The Bells of Bournville Green by Annie Murray Pretty seventeen-year-old Greta has never known a stable family life. With no father, and loathing her mother Ruby's latest boyfriend, Greta finds life hard at home and is happiest at work with her friends at the Cadbury factory in Birmingham where she is popular with the boys. Life takes a turn for the worse when her missing vixen of a sister Marleen turns up during the freezing winter of 1962. Greta soon decides that her only way out is marriage, but all too soon she discovers that life with her old class mate Trevor is not a ticket to freedom and happiness. She finds herself on the streets, pregnant and homeless She is taken in by her mother's old friends, Edie and Anatoli Gruschov. In Anatoli, Greta finds the father she has never had. Kindly Edie loves to mother people and is desperately missing her son David and his family who have settled in Israel. But the love and security of this haven is soon shattered by appalling tragedy, which affects all the chocolate girls and their children and changes life forever Continuing the saga begun in Chocolate Girls, and set in 1960s Birmingham, this is a story of families whose lives are entwined, of belonging and loss and of a young woman's search for transforming love.Read More...Hide Pages: 503
Grace Falco by Chris Niles When successful architect Philip Ross first meets Grace Falco, his best friend Mitch's fiancee, he thinks 'trashy Manhattan trophy wife'. Grace is everything he dislikes in a woman -- overdressed, under-fed and out of control.
But when Mitch commits suicide, leaving Grace impoverished, Philip's feelings towards her start to change -- much to the dismay of his girlfriend, Poppy Adams.
Angry and hurt at being pushed out of Philip's life, Poppy acts on a growing suspicion that Grace Falco is not who she says she is.
Aided by P. T. Marvel, a sympathetic private investigator who has his own personal reasons for getting involved, Poppy begins a dark journey into Grace Falco's past and unearths a treacherous secret that someone is prepared to kill to protect.
The more she finds out about Grace the more Poppy becomes afraid for Philip's safety. But is it her ex-boyfriend's life she should be worrying about -- or her own.
Truth Or Dare Star Struck by Cathy Hopkins I was in her trailer with her and she didn't want errands running. Oh no. She wanted to rehearse a scene from the film -- with me. And it wasn't just any old scene she wanted to go through. It was a snogging scene. Oh. My. God.
Squidge is over the moon -- he has just started going out with the beautiful Lia. And when Lia challenges him to a game of truth or dare, Squidge promises her that he will always be open and honest. But things get complicated when a film crew arrives in the area and Squidge's dream to work on a movie comes true. Savannah, the celebrity teenage star, adopts Squidge as her personal runner and starts to show an interest in him. Will he be able to keep Savannah happy without breaking his promise to Lia.
Mates, Dates And Sole Survivors by Cathy Hopkins I decided that next time I saw him, I'd have a word about maybe giving each other a bit more space. After all, Mum's always saying that you have to work on relationships and not give up at the first hiccup....
Lucy seems to be out on a limb. Everybody has a boyfriend except her, and since she put Tony on the back burner he's found someone else. Then on a spa weekend with Izzie, she meets someone who seems just right for her. And he feels the same way about her.
But after a while, Lucy starts to feel smothered. Can someone love you too much. Maybe the life of a singleton isn't so bad after all!
Slave to Fashion: A Novel by Rebecca Campbell Fashion college has taught Katie Castle everything she ever needed to know: how to smoke cigarettes and drink; how to flirt with gay men and straight women; how to get into clubs without paying. Possessed of a sharp eye and a stiletto tongue, Katie talks her way into the job of her dreams. Working for chic designer Penny Moss, Katie snags not only a town house in London?s Primrose Hill but also a cute fiancé, Ludo, who happens to be Penny?s son. But one act of libidinal folly with the company delivery driver costs Katie everything: job, boyfriend, flat, friends. Will she be forced to move back with her sartorially challenged parents? Or can she maneuver a return to fashion that somehow doesn't involve (gasp!) retail?
Rebecca Campbell has invented a wisecracking heroine who'll keep you laughing right up to the last page. Katie's misfortune will be your delight, as this irrepressible wit carpe diems herself into a set of adventures that once again propels her to the top. Slave to Fashion marks the arrival of an uncommonly smart and very funny new writer.Read More...Hide Pages: 275
A Tale of Two Sisters by Anna Maxted Cassie is slender, clever, charismatic, successful. The one flaw in her perfect life may be her marriage. Her sister Lizbet is plumper, plainer, dreamier. An aspiring journalist, she's stuck writing embarrassing articles on sex for Ladz Mag. Her one achievement is her relationship with Tim, who thinks she's amusing and smart. Despite Cassie being the favored child, she and Lizbet have always been best friends. But then Lizbet gets pregnant.
Forced apart by mistakes not their own, enticed by new loves, and confronted by challenges they never asked for, Cassie and Lizbet struggle to rediscover the simple goodness of their sisterhood, even as their lives take them on a collision course of heartache and new beginnings.
