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By Marcia Willett. 2021
'We'll always be together, won't we?'Childhood friends and cousins Leo and Alice had imagined their whole lives playing out on…
their beloved Devon beach. But one night when they are teens, sitting on the sand beneath the stars, Alice tells Leo a secret that must never be shared with anybody else . . . then packs her bag and flees.Leo is left to build his own life - without Alice. He surrounds himself with other family and friends and on the whole is content and fulfilled. But he is left with a sense of what - or who - is missing. So decades later, when he receives a note from Alice asking if she can come home, he doesn't hesitate to agree.But as the stars align and their reunion draws near, Leo is left to consider their separation and what so many years apart means for a relationship solidified in youth and a secret which could affect the whole family.Praise for Marcia Willett:'A warm and engaging read.' Trisha Ashley, bestselling author of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes'A beautifully woven tale of families and their secrets...' Liz Fenwick, bestselling author of The Cornish House'Riveting, moving and utterly feel-good.' Daily Mail'Sweeping powers of description transport her readers to another time and place.' Rosanna Ley, author of The Orange GroveReaders love Starry, Starry Night:'Perfect comfort reading' *****'A very absorbing tale with lovely descriptions of the West Country' *****'Like meeting an old friend' ******** Don't miss Marcia's charming, festive novella, Christmas at the Keep - out now! ***By Various. 2009
A stunning new collection of short stories about motherhood, selected and introduced by Candice Brathwaite.______________'To describe my mother would be…
to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colours of a rainbow' MAYA ANGELOUThe story of motherhood is an endlessly rich one: it's one of love - and all the highs and lows that come with that world-turning emotion - and, in the purest sense, of life itself. Within these pages, some of the finest writers in the world explore motherhood in wildly varying modes, from single parenthood to sisters coparenting, from the deepest hardships to the biggest celebrations.Selected and introduced by Candice Brathwaite, author of I Am Not Your Baby Mother.Stories by Lydia Davis, Anita Desai, Mary Gaitskill, Tessa Hadley, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Irenosen Okojie, Casey Plett, Tabitha Siklos, Helen Simpson, Ali SmithBy Tobias Wolff. 1984
The Barracks Thief is the story of three young paratroopers waiting to be shipped out to Vietnam. Brought together one…
sweltering afternoon to stand guard over an ammunition dump threatened by a forest fire, they discover in each other an unexpected capacity for recklessness and violence. Far from being alarmed by this discovery, they are exhilarated by it; they emerge from their common danger full of confidence in their own manhood and in the bond of friendship they have formed.This confidence is shaken when a series of thefts occur. The author embraces the perspectives of both the betrayer and the betrayed, forcing us to participate in lives that we might otherwise condemn, and to recognize the kinship of those lives to our own.By Megan Rogers. 2023
Layla Byrnes is exhausted. She's juggling a demanding job as an anaesthetist, a disintegrating marriage, her young kids, and a…
needy lover. And most particularly she's managing her histrionically unstable mother, who repeatedly threatens to kill herself. But this year, it's different. When her mother rings just before Christmas, she doesn't follow the usual script. Instead, she tells Layla that there's something she needs to tell her about her much-loved father. In response, Layla drops everything to rush to her childhood home on the wild west coast of Tasmania. She's determined to finally confront her mother - and find out what really happened to her father - and lay some demons to rest.By Funso Aiyejina. 2021
The latest release from Caribbean publisher Peekash Press celebrates some of the major new voices in Anglophone Caribbean literature. Difficult…
parents and lost children, unfaithful spouses and spectral lovers, mysterious ancestors and fierce bloodlines--the stories, poems, and memoirs in this new anthology tackle everything that’s most complicated and thrilling about family and history in the Caribbean. Collecting new writing by finalists for the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize, a groundbreaking award administered by the Bocas Lit Fest, Thicker Than Water shows us how a new generation of Caribbean authors address perennial questions of love, betrayal, and memory in small places where personal and collective histories are often troublingly intertwined. From the Introduction by Funso Aiyejina: "Thicker Than Water confirms that the Caribbean is blessed with quietly penetrating, effortlessly urbane, and socially committed prose writers; environmentally passionate and historically anchored creative nonfiction writers; and thematically courageous and stylistically daring poets who manipulate