Next in Fidelis Morgan's hugely entertaining series featuring the irrepressible Countess Ashby de la Zouche and her stupendously bosomed former maid, Alpiew The Countess Ashby de la Zouche would not be every parent's choice of chaperone for a beautiful teenager, and still fewer would entrust her with finding the girl a suitable husband - in France, of all places. The second Mrs Alderman Franklyn-Green, however, is willing to go to any lengths to get rid of her unwanted stepdaughter Virginia. And the promise of 100 guineas and a sojourn in the land of gay balls and all-night gambling is sufficient to secure the Countess's services, even if the girl is a complete shrew. Sadly, the exiled English Court at St Germain is far from the den of iniquity the Countess and her maidservant Alpiew were hoping for. Worse, any hopes of enjoying fine French cuisine are dashed when a fellow guest is poisoned. Once more the Countess and Alpiew are plunged into a dangerous investigation In addition to unravelling plots against three kings and negotiating the culinary eccentricities of the Court of Versailles, our sleuths encounter the Bastille's most mysterious prisoner, and discover - among other depravities - the peculiar employment Lord Whippingham has devised for young women with strong teeth.
Fidelis Morgan was born in a red gypsy caravan, Kiomi Romani, in an orchard at the corner of the grounds of the ancient Amesbury Abbey, halfway between Stonehenge and Woodhenge.
Her parents, Liverpool Catholics, believed in education in the widest sense, and enjoyed picking up waifs and strays. Once the family moved to a house it was not only crammed with animals (cats, dogs, chickens, geese, goats and foxes) but an endless stream of eccentric characters: boisterous painters who picked up women in the street to pose nude in the living room, musicians who battered away on milk bottles, the disgraced son of a local Earl, an Irish builder who had won and lost a million three times over and a bearded man who wore her mother's underwear and did the cleaning while Mae West records played. There was even a famous cat-burglar, who was proudly paraded at school sports day.
Fidelis survived school, despite being jeered at for her northern accent, and being expelled a number of times.
During her school holidays she spent a lot of time living in Paris where her mother sometimes worked as a painter on the Butte, Montmartre. Fidelis regularly earned enough money painting clowns, playing the guitar and giving Americans guided tours in a cod French accent ("Don't you talk good English, little girl. Here's a dollar.") to buy supper for them both.
She gained an honours degree at Birmingham University. Her finals papers were on Restoration London and the world of the 17th century theatre. Which led to her ground-breaking book THE FEMALE WITS, which rediscovered the long lost women playwrights of the Restoration. She followed up with numerous anthologies and biographies set in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including A WOMAN OF NO CHARACTER, and The WELL-KNOWN TROUBLEMAKER.
She works as a professional actor. Her screen appearances include Jeeves and Wooster, As Time Goes By, Mr Majeika, Dead Gorgeous, Big Women and Never Let Me Go.
Fidelis has played leading roles by Brecht, Chekhov, Wilde, Coward, Lorca, Orton, Shaw, Genet, Goldoni, Massinger & Schiller, in companies like West Yorkshire Playhouse, Nottingham Playhouse, Liverpool Everyman, Paines Plough and particularly the Glasgow Citizens, where her work won her a Best Actress nomination in The Observer.
She has played opposite Rupert Everett, Glenda Jackson, Dame Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds, Gary Oldman, Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman.
As a playwright, her adaptation of Samuel Richardson's PAMELA won her a nomination as Most Promising Playwright, and was described in the Guardian as "a new eighteenth century play". The Morgan/Benedict play Fragments From the Life of Marie Antoinette won the LIPA award for large cast play 1997, while her adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's HANGOVER SQUARE played for an extended run at the Lyric Hammersmith, where it acquired cult status, and was recently revived to great acclaim at the Finborough Theatre.
Her four murder mysteries featuring The Countess Ashby dela Zouche and her maid Alpiew are acclaimed throughout the world.
She has a new short story collection TRIPLE SHORTS and a modern novel, MURDER QUADRILLE available for Kindle and download to computers.
