The life of Lady Desborough - beautiful heiress, aristocratic hostess, unfaithful wife, tragic mother, Edwardian icon. Born in 1867 and orphaned at three, Ettie Fane was brought up by a beloved grandmother and then two adoring, almost incestuous, bachelor uncles. At twenty she married Willy Grenfell, later Lord Desborough. Beautiful, rich, charming and clever, Ettie soon became a leading hostess at the two magnificent country houses she had inherited. Leading politicians, writers and artists were very much part of her circle. But there was a dark side too, as this book will reveal. Ettie could be manipulative and cruel. Her eldest son Julian, after a nervous breakdown at Oxford, rejected her world and values. Nemesis and tragedy were not far away. In 1915 Julian died of war wounds. Six weeks later her second son Billy was killed in action. Her youngest son Ivo would be killed shortly after the war. But despite intense private misery, she reacted with outward courage and self-mastery. Grief revealed the greatness of her spirit. In the 1920s and 1930s she continued to collect new types, especially gifted young men, relishing people of all ages up to her death in 1952, a redoutable survivor from a vanished age.

In the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Ettie Brogan dragged herself from the ruins to kneel beside her dying mother. Heartbroken, she assures her that she will take care of herself and be a good girl, and Ettie, alone in a world that overnight has become a chaotic, fearful place, set out to do just that. As a kitchen maid in the home of wealthy Sean O'Hara she soon endeared herself to O'Hara's cook, Bridget O'Connell. Bridget had just said goodbye to Sarah, a perfect employee until a Wells Fargo driver had his way with her, and Ettie appeared at just the right moment. Ettie begins a wonderful new life in the O'Hara household, and soon falls under the spell of Jimmy, O'Hara's cheeky coachman. These three servants form an enduring bond of love and friendship, but as Ettie blossoms into a beautiful young woman, naive and innocent, she learns to her cost that even those in high places, such as friends of the President, cannot always be trusted. Bridget, in an effort to preserve their way of life, takes things into her own hands and can only sit by and watch as her plans go terribly awry. And Ettie learns that even for the rich, life is not always perfect; she sees the mistress of the house deal with tragedy by resorting to the comfort found in little brown vials; Katie, O'Hara's beloved eldest daughter, is disowned because she falls in love with a man of unsuitable heritage; and two sons are expelled from a prestigious Boston school for lewd behavior. Then the household is rocked to its foundations by the arrival of O'Hara's sister, Agatha, an embittered spinster and sworn foe of Bridget O'Connell. Theresa, Katie’s sister, welcomes Agatha as an ally and learns from her aunt’s twisted views of the world. A tragedy briefly unites this household until dark secrets are revealed and once again tear it apart, and a stronger, wiser Ettie is forced to make a life-changing decision.

Ettie has lived blissfully with just her grandma for company and the wild woods as her playground. Until she meets the mysterious Cora and she starts to crave more - now she wants to explore further, to discover secrets of her own. So, when Cora leads her to the hidden quarry pool - deep, cold, beautiful and dangerously inviting - Ettie is ready to jump straight in.But the quarry has secrets too, and Ettie will have to dive deep into the darkness to uncover them . . .

Ettie Rout fought a battle for safer sex in the First World War — and won. She gave New Zealand the best sexual health system when its army adopted her prophylactic kit and made every soldier going on leave take one — while she was banned from the pages of the newspapers so New Zealanders wouldn't find out. In Paris, having transformed Madame Yvonne's into a safer sex brothel, she met soldiers at the railway station and convinced them to go there if they chose to have sex. Armed with a wicked sense of humour, an intolerance of hypocrisy and boundless energy, Ettie Rout proved the case for safer sex decades before the term was coined — and the soldiers loved her for it. This book celebrates an unlikely heroine of the First World War who is now internationally recognised for waging a successful public health crusade. A woman way ahead of her time. Also available as an eBook

"She was the 'guardian angel of the Anzacs', accordiong to a French veneriologist. To a bishop she wa sthe 'wickedest woman in Britain.' Soldiers described her as a saint. Their mothers regarded her as an 'agent of the devil.' Six decades before the term 'safe sex' was coined, Ettie Rout went to war to protect soldiers from venereal disease. In Paris she ran a complete social and sexual welfare service for the Amzac soldiers of World War One - collecting them on the station platform, guiding them to Madame Yvonne's brothel which she regularly inspected, looking after the sick and running a counselling service. Her prophylactic kit was adopted by both the New Zealand and Australian governments. But although all New Zealand soldiers going on leave were handfed a copy of her kit, her own couintry made her persona non grata. The French, on the other hand, awardedher the medal they struck for the English martyr Edith Cavell. ..."--Book flap.