An account of Katie Hickman's extraordinary year spent amidst the faded glamour of a Mexican travelling circus. Katie Hickman went to Mexico looking for magic. She found it in the circus - big top, clowns, elephant and all - where cheap, torn materials are transformed for a night into glittering illusion. Gradually adjusting to the harsh ways of the circus's nomadic lifestyle she soon became absorbed into this hypnotic new world. At first, as a foreigner, she was on the outskirts, but she soon became "La Gringa Estrella", a performer in her own right and adopted sister to the Bell's family. In this work, Katie Hickman describes her epic year-long journey through this extraordinary and bizarrely beautiful country. Riding elephants and playing clowns as part of the show, she uses the lessons of the circus as a focus to look deep into the complex psyche of modern Mexixo, and into the very nature of "magic" itself.

Travels With a Circus

Katie Hickman

Travel

Flamingo

Accompanying their spouses in the most extraordinary, tough, sometimes terrifying circumstances, this book is an account of the courageous and unusual women who have been the backbone of the foreign service. Women who struggled to bring their civilization with them. The book is illustrated with archive material, extracts from original letters between the women and their families at home, maps to show the routes they travelled and the places they were posted to and pictures of ephemera to evoke the lives they led. The chapters cover: getting there; the posting; private life; embassy life; public life; and social life.

Illustrated Daughters of Britannia

History

Europe

HARPER/COLLINS

During the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a small group of women rose from impoverished obscurity to positions of great power, independence and wealth. In doing so they took control of their lives -- and those of other people -- and made the world do their will. Men went to great lengths in desperate attempts to gain and retain a courtesan's favors, but she was always courted for far more than sex. In an age in which women were generally not well educated she was often unusually literate and literary, and courted for her conversation as well as her physical company. Courtesans were extremely accomplished and exerted a powerful influence as leaders of fashion and society. They were not received at court, but inhabited their own parallel world -- the demimonde -- complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette and protocol. They were queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. Even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement.In this riveting social biography, Katie Hickman focuses on five outstanding women -- Sophia Baddeley, Elizabeth Armistead, Harriette Wilson, Cora Pearl and Catherine Walters -- each of whose lives exemplifies the dazzling existence of the courtesan.  She reveals their extraordinary exploits -- including their stints in Paris, New York and California -- and offers insights into the glamorous history of courtesan life.

Courtesans

William Morrow

Brave Hearted: The Dramatic Story of Women of the American West

Virago Press Ltd.

Little, Brown Book Group UK

Brave Hearted

Aviary Gate

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

The Pindar Diamond

Bloomsbury Books

In a small town on the Italian coast, a mysterious woman washes ashore. She is crippled, mute, and clutches a bundle to her chest-a baby the townspeople insist is a real-life mermaid. It can only bring bad luck; they pay a troupe of acrobats to carry mother and child away. In the bustling trade center of Venice, merchant Paul Pindar is the subject of his colleagues' concern. Since his return from Constantinople, they have found him changed; raging over the loss of his beloved, Celia, he has gambled away his fortune at the gaming tables. But when a priceless blue diamond surfaces in the city, Pindar recognizes the opportunity to regain everything he has lost-including, perhaps, the woman he loves. A celebrated writer of history and travel books, Katie Hickman has always been a master of evoking time and place. With The Pindar Diamond, her follow-up to The Aviary Gate, she brings early-seventeenth-century Italy vividly to life, and also demonstrates her maturity as a novelist. A tale of love and avarice, with a touch of the mystical, The Pindar Diamond is rich with historical detail, and unfolds with urgency and grace. It is accomplished, wholly satisfying historical fiction.

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Books by Katie Hickman