A Tale of Two Sisters is Anna Maxted at her best-a highly entertaining yet deeply involving story of sisters who lose their way and need each other to find themselves again..Read More...Hide Pages: 353
Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna Landvik Patty Jane Dobbin should have known better than to marry a man as gorgeous as Thor Rolvaag, but she was too smitten to think twice. Yet nine months into their marriage, with a baby on the way, Thor is gone. It's a good thing Patty Jane has her irrepressible sister, Harriet, to rely on. For it's been said that a fine haircut can cure any number of ills, and before long the Minnesota sisters have opened a neighborhood beauty parlor complete with live harp music and an endless supply of delicious Norwegian baked goods. It's a wonderful, warmhearted place where you can count on good friends, lots of laughter, tears, and comfort when you need it--and the unmistakable scent of somebody getting a permanent wave. . . .Read More...Hide Pages: 292
The Lost Art Of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice THis story is about what happened to me after I met Charlotte, and what happens when you say yes to everything, and how awkward it is when everyone falls in love with the wrong people. It all started on a perfectly ordinary afternoon in November. Charlotte invited me home to tea with Aunt Clare and Harry, and from that moment on, everything changed. At first I don't think I knew it-after all, when I went to bed that night I was still living with my mother and brother in perpetual chaos in a a crumbling estate we couldn't afford to keep, Magna- but the next day, I began to realize that for the first time ever, I had my own life. You see, meeting Charlotte made everything possible. Even being kissed by Johnnie Ray and hanging out with a movie producer named Rocky and believing my brother Inigo could be the next Elvis Presley. And missing people begore they've even gone. This story is what happened when we war babies grew up and needed answers. When we got them, they weren't what we expected at all.Read More...Hide Pages: 352
A Little Help from Above by Saralee Rosenberg Of course I expected the world -- and my daughters -- to change. It's nearly thirty years since I passed on. Still, I hardly recognize the place. Day spas on every corner. Miniature telephones. And such racy television programs. Though I do love that "Sex and the City."
And yet, some things never change. Stubbornness. Pettiness. Families who fight. Like mine. Especially my older daughter, Shelby.
She stopped speaking to the family. Hasn't been home in years. And it's not as if her romantic life is so great, either. She may be this hot-shot journalist, but she's still thirty-eight and as single as a sock in the dryer.
Enough is enough, I thought. There must be a way to get her to come home. Make nice with her father. Pal around with her adoring sister. Maybe even reunite with that little neighbor boy she never stopped loving.
One tiny problem. We've been warned about tinkering with divine intervention. But here's a universal truth every mother in the afterlife knows. Whether dead or alive, the job never ends. So, my darling Shelby, that wake-up call YOU hear tomorrow morning? It's not the Ritz. Just a little help from above.Read More...Hide Pages: 334
The Girl She Left Behind by Karen Brichoux From the author of Coffee and Kung Fu and Separation Anxiety comes a refreshingly insightful new novel that asks: Can you find a home in a place where you never really belonged?
No one knows why Katherine Earle has come back to Silver Creek, Montana-not even Kat herself. At eighteen, she ran away with her boyfriend and got married in the big city, but after spending three years alone and on the road, she's finally come home. Well, not home, exactly, because she's renting a motel room and trying to avoid all chance encounters with people who might recognize her. But when she's pulled back into ancient family intrigues, she must choose between the woman she's become and the girl she left behind.Read More...Hide Pages: 235
This novel comprises some of the best work of an extremely gifted and perhaps under-regarded British crime novelist....What gave John Bingham his magic was something we look for in every writer, too often in vain: an absolute command of the internal landscape of his characters, acutely observed by a humane but wonderfully corrosive eye."Michael Sibley and John Prosset shared a history that dated back to their first years at boarding school, and so the news of Prosset's murder came as a great shock to his old friend -- especially because Sibley had been staying only the day before at Prosset's country house, where the body was found.When the police arrive to question him in connection with the murder, Sibley finds himself lying about his recent visit, and thus begins to reveal the true nature of a longstanding but volatile friendship, fraught with mutual deception and distrust. As he tells his version of the truth to the police -- and to the reader -- Sibley makes the first of many fateful mistakes and finds himself not only under suspicion, but a primary suspect in the investigation.Seen through the eyes of Sibley himself, My Name Is Michael Sibley is a mesmerizing account of murder, as the narrator purposefully attempts to elude the police and prove his innocence to the reader in the same breath.
Appointment with death
Appointment with death by Agatha Christie
A tyrannical old martinet, a mental sadist and the incarnation of evil. These were only three of the character descriptions levelled at Mrs. Boynton, the matriarch who kept her family totally dependent on her. But did she really deserve to die on the excursion to beautiful Petra..Hercule Poirot hears about the murder and feels compelled to investigate-despite the family's request not to do so. Do they have something to hide and, if so, can they keep it hidden from this master sleuth...
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
When Chef Anthony Bourdain wrote "Don't Eat Before You Read This" in The New Yorker, he spared no one's appetite, revealing what goes on behind the kitchen door. In Kitchen Confidential, he expanded that appetizer into a deliciously funny, delectable shocking banquet that lays out his 25 years of sex, drugs, and haute cuisine.
From his first oyster in the Gironde to the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, from the restaurants of Tokyo to the drug dealers of the East Village, from the mobsters to the rats, Bourdain's brilliantly written, wild-but-true tales make the belly ache with laughter.
