Church Women

Hannah is 38 and the happily married mother of 11-year-old Luke. Her marriage is reassuringly stable and after 15 years she has managed to push the wild dreams of youth from her mind and concentrate on the everyday satisfactions of here and now. The first half of her life hasn’t been as exciting as she had hoped, but then, she reckons, whose has? When she succeeds in convincing husband Cliff to rent a villa in the south of France for a summer vacation with her sister Jill and gay friend Tristan, she’s expecting little more than a pleasant few weeks with her family.

Sophie, Emily, Amy, and Melissa have been best friends since they were girls. They have seen each other through everything - from Sophie's private fear that she doesn't actually want to be a mother despite having two kids, to Amy's perfect-on-the-outside marriage that starts to reveal troubling warning signs, to Melissa's spiraling alcoholism, to questions that are suddenly bubbling up around the paternity of Emily's son. But could a lie that spans just as long as their friendship be the thing that tears them apart?

When Catherine learns that she is dying, she remembers the words her husband once jokingly uttered and decides to leave him the ultimate posthumous gift: a time capsule containing photographs of their life together along with tape recordings in which she recounts every secret she ever kept, every unspoken thought whether loving or treacherous - the things they never said.

Abby Archer, a smart and savvy woman who refuses to be taken in by celebrity culture, becomes fascinated with it girl and media darling Brooke Simmons after she falls into a coma following a car crash. Her loyal security-guard-turned-lover Nick Lawson is implicated in the accident - someone Abby met just days before. One day Abby begins to feel unwell and is shocked to see the face looking back at her in the mirror is no longer her own but that of Brooke Simmons.

Having recently split up from the father of her baby, Lilly is not in a happy place, matters being complicated further by the arrival of her ex-husband, needing a sofa to crash out on, having been thrown out by his girlfriend. In the midst of all this Lilly is asked by a child psychologist if she will help one of her patients: a girl currently sectioned having stolen a car while extremely drunk. While Lilly visits her she is introduced to Chloe, another unstable teenager who slips Lilly a note saying: "Help us". And then Lilly's client is killed and Chloe accused of her murder. Her case is not helped by the fact that the words "Help us" have been carved on the dead girl's stomach....

State prosecutor Chastity Riley runs off to Glasgow. For one, there is that letter, written by a lawyer, that lures her to the birthplace of her great-great-grandfather. And secondly, her life in Hamburg has arrived at a sad impasse. In the rough Scottish city, she meets Tom, who knows the key that unlocks the Rileys’ family secret. She never dared confront the painful truths about herself, but some whisky and a few ghosts help her to do just that.

1944: Texas Ranger Jim Strong investigates a triple murder inside a Nazi POW camp in Texas. The present: His daughter, fifth generation Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong, finds herself pursuing the killer her father never caught in the most personal case of her career - a conspiracy stretching from that Nazi POW camp to a modern-day neo-Nazi gang.

1818: In the Gulf waters off the Texas coast, the pirate Jean Lefitte and his partner Jim Bowie launch an attack on the Mother Mary, a slave ship carrying an invaluable treasure. The Present: Fifth-generation Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong finds herself investigating the murder of the oil-rig crew that had found the long-lost wreckage of the Mother Mary. The crew also uncovered something else beneath the surface of the sea - something connected to a terrorist attack about to be launched by a mad American-born cleric who has recruited an army of homegrown terrorists.

There are three women who made their marks upon the Church with the work they did among the Native Americans and with the children of Canada. They are Saint Marguerite Bougeoys, foundress of Sisters of Notre Dame, Saint Marie Marguerite D’Youville, the first Canadian-born saint and foundress of the Sisters of Charity in Canada, also known as the Grey Nuns, and Blessed Marie de l’Incarnation, Foundress of the Ursuline Sisters in Canada.

Rebecca is 42, has a beautiful child and a wonderful husband. But she just hasn’t been feeling herself recently.... Rebecca thinks a great night out should involve a packet of Marlboros, six double vodkas and snogging a colleague. Not gormlessly drinking a zero-alcohol No-hito while Instagramming a vegan chicken wing. Rebecca wants to ride on a Harley-Davidson, crowd surf till dawn, then collapse in a heap after swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels...not sit in a soul-destroying meeting surrounded by 'blue sky thinking' and men half her age who interrupt all the time.