language to create poetry that is daring, engaging, fluent, and confident. These are writers who are emotionally complex and critically engaged. They are the heirs to a multistoried and multifaceted Caribbean literary tradition that is as multichromatic and multilayered as its complicated history. These writers boldly engage with a Caribbean that is not constrained by its clichéd images of sea, sun, and sand. They are products of their history but they are not hog-tied by it. Here are writers who see what many do not see and dare to speak what many fear to think.” Featuring brand-new writing from: Lisa Allen-Agostini, Nicolette Bethel, Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné, Vashti Bowlah, Richard Georges, Zahra Gordon, Barbara Jenkins, Lelawatee Manoo-Rahming, Ira Mathur, Diana McCaulay, Sharon Millar, Monica Minott, Philip Nanton, Xavier Navarro Aquino, Shivanee Ramlochan, Judy Raymond, Hazel Simmons-McDonald, Lynn Sweeting, and Peta-Gaye V. Williams.By Louise Allen. 2019
Once secluded in her father’s castle, a young lady is finally ready for society as a marriage of convenience leads…
to true passion in this Regency romance.Cloistered away in a castle since birth, Madelyn Aylmer is unfamiliar with the ways of Regency London. But now she must venture out into the world and fulfill her eccentric father’s dying request: that she wed nobleman Jack Ransome! Though Jack may have a title, the fortune that once came with it was lost long ago. Now, to regain his ancestral lands, he agrees to a marry Madelyn and vows to introduce her to society. But what Madelyn hadn’t expected was the way her body reacts to Jack, especially to his promise of a union filled with unbridled passion!By Lydia Kwa, Sheung-King, Eddy Tan, Bingji Ye, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Isabella Wang, Yilin Wang, Sam Cheuk, Anna Kaye. 2023
By Robbie Arnott. 2022
Ned West dreams of sailing across the river on a boat of his very own. To Ned, a boat means…
freedom - the fresh open water, squid-rich reefs, fires on private beaches - a far cry from life on Limberlost, the family farm, where his father worries and grieves for Ned's older brothers. They're away fighting in a ruthless and distant war, becoming men on the battlefield, while Ned - too young to enlist - roams the land in search of rabbits to shoot, selling their pelts to fund his secret boat ambitions. But as the seasons pass and Ned grows up, real life gets in the way. Ned falls for Callie, the tough, capable sister of his best friend, and together they learn the lessons of love, loss, and hardship. When a storm decimates the Limberlost crop and shakes the orchard's future, Ned must decide what to protect: his childhood dreams, or the people and the land that surround him...By Ann Patchett. 2019
Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, a lavish mansion. Though his father is distant and his mother is…
absent, Danny has his beloved sister Maeve: Maeve, with her wall of black hair, her wit, her brilliance. Life is coherent, played out under the watchful eyes of the house's former owners in the frames of their oil paintings. Then one day their father brings Andrea home. Though they cannot know it, her arrival to the Dutch House sows the seed of the defining loss of Danny and Maeve's lives. The siblings are drawn back time and again to the place they can never enter, knocking in vain on the locked door of the past. For behind the mystery of their own exile is that of their mother's: an absence more powerful than any presence they have known.By Elmore Leonard. 2007
Federal marshal Carl Webster, from Hot Kid (DB 60336, BR 16125), travels to Detroit in 1944 to search for escaped…
German POWs. Webster interviews beautiful Honey Deal, the divorced wife of Nazi meatcutter Walter Schoen, and investigates Ukrainian spy Vera Mezwa. Strong language and some violence. 2007From rags to riches By the earl’s side! Abandoned as a small child, Annabelle Smith has only vague memories of…
her past. Now living as a healer in London’s poverty-stricken East End, she receives a life-changing visit from the rich and imposing Lytton Staines, Earl of Thornton. He needs a cure for his ailing sister and helping him thrusts Belle into his dazzling life of luxury. But it’s Lytton who makes her world come alive! Gentlemen of Honor miniseries Book 1 — A Night of Secret Surrender Book 2 — A Proposition for the Comte Book 3 — The Cinderella Countess “Sophia James again delivers a truly wonderful love story filled with adventure and surprising twists”—Goodreads on A Night of Secret Surrender “A full-throttle ‘noir Regency’, this is the sort of read I hope for when Harley advertises a broken heroine, a dark hero, and a perilous romance”—Goodreads on A Proposition for the ComteBy Christine Merrill. 2018
If the truth comes out… …there will be scandal! In this Those Scandalous Stricklands story, Hope Strickland must find the…
