Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

At 66 Star Street in Dublin, someone is watching over the lives of the people living in its flats. But no one is aware of it - yet... One of them is ready to take the plunge and fall in love; another is torn between two very different lovers. For some, secrets they want to stay buried will come to light and for others, the unveiling of those secrets will have tragic consequences.

Erica Ryan is flying home from London after a disastrous business trip. Free spirit Abby Hayes is flying into New York City to visit her mother before jetting off again. Both end up in Gander, Canada, when their flight is diverted because of 9/11. For ninety-six hours they share a rollercoaster of emotions and find themselves drawn to one another. Will their nascent connection survive everyday life when they return home?

Illustrator Lucy Brighton loves her work. Her animal characters Izzy, Bizzy, and Lizzy have their own comic strip, card line, and children’s cartoon, and their popularity has given Lucy financial stability and freedom. Yet none of that quite erases the lingering ache of a cold, lonely childhood. Then Lucy receives a call to say that her mother and father have been killed in a car crash. While settling their affairs in Florida, Lucy begins to realize how little she really knew about their lives.

What will be will be. Belinda Marshall’s idyllic teenage life in Brittany, France, fell apart when her parents dramatically separated and her mother took her back to England. Fast forward 35 years when Belinda’s world is once again turned upside down. It’s the week before Christmas and her employer 'surprises’ Belinda by asking for her help to rejuvenate their latest investment, a run-down campsite in Brittany.

No new people: that's Annie Mercer's vow. It's bad enough that her boss sabotaged her chemistry career and her best friend tried to cure her with crystals. But after her fiancé, Jon, asks for space while he's gallivanting around Paris, Annie decides she needs space too - from everyone. Yet when Harper moves in next door, Annie can't help but train a watchful eye on the glamorous but fragile young woman. And if keeping Harper safe requires teaming up with Mo, a maddeningly optimistic amateur detective, who is she to mind her own business?

Mia's high school sweetheart breezes back into town, but will she let him stay at her B&B and risk her heart again? Kate tries to expand the business, but will she and Mia butt heads over the future of their mother's beloved bed and breakfast? As usual, Evie is up to no good. Will this little prank get her in hot water? A woman arrives to stay at the B&B who has some secrets of her own.

Mia Carter's life has always been about her family and their charming bed and breakfast in the idyllic Blue Ridge Mountains. When her mother passes away, Mia is left to run the Sweet Tea B&B alone. But a routine DNA test changes everything. Mia discovers she has a sister named Kate, who lives in Rhode Island. The sisters meet for the first time at the will reading and are shocked to learn that their mother's final wish was for them to run the B&B together.

Abby Rhodes is just starting to get her life on track. After her fiance's unexpected death, she returned with her young son to the small village where she grew up and threw herself into helping her ailing grandmother run the town's beach cafe. Then one evening, her mother, Laura, shows up in Hartley-by-the-Sea and announces her plan to stay. After twenty years away, she now wants to focus on the future-and has no intention, it seems, of revisiting the painful past.

Emma Laurent has always preferred helping others to asking for help. But now, she’s the one in need. Her stepmother is selling her late father’s candy shop, her grandmother’s assisted-living facility has become a financial burden, and the anniversary of her fiancé’s death is quickly approaching. Rather than face her problems, Emma does what she does best - finds someone else to help by offering a mother and son with nowhere to go somewhere to stay.

Kate Flynn, 43, has given up her university career to come home and look after her mother in Firenze, their big house by a lake in Cardiff. When Kate meets her old friend David Roberts, she begins to obsess about him: she knows it's because she's bored, but she can't stop. David is married, rational, and dependable: the last type to want an affair. David's marriage isn't as solid as it looks, though, so he takes refuge in Firenze, where he can talk to Kate about music.

