Marriage Friendship

Seth Baumgartner just had the worst day of his life. His girlfriend dumped him (at Applebee’s), he spied his father on a date with a woman who is not his mother (also at Applebee’s!), and he lost his fourth job of the year. It’s like every relationship he cares about is imploding, and he can’t figure out what’s going on. To find answers, Seth decides to start an anonymous podcast called The Love Manifesto.

Luna Rae has moved to a new house and a new school. It’s hard fitting in - especially when there’s so much to worry about at home. She’s sure that the way to solve everything is by winning the school baking competition with her mum...but there’s a problem. Luna’s mum has disappeared.

A lot is changing for Cici. Her parents are separating, her wacky abuela is moving in, and on her 10th birthday, she wakes up with fairy wings! Cici's new magical powers let her see people as they truly are. But what she learns about her friends and family isn't always easy to accept. She has only one day to decide whether to keep her wings. When Cici wishes life could just be normal again, will she choose to believe in the power of fairies?

Juliet is now an official member of the Starry Beach Club, and loves working with her new friends, Emma and Carmen, to make people's wishes come true. Living away from her dad is still hard, and she misses her best friend from her old town, but she has her friends and the bookmobile - and San Diego feels more like home than ever.

With The Interruption of Everything, her sixth novel, Terry McMillan takes on the fault lines of mid-life and family life, reminds us once again of the redeeming power of friendship, and turns her eye toward the dilemma of how a woman starts to put her own needs higher on the to-do list while not shortchanging everyone else.

Frances Irvine, left destitute in the wake of her father’s sudden death, has been forced to abandon her life of wealth and privilege in London and emigrate to the Southern Cape of Africa. 1880 South Africa is a country torn apart by greed. In this remote and inhospitable land she becomes entangled with two very different men - one driven by ambition, the other by his ideals. Only then the rumor of a smallpox epidemic takes her into the dark heart of the diamond mines does she see her path to happiness.

Neve Halloran and her daughter share a fierce love for the austere beauty of Rhode Island's South County. Now, with Mickey a teenager and Neve's last hope for happiness with her daughter's loving but unstable father gone, both will struggle to make a new life together amid the windswept landscape that sustains them. As winter gives way to spring, and spring to summer, a secret will emerge that has lain buried just offshore for decades, a secret that will galvanize the small seaside community.

Seventeen-year-old Jesse Matson ventures into the Minnesota woods with his father on a cold afternoon. Perched on individual hunting stands a quarter mile apart, they wait for white-tailed deer. The muffled crack of a gunshot rings out. Jesse races through the trees to find his dad dead of a rifle wound, apparently self-inflicted. Haunted by the ghost of his father, Jesse confronts family secrets, questions of justice and retribution, and the nature of his own responsibility.

With The Interruption of Everything, her sixth novel, Terry McMillan takes on the fault lines of mid-life and family life, reminds us once again of the redeeming power of friendship, and turns her eye toward the dilemma of how a woman starts to put her own needs higher on the to-do list while not shortchanging everyone else.

Painter Honor Sullivan has made a life for herself and her three daughters–Regis, Agnes, and Cecilia–at Star of the Sea Academy on the magical Connecticut shore. Here she teaches art at the convent school’s beautiful seaside campus, over which Honor’s sister-in-law, mother superior Bernadette Ignatius, keeps a benevolent and watchful eye. No one could have foreseen the day rebellious Regis would come home with the stunning news that she was getting married. Nor could anyone have guessed how that sudden announcement would soon change all their lives forever.

When three women are thrown together by unusual circumstances, ruffled feelings are just the beginning. A wise, sharply observed celebration of the life-changing power of female friendships.

One takeaway dinner. Two lonely hearts. Did somebody order a rom com? Gia thrives on risks. Ben plays it safe. She crossed continents to chase her London dream; he works the same job in the same restaurant, night after night. Then fate steps in. When Gia’s takeout is delivered, her embarrassing list of New Year’s resolutions accidentally makes its way to Ben’s restaurant, stuck to the bottom of a delivery backpack. With each delivery Gia orders, Ben slips in a note of his own and eagerly awaits her reply.

Izzy has always taken everything in her stride, but motherhood is proving more difficult than she thought. She keeps telling herself it’s just a phase, but the dark clouds are starting to appear. Neighbour and widower Arthur might be in the winter of his life, but he’s not ready to be packed off to a care home. He’s determined to do things his way. When Izzy hears about Arthur’s big move, she offers to help. But Arthur isn’t telling her the whole story.

Milla has always felt alone in the world. The only child of a distant mother, she has no other family, and even her forthcoming marriage to Paul feels more like settling than true romance. But then a letter arrives, announcing that a Spanish grandmother she knew nothing about has died and left her a small shop in Mallorca. Milla is determined to uncover the truth. She travels to Palma, where she is enchanted by the beauty of the old town in springtime. At the shop she now owns, she meets Leandro, a handsome local who helps her piece together the story of her grandmother.

Luke Craven is convinced that the world is against him; his once-happy life hasn’t been the same since he lost both of his parents and his wife in quick succession, and his everyday has become more about existing than living. But he is forced to reconsider his glass-half-empty outlook when he narrowly escapes a freak accident with his life - pushed to safety by a stranger, who isn’t so lucky.

Meet Rachel, the beautiful bride with big plans for the perfect day! The venue is a castle and the dress is designer. It’s just a shame her husband is a rat. Maddie and Sally have only one thing in common - they both love the same man! Beth is a newly single mum with a mystery baby daddy. Surely the father isn’t someone the girls all know? And then there’s Jane, the glue holding them all together, but being dumped doesn’t make her the happiest bridesmaid...especially with gorgeous flatmate Freddie complicating things.

When Lucy Lovett’s husband loses his job, she is forced to give up her posh life in London and move their family to a tiny apartment in Manhattan. Homesick and resentful at first, Lucy soon embarks on the love affair of her life - with New York City and the three women who befriend her. Spot-on observant, laugh-out-loud funny, yet laced with kindness through and through, No One Could Have Guessed the Weather is a story of what happens when you grow up and realize the middle part of your story might just be your beginning.

Meet Whitney, Taylor, and Charisse, three women who have been best friends since high school. However, this devoted troika is about to discover a wave of unexpected troubles.

Manon is just about to enter a convent when she meets the young Chevalier des Grieux, a philosophy student. They flee to Paris together, where they live extravagantly off the money the Chevalier makes cheating at cards, until they are robbed of their possessions. Manon becomes mistress to a wealthy nobleman, and she and the Chevalier steal his money. They are captured and sent to a penal colony in Louisiana.

Abi’s life has been turned upside down by her husband’s death - in more ways than she could ever have imagined. With his dodgy business dealings now exposed, gone is her glamorous lifestyle and the trust of her family and friends. How could the man who said he loved her have betrayed her so spectacularly? Abi’s new neighbour Lucinda and her four-year-old son Max are struggling to overcome their own betrayal by Max’s violent, vengeful father. The pieces of Lucinda’s life seem finally to be coming together when she is given a new identity and finds an ally in Abi.