age. He danced for almost all the major choreographers--Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Kenneth MacMillan, Jerome Robbins, Maurice Bejart, Roland Petit--his main motive, he claimed, for having left the Kirov. But Nureyev also made it his mission to stage Russia's full-length masterpieces in the West. His highly personal productions of Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Raymonda, Romeo and Juliet, and La Bayadere are the mainstays of the Paris Opera Ballet repertory to this day. An inspirational director and teacher, Nureyev was a Diaghilev-like mentor to young proteges across the globe--from Karen Kain and Monica Mason (now directors themselves), to Sylvie Guillem, Elisabeth Platel, Laurent Hilaire and Kenneth Greve. Sex, as much as dance, was a driving force for Nureyev. From his first secret liaison in Russia to his tempestuous relationship with the great Danish dancer Erik Bruhn, we see not only Nureyev's notorious homosexual history unfold, but also learn of his profound effect on women--whether a Sixties wild child or Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill or the aging Marlene Dietrich. Among the first victims of AIDS, Nureyev was diagnosed HIV positive in 1984 but defied the disease for nearly a decade, dancing, directing the Paris Opera Ballet, choreographing, and even beginning a new career as a conductor. Still making plans for the future, Nureyev finally succumbed and died in January l993. Drawing on previously undisclosed letters, diaries, home-movie footage, interviews with Nureyev's inner circle, and her own dance background, Julie Kavanagh gives the most intimate, revealing, and dramatic picture we have ever had of this dazzling, complex figure.NOTE: This edition does not include photos.

Sir Frederick Ashton, Britain's greatest choreographer, was a major figure on the cultural landscape of the twentieth century and his influence extended far beyond the world of dance.