Sam Wylde has fought off Albanian gangsters and vindictive old friends to make it to Bali, hot on the heels of her ex-husband, Matt, and Jess, their daughter, whom he took without Sam’s permission. But a nasty surprise awaits her in paradise: Bojan. A Serbian thug she thought was dead, back to make her life a misery.

So I’m knocked up again. Preggers. Up the duff. Or to put it another way...whoops. And while Alex and I get our heads around unexpected parenthood, I’m having all the usual pregnancy symptoms: throwing up, indigestion, sciatica, constipation, migraines and brain-fuddling tiredness. Mother Nature is a psychopathic old hag. Luckily, modern science offers some lovely distractions in the form of cruise ships and European air travel.

So I’ve had a baby. But motherhood isn’t quite how I imagined. I don’t live in a lovely cottage with roses around the door. I don’t know how to get Daisy to sleep. I don’t own a baking tray. And then there’s Daisy’s sh*tbag of a father... When Juliette has a baby, she knows her life isn’t sorted. Not by a long way. And most especially not with Nick, long-term boyfriend and father of her child. Far from living the dream family life, Juliette and Nick rent a city apartment and share a tiny, shiny elevator with executives and their takeaway Thai meals.

Loveday Cardew prefers books to people, and her job in a York bookshop is her refuge. If you look carefully, you might see the first lines of the novels she loves the most tattooed on her skin, but there are secrets Loveday will never share. Into the bookshop come a poet, a lover, a friend and three mysterious deliveries, each of which stirs unsettling memories she wants to forget. Turning the pages of her past will be the hardest thing Loveday has ever done. Can she trust those around her?

A gripping psychological thriller for fans of Gone Girl and Making a Murderer. For four long years, journalist Morgan Vine has campaigned for the release of her childhood sweetheart Danny Kilcannon - convicted, on dubious evidence, of murdering his 14 year-old stepdaughter. When a key witness recants, Danny is released from prison. With nowhere else to go, he relies on single mum Morgan and her teenage daughter, Lissa.

A serial killer is on the loose in Hamburg, targeting dancers from The Acapulco, a club in the city's red-light district, removing their scalp as a gruesome trophy and replacing their hair with plastic wigs. Chastity Riley is the state prosecutor responsible for crimes in the district, and she's working alongside the police as they investigate. Can she get inside the mind of the killer?

Fifth-generation Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong is back, pursuing justice the Ranger way. She takes on the case of a Mexican girl on the run from white slavers. For Caitlin, the case evokes memories of her legendary grandfather's run with the Rangers, even as it brings her face-to-face with a serial killer who's left a trail of bodies along the Mexico border. Pursuing the killer brings Caitlin to a sleepy Texas town suddenly riddled by violence and to the site of a major water find. The connection between these two disparate places lies buried beneath the plains of West Texas.

The women in Lara Williams’ debut story collection, A Selfie as Big as the Ritz, navigate the tumultuous interval between early twenties and middle age. In the title story, a relationship implodes against the romantic backdrop of Paris. In “One of Those Life Things,” a young woman struggles to say the right thing at her best friend’s abortion. In “Penguins,” a girlfriend tries to accept her boyfriend’s bizarre sexual fantasy. In “Treats,” a single woman comes to terms with her loneliness.

Mothers of the Bible takes you inside the lives of 12 biblical mothers whose struggles to live with faith and courage are much like yours. Through their successes and failures alike, these women from long ago will encourage you and strengthen you in your challenging and rewarding role as a mother.

In Essay 63, with characteristic wit and acuity, Don Watson takes us on a journey into the heart of the United States in the year 2016. Plunging into the apparent chaos of the presidential campaign and tracing America's recent past, he puts Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders in a larger frame. He considers the irresistible pull - for Americans - of American exceptionalism, and asks whether this creed is reaching its limit.