Caroline Blackwood was born into the Guinness family in 1931, the daughter of the Fourth Marquess and Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava. Brought up on the ancestral estate in Northern Ireland, Blackwood moved easily among the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, the Soho bohemians of postwar England, and the liberal intelligentsia of 1960s New York. She was on intimate terms with some of the most celebrated artists and writers of her time. An unpredictable beauty known for her wit and her courage, she has been called a muse to genius. But her marriages to three brilliant men: the painter Lucian Freud, the composer Israel Citkowitz, and the poet Robert Lowell were as troubled as they were inspiring. During her marriage to Lucian Freud, Caroline became part of an artistic and literary group that included Francis Bacon and Cyril Connolly who was infatuated with her but eventually Freud's gambling caused irrevocable problems between them. Caroline was also in the grips of her own unfolding tragedy: a fatal attraction to alcohol that would plague the rest of her life. Upon the breakup of her first marriage, she moved to America , where she met her second and third husbands. Once regarded as the obvious successor to Aaron Copland, Israel Citkowitz had stopped composing long before he met Caroline. While he and Caroline had three children together, it was her subsequent seven year marriage to Robert Lowell that she considered her "main marriage." Her life with Lowell was probably the most difficult time of her life as she dealt with his increasingly frequent and worsening attacks of mania. And to Lowell she was not only an inspiration but_as he described in his Pulitzer-prize- winning book of verse The Dolphin, she was also "a mermaid who dines upon the bones of her winded lovers." In 1977, Robert Lowell fled London to return to his former wife Elizabeth Hardwick. He died from a heart attack in the backseat of a taxi, clutching Girl in Bed, Lucian Freud's haunting portrait of Caroline. Blackwood was an artist in her own right. Her literary talents were dark and satiric; her ten books of fiction and nonfiction betrayed an extraordinary eye for human physiognomy, attire, and behavior. Arguably her best book, Great Granny Webster described the comic terrors of her upbringing in Northern Ireland, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She herself died of cancer on Valentine's Day 1996, at the age of sixty-four. Dangerous Muse is the first biography of Lady Caroline Blackwood. Drawing upon numerous interviews and unpublished letters from Blackwood's mother, Maureen Dufferin, and friends and family, including Andrew Harvey, Jonathan Raban, John Richardson, and Caroline's sister Perdita Blackwood, Nancy Schoenberger eloquently captures one of the most original and provocative figures in contemporary letters of the twentieth century.

Bidden by a lovesick ghost to unearth Lord Byron’s secret diary, a Boston heiress finds a fiery passion of her own in this “spellbinding” novel (Romantic Times). Heiress Alison Cunningham, born into the upper echelon of Boston society, is shattered when her parents are killed in a tragic plane crash. Driven by grief to a séance, she receives a message not from her family, but from long-dead Lady Caroline Lamb, a former lover of Lord Byron whose affair ended in heartbreak and betrayal. All Caroline wants is proof that Lord Byron truly loved her—proof that can be found in his memoirs, hidden somewhere in Dewhurst Manor. But when Alison impulsively buys the estate, she finds more than she bargained for. Jeremy Ryder, a British antiques dealer, is also searching for the memoirs. Their tempers quickly clash, but not without igniting a historic passion of their own in this “truly remarkable story” (Publishers Weekly). “Jill Jones continues to carve out a most unique and extraordinary niche for herself with her completely captivating and unusual novels.” —RT Book Reviews

A wicked stepmother finds her ideal prey in Carlone Blackwood's “quite brilliant” (The Times) debut. A lavish Upper West Side apartment is the site of a familial cold war about to enter a phase of dangerous escalation. J is a lonely woman without even the luxury of being alone. Her husband has fled to Paris with his latest flame, but he’s left J not only with their own four-year-old daughter, Sally Ann, but with the sulky cake-mix addicted, thirteen-year-old Renata, a leftover from his previous marriage. The presence of a pert au pair, Monique, serves only to make J feel more isolated and self-conscious. What she’d like is someone to blame. Writing letters in her head to imaginary friends, J delights in dwelling on the hapless Renata, who “invites a kind of cruelty.” This is an invitation J fully intends to take up—and like so many stepmothers before her, she will find that wickedness, once indulged, is a difficult habit to kick. A mordant black splinter of a book, Caroline Blackwood’s first novel stands as proof positive of her eternal mastery—and mockery—of the darkest depths of human feeling.

Lady Caroline has one mission in mind, helping her mother maintain their estates after her father’s death, while knights posing as the earl’s men continue to kill their livestock. But as soon as her mother wishes the earl’s intervention, Caroline has a new problem–the earl is intrigued with her and wants her to reside at his castle and serve his mother. Caroline refuses, but as the raids on her family’s lands turn more deadly, Lord John Talbot forces the issue. Caroline continues to attempt to uncover who is behind the raids, and with her unnatural ability to remember details, she intends to see justice done. The lady may be his undoing, but the earl decides she is the one for him and no other will do, if only he can keep her safe from the danger that follows her every move until he can wed her.

Lady Caroline Lamb was described by her lover, Lord Byron, as having a heart like a "little volcano" and as "the cleverest most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous fascinating little being that lives now or ought to have lived 2000 years ago." She wrote witty and revealing letters to fellow writers like Lady Morgan, William Godwin, Robert Malthus, and Amelia Opie, and to her publishers John Murray and Henry Colburn, to her cousins Hart, Georgiana, and Harrio, as well as to her mother, husband, son, and lovers. In those letters, she told her correspondents "the whole disgraceful truth" of her drug and alcohol addictions, her affairs with Sir Godfrey Vassal Webster, Lord Byron, and Michael Bruce, and her jealousy of her cousin Georgiana (whom William Lamb had "adored" before proposing to Caroline). She also revealed her efforts to make a happy life for her mentally retarded, epileptic son, Augustus, and her determination to become a respected writer of fiction and poetry.