Invasion of Sand
2005

Bernie Molloy has returned to her home town in the outback after years of reckless living. Alone in her neglected bungalow, working in the roughest bar in town, she wrestles with the demons of her past - and prepares to turn forty. Then a threatening incident frightens her into taking lodgers and two very different men enter her life, to change it  forever.  Eddy Carpenter is a young drifter, a gentle, practical soul in touch with the spirit of the land, who won’t speak of his past. John Roper is an awkward Englishman who came to Australia to follow his dream of being a pilot. Back home in Liverpool his grandmother Lily broods on the boy she raised alone, for it is she who holds the key to his character.

As Bernie, Eddy and John settle into an unlikely companionship, tensions and desires simmer in the unbearable heat, and events move to their shocking climax. Dealing with profound questions of identity this is a powerful, moving novel of love and loss, which ultimately celebrates the redemptive power of love.

Intimate Letters
1993

Rosa McKee has never questioned her life. She is happily married to Simon, who runs their garden design business, and their daughter Kathy is away university so life is more or less perfect. Then, two days after forgetting their twenty-second anniversary, Simon dies suddenly of a heart attack. Rosa's contented, stable world is shattered.

Her best friend, Kit Jordan, is there to help her pick up the pieces, and starting work again seems the best way to get her life back in order. Together they sit down at the computer, something Rosa has always avoided, but what they see on the screen is not lists of clients and plants, not drawings of gardens, but letters - beautiful, intimate letters, written by Simon over a number of years to an anonymous mistress.

Rosa's progress towards self-knowledge, and her discovery of the truth about her husband, his mistress, and her own best friend, build to a moving and compelling detective story of the soul.

Lost Footsteps
1988

At the heart of Ana Popescu's existence is the love for her son. He is the only thing that makes life in Ceausescu's Romania tolerable. In their mean litle flat thay have created a private world in which no harm can come to them. But Ana is haunted by a mystery in her own past, and by her awareness under a totalitarian regime the soul can gradually be corrupted. At last as incident at Ion's school convinces her she must send him away.

When she seizes the chance to give Ion freedom, Ana unwittingly propels him beyond bureaucracy into an underworld of refugees and migrants. Atempting to follow, she is caught and thrown into prison. Then the collapse of communism and the overthrow of Ceausescu rekindle her hope for a future, as she leaves her country for the first time and embarks on a quest to reclaim her lost child.

The achievement of Bel Mooney's powerful and ambitious new novel, as it moves across the changing face of contemporary Europe, is that it takes us inside the lives of people caught up in the flood tide of political events. A story of sacrifice, loss and love, it is a moving and triumphant celebration of the power and immutablity of the bonds of motherhood and is also about one of the most pressing humanitarian issues of our age.

The Fourth of July
1988

Annelisa Kaye, nude centerfold model from Nebraska, wanted to be a 'star', and now her life is only defined by the camera's exploring lens. Barbara Row, photographer from London, thinks she knows everything about taking pictures. It is only through her unlikely, unspoken friendship with the doomed 'sex quenn' that she steps down from her pedestal of detachment, and begins to discover the extent of her own ignorance. Both women pay a price.

Barbara tells how, at a weekend July 4 houseparty in New Jersey, she encounters once again the girl she met in Miami Beach four years earlier. They are both guests of Anthony carl, Whose 'girlie' magazine Emporer has made him millions. His brittle wife Zandra, spoilt teenage children, and grimly cosy mother make up teh family party, joined by 'models' Marylinne and Lace, the gross restauranteur Corelli, and the coldly attractive Emperor executive, Sam Leunbach.

As the weekend drifts towards the fireworks, the tensions within this group emerge, and Barbara uneasily finds all her assumptions are challenged. Is Annelisa as stupid as she seems, and why is she so anxious? What is the nature of Anthont Carl's new movie? And why has Barbara herself been invited to this anonymous, rented house on the coast? Gradually, in a process that involves painful self-analysis, and a journey into her own and Annalisa's past, she discovers the truth aboutAnthony Carl's world of money and sex.

Bel Mooney has crefted a compelling and moving story which is sometimes shocking in it's it's frankness. It combinessocial satire and black comedy with a profoundly serious examination of corruption. As the narrative ranges from Czechoslovakia to Nebraska, from London to Atlantic City, we are asked to consider ways of looking, ways of feeling, and ways of exercising freedom of choice. Yet as this powerful and disturbing novel moves towards its tragic dénouement, there is nothing bleak in its conclusion - that even the most culpable sinner is worthy of redemption, through love.

Bel Mooney's work as a novelist, journalist and broadcaster has all been distinguished by a fine intelligence, and perception into human character. As a feature writer and columnist she has contributed to most national newspapers and magazines, before 'retiring' to write fiction. A collection of journalism, 'Differences of Opinion', was published in 1984, and she has written three books for children, Liza's Yellow Boat, I Don't Want To! and The Stove Haunting. Her interview series for Channel 4 and BBC 2 were highly praised, and in recent work for Radio 4 she has shown herself to be an accomplished and perceptive critic. Her previous novels for adults were, The Windsurf Boy and The Anderson Question. Bel Mooney is married to the television journalist Jonathan Dimbleby, and they have a son and a daughter. She divides her time between Bath and London.

The Anderson Question
1985

Eleanor Anderson's comfortable and ordered world is overturned one cold spring morning with the disappearance of her husband David, the dependable and much-respected doctor at the village of Winterstoke. 'Caught unawares, she had the look of someone whose life had been founded on a single truth, only to find it demolished overnight.' Her terror of loneliness and sense of bewilderment harden into biter resentment as, in the awkward company of her son Paul, she discovers what has happened, and is forced to face up to its implications under the watchful and knowing gaze of the village community. Most important amongst the onlookers is her husband's friend, the genealogist Conrad Hartley, who has embarked upon his own search for truth.

Bel Mooney has succeeded in portraying the essential isolation of of individuals, in a moving narrative spiked with moments of black humour. She demonstrates vividly the gulf between pretence and reality, laying bare emptiness that can lie at the heart of family relationships. This disturbing and powerful novel explores the emotions of people, often at war with themselves, as they struggle with truths beyond their experience and understanding and face the greatest of human fears, that of mortality.

The Windsurf Boy
1983

To Anna their scruffy little cottage on the edge of the River Syne had always seemed like a Wendy house, magically grown. Childhood memories of her father marching them all out in the rain and hatching schemes to pass the time had never been equalled. She had spent her honeymoon here too but John could never love her as her father had. Now that they were separated she hoped that their seven-year-old son Tom would stop being so anxious about his father's desertion.

Tom saw him first: the exquisite figure skimming the river's surface with it's blue and white sail like the wing of a tiny unusual butterfly. The boy looked older than his fifteen years but from the first was a patient little Tom as he was openly flirtatious with Anna, who was as old as his mother. Anna was enchanted. He took the sparkle of the sun on the water at face value; on his windsurfer he looked as if he would never change, go to hospital or grow old like everyone else.

In a nursing home in the next village Anna's mother was dying, and she couldn't see why everyone felt so hurt that she wouldn't put up more of a fight. "What nobody tells me is why I should want to," she complained to Anna, whose mind was brimming with the easy beauty and muscled health of the windsurf boy - the arrogance of his simple communion of water, wind and flesh.

Bel Mooney superbly captures the spell of a holiday cottage where all of a family's silly and rejected belongings settle beside each other into a soothing pattern of nostalgia. Delicately she portrays the looking back on life, the resentment and acceptance of loss and that precious split-second of free sailing, in complete control, when you don't have to think about anyone else because there simply isn't time.