In the small town of Celeste, Texas, Mitzi Taylor has never quite fit inside the lines. Nearly six feet tall, flame-haired, and with a plus-size spirit to match every curve, she’s found her niche: a custom wedding-dress boutique catering to big brides-to-be with big dreams. Taking the plunge alongside her two best friends, she’s proud they’ve turned The Perfect Dress into a perfect success. Just when Mitzi has it all pulled together, Graham Harrison walks back into her life, looking for bridesmaid dresses for his twin daughters.

When solo travellers Benni, Emma and Ruth find themselves holidaying together at charming Rose Cottage in Brixham, Devon, they are initially disappointed to be sharing with strangers of a different age group. But 'friendship and home comforts' are guaranteed at Rose Cottage and soon a bond blossoms between the women, who each have valuable life lessons to share.

As Sophie De Luca has learned, many things really are better the second time around, whether that’s a wonderful year of marriage with Goebel, her sweet second husband, or strengthening her bonds with childhood friends Toots, Ida, and Mavis. Yet ever since she and Goebel moved into their new home, Sophie has sensed something a little...unusual. Old houses often contain items left behind from previous owners, but what remains in this case is a painful secret. Facing this past presents a special kind of challenge, but with her three extraordinary friends by her side, Sophie is ready.

Dan and Sally Oliver and their friend Chloe Hennessey are lucky to be alive. Three years on, after surviving one of the world's biggest natural disasters - the Boxing Day tsunami - their lives have changed dramatically. Dan and Sally are now parents. Dan is enjoying being a stay-at-home father taking care of their young son, and Sally is the bread winner and loves her job as a partner in a Manchester law firm.

Sweeping powers of description transport her listeners to another time and place. Rosanna Ley, author of best-selling The Villa and Return to Mandalay. Some memories can be forgotten.... Others won't ever go away. For renowned actor Sir Mungo, his quiet home village in Devon provides the perfect retreat. Close by are his brother and his wife, and the rural location makes his home the ideal getaway for his old friends in London.

Nearly 25 years after a tragic accident forced Mim to give up her successful career as one of the world's leading ballerinas, history is repeating itself. Daisy, Mim's most talented former pupil, is suffering from injuries and she too will have to rethink her career. Mim arranges for Daisy to take a holiday in Cornwall, in the strange and beautiful house on the edge of Bodmin Moor where Mim's brother, Roly Carradine, is living.

What would you do if the love of your life had no memory of you? A man tries to win back the love of his life after an accident has her in a coma in this emotional, romantic drama from J. L. Perry writing as Jodi Perry. The 19th of January, 1996.... I'll never forget it. It was the day we met. I was seven and she was six. It was the day she moved in next door, and the same day I developed my first crush on a girl. Then tragedy struck. Nineteen days after our wedding day, she was in an accident that would change our lives forever.

Um retrato generoso e austero — sem floreios ou exageros, sem dramaticidade ou emoções fáceis —, de uma matriarca em um momento em que lembrar e cuidar da memória e dos afetos familiares se tornou a razão de ser uma existência que se revela exemplar. A poucos meses de completar 90 anos, Catharina passa os dias em uma rotina pacata no apartamento onde mora, na zona norte de São Paulo. Depois da cegueira de um olho causada por uma degeneração macular, não escreve mais poemas com tanta frequência, mas mantém um diário com reflexões e, eventualmente, alguns versos.

After three marriages and a lot of living, resilient Billie Slate knows exactly what trouble love can bring. Now she’s reinvented herself as the Heartbreak Bunny, an on-call performance artist who can heal anyone who’s been burned by that four-letter word, LOVE, by hopping about and whisking away sad mementos from their past relationships. Call it magic. Call it peculiar. But her bunny costume is as perfect as her breakup mantra: SNAP OUT OF IT.

There's always time to help out a stranger...isn't there? Supermarket delivery driver Charlie enjoys his new job, because he doesn't have to spend too long with people, who, he's found, are nothing but trouble. But when he's assigned the Hope Row street, he realises there are a lot of lonely people out there - and for some, he's their only interaction. The supermarket boss tells Charlie he's a driver, not a social worker - but Charlie can't abandon the Hope Row residents and he sets about trying to draw them out of their shells and back into the world.