European Women

When Ester and Jennifer, two best friends since high school, joined a group of European friends for Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, they met and fell in love with the same handsome and charming man without each other knowing. Fast-forward 15 years to when Ester and Jennifer took a trip together to visit the Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany, and old secrets and unspoken feelings were finally exposed.

When London Rose, 33, is proposed to by her longtime boyfriend, she realizes she is facing a stable, predictable, predetermined (and passionless) life. She freaks out and runs the other way, accepting instead a job across the Atlantic, as a tour-guide on a high-end European cruise line that travels through a country a day. London and her crew sail into the beautiful northern city of Oslo, admiring its gorgeous archipelago of islands and its local architecture and cuisine. It is the perfect stop - until, on a fishing outing, London reels in not the local cod, but a dead body.

When London Rose, 33, is proposed to by her longtime boyfriend, she realizes she is facing a stable, predictable, predetermined (and passionless) life. She freaks out and runs the other way - accepting instead a job across the Atlantic, as a tour guide on a high-end European cruise line that travels through a country a day. London is searching for a more romantic, unscripted, and exciting life that she feels sure exists out there somewhere.

When London Rose, 33, is proposed to by her longtime boyfriend, she realizes she is facing a stable, predictable, pre-determined (and passionless) life. She freaks out and runs the other way - accepting instead a job across the Atlantic, as a tour-guide on a high-end European cruise line that travels through a country a day. London is searching for a more romantic, unscripted, and exciting life that she feels sure exists out there somewhere.

In Book 2, Death (and Apple Strudel), the cruise takes London Rose and friends into Vienna and Salzburg, home of Mozart and the birthplace of music, and all seems picture-perfect. Until, that is, their tour guide turns up dead after giving the passengers a tour of Mozart’s theatre. Suspicion falls on them. Who could have killed her? And why?

Searching for a more romantic, unscripted, and exciting life that she feels sure exists out there somewhere, London Rose accepts a job as a tour guide on a high-end European cruise line that travels through a country a day. London is elated. She gets to see a new port every night, sample an endless array of new cuisine, and meet a stream of interesting people. It is a traveler’s dream, and it is anything but predictable. But when a wealthy, high-maintenance passenger suddenly turns up dead outside of Budapest, the cruise has become a bit too unpredictable.

This collection brings together stories by Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, Wilkie Collins and Marcel Proust, with forays into the supernatural and the comedic by Sabine Baring-Gould and Saki. Be them funny or moving, all stories are beautifully read by Harriet Walter (Atonement, Netflix’s The Crown), Juliet Stevenson (Bend it Like Beckham, The Enfield Haunting), Barbara Leigh-Hunt (Pride and Prejudice, Billy Elliot) and Rosalind Ayres (Titanic, Outnumbered).

"Mientras yo coloreaba uno de los mandalas relajantes de Amanda, un dragón alado se puso a revolotear por encima de mi cabeza y nada pudo hacer ella por asustarlo, porque consiguió acercarse a mi oído y susurrarme suavemente una verdad absoluta y necesaria para comprender los embustes de la vida".

In mid-nineteenth-century Ireland, charming Kathleen and dashing Michael harbor secrets and dreams. Imagining a life beyond the kitchen and fields of the wealthy family they both work for, they plot to leave their homeland, marry, and raise the child Kathleen is secretly carrying. The luck of the Irish, however, is not on their side. Soon, they find themselves swept up in circumstances they never could have fathomed. Kathleen is forced to marry against her will and immigrate to New Zealand.

A un primo sguardo, niente unisce Smita, Giulia e Sarah. Smita vive in un villaggio indiano, incatenata alla sua condizione d'intoccabile. Giulia abita a Palermo e lavora per il padre, proprietario di uno storico laboratorio in cui si realizzano parrucche con capelli veri. Sarah è un avvocato di Montréal che ha sacrificato affetti e sogni sull’altare della carriera. Eppure queste tre donne condividono lo stesso coraggio. Per Smita, coraggio significa lasciare tutto e fuggire con la figlia, alla ricerca di un futuro migliore.

