_FICTION_ _Crown 8vo._ _6s. each._ _Postage 5d._ The Financing of Fiona BY DOROTHEA CONYERS “The Financing of Fiona” is a sporting story with love interest running through it. The plot turns on Colonel Beresford’s will, written hurriedly on notepaper, in which he leaves everything to his niece Fiona; but he dies suddenly, and his nephew Challoner, though he does not think of suppressing the will, takes out the centre sheet, so completely altering everything that Fiona gets her uncle’s lovely old home but no income with it. By this Challoner thinks that the girl is sure to marry him, and that he will have both Kinvarragh and the money. But Fiona, left penniless, determines to struggle and to take paying guests for the hunting. Two men, Major Bohun and his nephew, come to her, and bring their horses. Fiona fights with many troubles, and Major Bohun’s fears that his nephew will marry her, together with hunting and shooting, make the rest of the book. The troubles end in an unexpected manner, and Fiona is left at Kinvarragh, but not alone. When the Wicked Man … BY GUY THORNE Author of “When it was Dark” Mr. Guy Thorne’s new novel, “When the Wicked Man …,” is one of unusual and penetrating interest. It is a profound study of a bad man’s soul, stripped bare and naked without equivocation or evasion. If Maupassant had written this story it would have stopped at the third book, and a brilliant but unutterably painful document would be all that remained. Mr. Guy Thorne goes farther. He shows us the dark and sensual soul of Sebastian Warde moving towards the Light, until the wicked man at last turns from his wickedness, and, crushed, broken, and empty, casts himself at the feet of God. The action of the story takes place in Paris, at Athens and the Bay of Nauplia in Greece, at Weymouth in Dorsetshire, the French battle-front, and finally in London. These are the main divisions into which the tale naturally falls. This is not a story without a plot. The action is continuous and intense throughout, and from first to last is as inevitable as a Greek tragedy. “When the Wicked Man …” is written with an economy and precision of effect that is stereoscopic. The people, places, and dramatic situations stand out from the page. They have perspective; one sees them. In fact, the novel is quite unlike anything published in England for very many years. Redwing BY CONSTANCE SMEDLEY