For 200 years after 1650 the West Indies were the most fought-over colonies in the world as Europeans made & lost immense fortunes growing & trading in sugar
- a commodity so lucrative that it was known as white gold. Young men beset by death & disease an ocean away from the moral anchors of life in Britain created immense dynastic wealth but produced a society poisoned by war sickness cruelty & corruption. The Sugar Barons explores the lives & experiences of those whose fortunes rose & fell with the West Indian empire. From the ambitious & brilliant entrepreneurs to the grandees wielding power across the Atlantic to the inheritors often consumed by decadence disgrace & madness this is the compelling story of how a few small islands & a handful of families decisively shaped the British Empire.
...

Frances Mc Naughton shows how to make both cute & realistic sugar birds for cake decorating using sugarpaste & a few simple tools & techniques. First we are introduced to the art of making sugarcraft birds & then the few basic tools & materials that are required are explained. Then it is straight on to making Macaws Puffins Pelicans Robins Mallards Owls & much more. The constituent parts of the birds are shown with the step-by-step instructions & annotated for clarity then each finished bird is pictured in all its splendour. Bird lovers will be thrilled to see any of these appealing characters on top of a celebratory cake. The designs will also appeal to makers of polymer clay models. ...

Two men. One woman. A choice that can make her or break her. A love story youll never forget. Liberty Jones fell in love with Hardy Cates when she was just fourteen-&-three-quarters. But at seventeen the ambitious Hardy craves a life bigger & better than their parochial hometown of Welcome Texas can offer. While hes fond of Liberty & feels a responsibility to protect her her crush is a complication he doesnt need. Yet something continues to draws Hardy & Liberty to each other especially when she blossoms into a proper beauty. So when he chooses to follow his head & leave town Liberty is left broken hearted. Finding herself alone as a teenager with a young sister to raise it seems inevitable that she will find comfort from another man. But just as shes settling into her new life & beginning to piece together forgotten family secrets she realises she cant let go of her own past as easily as she thought... ...

Frustrated with her stalled career as a broadcast journalist & uninspired by dating naive & needy guys her own age Helen Croydon joins a website to seek an older man. She expects it to be just a few fun dates in some fancy bars but finds herself propelled into a world of Prada shopping trips fine dining first-class travel & fascinating powerful men. Helens soul-searching dating adventures take her to New York Malaysia highbrow sex parties top ski resorts & Londons finest hotels. When one of her dates alludes to a monthly allowance she is shocked but how long will her resistance to the idea last? Sugar Daddy Diaries is a confessional true story that questions modern ideals about relationships examines the attraction of power & asks if money can ever be the currency of love. ...

Frances Mc Naughton shows how to make cute & beautiful sugar fairies for cake decorating using sugarpaste & a few simple tools & techniques. All the shapes needed to make each fairy are clearly shown along with step by step instructions on how to assemble them then each fairy is shown in all its splendour. Funny twists are given to familiar fairies such as the Tooth Fairy a Fairy Godmother & various flower fairies & there are plenty of new ideas such as a Fairy Bride a Dancing Fairy & a Baby Fairy. Lovers of fairies will be thrilled to see any of these appealing creatures on top of a celebratory cake. ...

This stunning book shows you how to make beautifully realistic sugarcraft flowers for cake decorations. There are detailed ...

Tales of Hardship Love & Happiness in Tate & Lyle's East End Factories ' On an autumn day in 1944 Ethel Alleyne walked the short distance from her house to Tate & Lyle's refinery on the shining curve of the Thames. Looking up at the giant gates Ethel felt like she had been preparing for this moment all her life. She smoothed down her frizzy hair scraped a bit of dirt off the corner of her shoe & strode through. She was quite unprepared for the sight that met her eyes.. .' In the years leading up to & after the Second World War thousands of women left school at fourteen to work in the bustling factories of London's East End. Despite long hours hard & often hazardous work factory life afforded exciting opportunities for independence friendship & romance. Of all the factories that lined the docks it was at Tate & Lyle's where you could earn the most generous wages & enjoy the best social life & it was here where The Sugar Girls worked. Through the Blitz & on through the years of rationing The Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard but Tate & Lyle was more than just a factory it was a community a calling a place of love & support & an uproarious tribal part of the East End. From young Ethel to love-worn Lillian irrepressible Gladys to Miss Smith who tries to keep a workforce of flirtatious young men & women on the straight & narrow this is an evocative moving story of hunger hardship & happiness. Tales of adversity resilience & youthful high spirits are woven together to provide a moving insight into a lost way of life as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young & female. www.thesugargirls.com ...

In the late 1640s Andrea Stuarts earliest known maternal ancestor set sail from England lured by the promise of the New World to settle in Barbados where he fell by chance into the lucrative life of a sugar plantation owner. With George Ashbys first crop the cane revolution was underway & would go on to transform the Caribbean into an archipelago of riches establishing a thriving worldwide industry that bound together ambitious white entrepreneurs & enslaved black workers. As it grew this sweet colonial trade fuelled the Enlightenment & financed the Industrial Revolution but it also had more direct less palatable consequences for the individuals caught up in it consequences that still haunt the authors past. In this unique personal history Andrea Stuart follows the thread of her own familys involvement with sugar through successive generations telling a story of insatiable greed & forbidden love of abuse & liberation. ...

In the late 1630s Andrea Stuart's earliest known maternal ancestor set sail from England lured by the promise of the New World to settle in Barbados where he fell by chance into the lucrative life of a sugar plantation owner. With George Ashby's first crop the cane revolution was underway & would go on to transform the Caribbean into an archipelago of riches establishing a thriving worldwide industry that bound together ambitious white entrepreneurs & enslaved black workers. As it grew this sweet colonial trade fuelled the Enlightenment & financed the Industrial Revolution but it also had more direct less palatable consequences for the individuals caught up in it consequences that still haunt the author's past. In this unique personal history Andrea Stuart follows the thread of her own family's involvement with sugar through successive generations telling a story of insatiable greed & forbidden love of abuse & liberation. ...

Sugarcraft really does have a dark side & here are twenty easy-to-make fun projects to prove it. Frances Mc Naughton has delved into the darker recesses of her imagination & produced twenty positively horrid projects that will appeal to children as well as adults. Theres a scary ghost an evil witch a creepy hand emerging from a coffin skulls skeletons vampires bats & more
- perfect for Halloween or for any sort of celebration cake with a scary theme. Each project shows the various components of the model & explains through clear step-by-step instructions how to put it together. A list of all the materials & equipment you need is also provided along with a stylish photograph of the finished item in all its scary splendour. At the beginning of the book some general guidance on sugarcrafting is provided making this an ideal book for novice as well as more experienced cake decorators.
...