About
Alison was born in Kenya and emigrated to Melbourne at the age of ten. She studied law at Melbourne University and has worked in a variety of areas as a lawyer, including the military. In 2000 she moved to Singapore with her husband and sons and for three years was able to pursue serious, full time writing. While in Singapore she was published in two anthologies of short stories, one of which appeared briefly in a best seller list and both of which are still available on Amazon! Apart from this minor success with short stories, she has been published in a number of other anthologies of short stories and magazines. Prior to publication Alison was a finalist in competitions, including the shortlist of the Catherine Cookson Fiction Prize, the Emma Darcy Award and the Emerald Award. In 2007 her first two novels BY THE SWORD and THE KING'S MAN were published. BY THE SWORD won the 2008 Eppie Award for Best Historical Romance.
Size Zero (Visage Book 1)
Description
<p style="margin:0px 0px 14px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;"><strong>"A somber, disturbing mystery fused with a scathing look at the fashion industry. </strong><strong>Mangin writes in a confident, razor-edged style."</strong><strong> - Kirkus Reviews</strong></p><p style="margin:-4px 0px 14px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;"><strong>Condom dresses and space helmets have debuted on fashion runways.</strong></p><p style="margin:-4px 0px 14px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;">A dead body becomes the trend when a coat made of human skin saunters down fashion's biggest stage. The body is identified as Annabelle Leigh, the teenager who famously disappeared over a decade ago from her boyfriend's New York City mansion.</p><p style="margin:-4px 0px 14px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;">This new evidence casts suspicion back on the former boyfriend, Cecil LeClaire. Now a monk, he is forced to return to his dark and absurd childhood home to clear his name. He teams up with Ava Germaine, a renegade ex-model. And together, they investigate the depraved and lawless modeling industry behind Cecil's family fortune.</p><p style="margin:-4px 0px 14px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;">They find erotic canes, pet rats living in crystal castles, and dresses made of crushed butterfly wings. But Cecil finds more truth in the luxury goods than in the people themselves. Everyone he meets seems to be wearing a person-suit. Terrified of showing their true selves, the glitterati put on flamboyant public personas to make money and friends. Can Cecil find truth in a world built on lies?</p><p style="margin:-4px 0px 0px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;"><strong>In high fashion modeling, selling bodies is organized crime.</strong></p>
Story Behind The Book
How did I come to write By The Sword?
The inspiration came from a house.
When I was 11 my grandfather, who lived nearby, took me to visit Harvington Hall near Kidderminster in Worcestershire. Something about the serene, red-brick, medieval, moated manor house captured my imagination and by my teenage years I had renamed it Seven Ways and populated it with a fictional family – the Thorntons. Generations of the Thornton family had exciting adventures written in pencil in spiral bound notepads. Over the years, the notepads were put away and the Thorntons forgotten.
Reviews
<div>"By The Sword was one of the most moving and powerful books I have read in a very long time. You could actually feel the struggle these two characters had to endure to be together. Alison Stuart really drove home how hard it was for people of that time especially woman to survive. Her book felt so real that I wondered if anyone living today could ever cope with the way life was back then. This book pulls at your heart strings and you hold your breath until the very end praying for these two characters." </div><div>5 CUPS: Coffee Time Romance September 2007</div><br /><div><div>"...I read the prologue and cried like a baby. Yes, on page 3, Alison Stuart had this cynical businesswoman weeping...This is not a comedy. I wept through most of it. Whether it was a touching scene between the hero and the heroine's young son or during the death scenes (including those of children – this is war, after all), the writing and story moved me.</div><div>.</div><div>Yep, sometimes a book is called the best of the best because it is simply that… the best." Enduring Romance Blogspot</div></div>
