Showing results for "becoming" in Women's Fiction

Luke Boone doesn't know exactly what his uncle Rust is involved in, but he wants in on it - the cars, the money, the women. And it looks like he's finally getting his wish. When Rust hands him the managerial keys to the garage, they come with a second set - one that opens up the door to tons of cash and opportunity. Though it's not exactly legal, Luke's never been one to worry about that sort of thing. Especially when it puts him behind the wheel of a Porsche 911 and onto the radar of a gorgeous socialite named Rain.

1950: Margaret Devonshire (Megs) is a 17-year-old student of mathematics and physics at Oxford University. When her beloved eight-year-old brother asks Megs if Narnia is real, logical Megs tells him it’s just a book for children, and certainly not true. Homebound due to his illness, and remaining fixated on his favorite books, George presses her to ask the author of the recently released novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe a question: “Where did Narnia come from?”

Five young moms, including beloved Gunn character Christy Miller, gather to share meals and soon become unlikely best friends. The regular gatherings provide opportunities for the women to reveal their stories. They experience their lives naturally meshing as they raise their children together in community. In Becoming Us the group find ways to challenge, encourage, and help each other become the nurturing mothers they wished they'd had when they were growing up. They unite to be remembered for what they do as moms and not for what was done to them.

Since adolescence, 58-year-old Beth has lived her life with blinkers on, repressing the memory of a teenage trauma. Her mother, Marian, took control of that situation, and of all else in their family life—and as much as she could in the small town of Miner's Ridge as well. Now Marian is dead, and Beth, unemployed and in the middle of a humiliating divorce, is living with her gentle-hearted father in the family home. Beth feels obliged to take over her mother's involvement in the local town hall committee.

Thanks to her wealthy and well-connected family, twenty-six-year-old Marta is used to getting whatever she wants. And what she wants is a good time. That is, until her father's wife - the woman who raised her - becomes ill. Beautiful young Marta is forced to witness her unfaithful, brutish father abandon her adoptive mother in her final moments. After her father's swift remarriage, Marta is surprised to discover that she is now the sole heir of her late mother's sizeable estate.

Hi, I'm Zara, warrior princess. I don't usually tell that last bit to strangers, but I say it in my head all the time. It's one of the many mantras that have helped me to get to where I am today. And believe me when I say that I've come a long way. Besides, if you're a woman and you happen to have ever struggled with issues of self-esteem, we're probably gonna be fast friends anyway, so I won't hold anything (much) back.Oh, and Zara wasn't the name I was born with - but you'll find out more about that in the book.

On June 20, 1815, rumors of Wellington's victory in what history would come to call the Battle of Waterloo reach London. Among the townspeople celebrating, first the rumor and then the confirmation of victory, are Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy (and their son, Fitzy) and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bingley, who live a few blocks apart in Mayfair in London. The news became bleak for the families, however, when they soon received a dispatch that Captain George Wickham had been valiantly killed in battle.

Val, a widow living in Weston-super-Mare, spends lonely evenings dressing up as the movie star Elizabeth Taylor. It seems to be a way of coping with the loss and sadness she has experienced in her life. One day, when Val sees a pram left unattended on the seafront, on a whim she kicks off the brake and walks away with it.

Becoming a Woman of Substance finds Miriam Levine Butler at age 38, having had an epiphany. The Great Depression rages on and on in 1938. Her beloved son Aaron is in California, trying to be a screenwriter. She ventures out of her purgatory and goes back to her old haunt, Romany Marie’s café, where she hears about the Federal Theatre Project and its daunting director, Hallie Flanagan. This launches her new life as she returns to her early love of theater, but this time as a field investigator of drought victims in the growing fields of California.

Tough, spirited, and fiercely independent Abigail is brought as a teenager to London from Nigeria by relatives who attempt to force her into prostitution. She flees, struggling to find herself in the shadow of a strong but dead mother. In spare yet haunting and lyrical prose reminiscent of Marguerite Duras, Abani brings to life a young woman who lives with a strength and inner light that will enlighten and uplift the listener.

Olive Westchester dreams of being valued. Misunderstood and ignored by her family after her mother's death, her only ally is an older brother who loves her unconditionally. And the girl’s visions of making her mark are threatened by a close-minded society resentful of her intellect. After a jealous teacher expels her, Olive's anger swells when her father does nothing to get her readmitted, instead pushing her to learn to be a wealthy man’s wife. But as tragedy strikes, she turns to a local laborer enamored with her beauty and makes a decision that may change her destiny forever.

There’s nothing like an important birthday to make a person realize all the things they haven’t accomplished. As Tabitha Steele blows out thirty candles, she makes a wish to take charge of her life. It’s a tall order, considering she doesn’t have much to show for herself since leaving military service. She works at a motorcycle shop but has never even ridden a motorcycle; she’s floundering in massage school; her social life consists of her aunt and her gym buddies; and her closest relationship is with Trinity, the service dog who helps her manage every day.

What if, in the blink of an eye, you lost everything that you held dear? Your husband, your children, your family, and your home. Follow Autumn Marie Jensen on her roller coaster ride of emotions as she attempts to readjust to living in a world where she doesn’t fit it, and where nothing is as she remembers.

Letting the man of her dreams go would have been much harder had he been a real person. Living happily ever after with her soul mate would be much easier if reality was as uncomplicated as her dreams. And for Elizabeth Baker, the future would be much clearer if the lines between dreams and reality were not blurring yet again.

Celebrity chef Waverly Talbot has built a successful career with her home-entertaining show Simply Perfect. Yet she and her husband, Andrew, have never been able to realize the true desire of Waverly’s heart: to become a mother. Meanwhile Waverly’s twin sister, Charlie, buries her bitter disappointment and shattered idealism beneath a life spent serving others as an international aid worker in Budapest, Hungary. When the beloved aunt who raised them passes away, Waverly and Charlie come together in their grief after living years on separate continents. Struck by a fierce desire to bridge the distance between them, Charlie offers Waverly and her husband the selfless gift of surrogacy. But soon the sisters find they are each in danger of losing their jobs, seemingly putting their dreams on hold once again. When Waverly shows up unannounced in Budapest with a plan to rescue Simply Perfect, the sisters embark on an adventure across central Europe that could save them both from occupational hazards. Though the twins haven’t had to rely on each other since childhood, a dramatic turn in their journey forces them to stand together to save their careers, the baby, and each other.