Smita sofre todos os tipos de preconceito na sociedade indiana. Seu grande sonho é ver a filha escapar da condição miserável em que vivem e ter acesso à educação formal em uma escola. Na Sicília, Giulia trabalha como ajudante na oficina do pai. Mas, quando ele sofre um acidente, ela se vê obrigada a assumir o comando e logo percebe que o negócio da família está à beira da ruína.

1984. Bessie is a confident sixteen-year-old girl with the world at her feet, dreaming of what life will bring and what she’ll bring to this life. Then everything comes crashing down. Her bright and trusting smile is lost, banished by shame - and a secret she’ll carry with her for the rest of her life. 2021. The last thirty-seven years have not been easy for Bess. At fifty-three she is visibly weary, and her marriage to Mario is in tatters. Watching her son in newlywed bliss - the hope, the trust, the joy - Bess knows it is time to face her own demons.

Une belle complicité féminine et intergénérationnelle face au deuil. Une épopée savoureuse racontée à deux voix entre Normandie et Bretagne. Un roman plein de charme et de profondeur ! La vie, envers et contre tout...

In old Bari, everyone knows Maria De Santis as “Malacarne,” the bad seed. Nicknamed for her dark features, volcanic temperament, and resistance to rules, the headstrong girl can only imagine the possibilities that lie outside her poverty-stricken neighborhood. Growing up with her mother, two brothers, and a tyrannical father, Maria must abide. She does - amid the squalid life to which she was born, the cruelties of her small-minded neighbors, and violence in a constant threat of eruption.

A new edition of the "remarkable first novel" from a major voice in Caribbean literature in the Celebrating Black Women Writers series. Written in modified Jamaican patois, Powell traces the life of Gwennie, a strong woman who plays the role of wife and mother while suffering through a loveless and violently abusive marriage to Walter. Faced with choice of remain a victim to her duties or flee from the cruelties of her everyday life, Gwennie decides to start anew and embrace the pressures of sudden and laudable change.

Hamburg, 1898. As Ella nurses her beloved adoptive father on his deathbed, he uses the last of his strength to scribble down a name: ‘Richard F’. Convinced this man must hold the key to her unknown origins, Ella hunts for more clues, uncovering years of unexplained monthly payments from the British colony of Malaya. With no other leads and nothing left in Hamburg, she sets sail for the Far East in search of the truth.

Ashley Dunne is a bad boy, a notorious member of Dublin’s most ruthless gang. But when privileged daddy’s girl Ryan Mahony finds herself living on an urban estate they control, she can’t help feeling he’s not that bad at all. Ryan and Ash were never meant to cross paths: she’s always been sheltered by her successful barrister father. But when he’s unexpectedly sent to prison, she’s forced to move in with estranged relatives in the city, where a chance encounter with Ash sends sparks flying.

After completing a dangerous mission training police officers in war-torn Afghanistan, Detective Maria Kallio returns to Finland as the head of a new special crimes unit. But what awaits her in her home country is her most challenging and unsettling case yet. Three immigrant Muslim girls, all members of the same social club, have gone missing under mysterious circumstances. When the body of a fourth girl is found in the snow, strangled with her own headscarf, the investigation takes on a grim new urgency.

A grievously mutilated young woman arrives at the hospital in Espoo, Finland - only to vanish without a trace. Though the victim refused to identify herself, Violent Crimes Unit Commander Maria Kallio suspects she's connected to the city's sex-worker underworld. The next day her suspicions grow when celebrity call girl Lulu Nightingale is murdered during a live television broadcast. The victim's clients included some of the top names in Finnish society, but the list of suspects is longer: her infatuated bodyguard, a suicidal TV producer, and a talk-show host with political aspirations.

Kale Hunt has been her best friend since childhood. But it was never that simple. He was Lane's reason for leaving home and moving to New York. Seeing him with someone else, in love with someone else, shouldn't have hurt. But it did. It really, really did. So she upped sticks and left, started a new life and cut herself off from her past.