lost items of her family’s estate. Mysterious Gregory Drake, expert at fixing the problems of the aristocracy, is hired to help. As they embark on the search, Hope finds herself drawn to the handsome stranger. He may not be a gentleman, but Hope’s tempted to put aside her marriage prospects for a forbidden night—in Gregory’s bed! Those Scandalous Stricklands miniseries Book 1 — A Kiss Away From Scandal Look out for the next book, coming soon! “Readers will enjoy the strong characters, swift pace, lively wit and the wickedly fun escapades that stubborn lovers can get into” — RT Book Reviews on “Her Christmas Temptation” in Regency Christmas Wishes “Merrill pens another winner” — RT Book Reviews on The Wedding GameBy Robin Beeman. 1992
A penetrating and satisfying collection of sly but wise stories about passionate people, mostly women, who do not seem satisfied…
with the limits society places on them. A brilliant debut by a writer who knows her people and her territory, from rural Louisiana to the coast of California.By Marianne Fredriksson. 1994
'Brilliant ... Hanna's Daughters outlines the lives of three generations of women and their complicated relationships with one another' USA…
TODAY'Hanna and her daughters are hard to shake off, lingering long after you've turned the last page ... Profound, moving' SHE'Extremely moving and, as its bestseller status might suggest, hypnotically readable' SPECTATORAnna has returned from visiting her mother. Restless and unable to sleep, she wanders through her parents' house, revisiting the scenes of her childhood. In a cupboard drawer, folded and pushed away from sight, she finds a sepia photograph of her grandmother, Hanna, whom she remembers as old and forbidding, a silent stranger enveloped in a huge pleated black dress. Now, looking at the features Anna recognises as her own, she realises she is looking at a different woman from the one of her memory. Set against the majestic isolation of the Scandinavian lakes and mountains, this is more than a story of three Swedish women. It is a moving testament of a time forgotten and an epic romance in every sense of the word.By Elisabeth Ogilvie. 1993
Eighteen years after fleeing Scotland for Maine [Jennie about to Be (DB 21190) and The World of Jennie G. (DB…
24254)], Jennie Glenroy's troubles seem far behind her. Her "husband" Alick is a successful shipbuilder and their farm is home to their five children and to deaf-mute artist David. As Jennie deals with her children's mishaps she has no idea that an astonishing encounter from her past may destroy her happiness. Some strong languageBy Constance Debre. 2020
A novel of lesbian identity and motherhood, and the societal pressures that place them in opposition.The daughter of an illustrious…
French family whose members include a former Prime Minister, a model, and a journalist, Constance Debré abandoned her marriage and legal career in 2015 to write full-time and begin a relationship with a woman. Her transformation from affluent career woman to broke single lesbian was chronicled in her 2018 novel Play boy, praised by Virginie Despentes for its writing that is at once &“flippant and consumed by anxiety.&”In Love Me Tender, Debré goes on to further describe the consequences of that life-changing decision. Her husband, Laurent, seeks to permanently separate her from their eight-year old child. Vilified in divorce court by her ex, she loses custody of her son and is allowed to see him only once every two weeks for a supervised hour. Deprived of her child, Debré gives up her two-bedroom apartment and bounces between borrowed apartments, hotel rooms, and a studio the size of a cell. She involves herself in brief affairs with numerous women who vary in age, body type, language, and lifestyle. But the closer she gets to them, the more distant she feels. Apart from cigarettes and sex, her life is completely ascetic: a regime of intense reading and writing, interrupted only by sleep and athletic swimming. She shuns any place where she might observe children, avoiding playgrounds and parks &“as if they were cluster bombs ready to explode, riddling her body with pieces of shrapnel.&” Writing graphically about sex, rupture, longing, and despair in the first person, Debré&’s work is often compared with the punk-era writings of Guillaume Dustan and Herve Guibert, whose work she has championed. As she says of Guibert: &“I love him because he says I and he&’s a pornographer. That seems to be essential when you write. Otherwise you don&’t say anything.&” But in Love Me Tender, Debré speaks courageously of love in its many forms, reframing what it means to be a mother beyond conventional expectations.By Donna Hill, Carmen Green, Janice Sims. 2001
Three short stories dealing with estranged African American sisters. In "Thicker Than Water," Angela returns home when Gayla becomes ill.…
In "Loving Lola," Sandra raises her irresponsible sibling's son. In "Best Left Unsaid," model LuAnne keeps a secret from Rhonda until a pregnancy brings them closer. Some strong language. 2001By Laila Halaby. 2003
Four Palestine-born female cousins experience individual problems growing up. Mawal stays in the Middle East following a traditional lifestyle. Soraya…
and Khadija, emigrés in California, are torn between cultures. Hala lives in Arizona but falls in love in Jordan. Strong language. For senior high and older readers. 2003By Amanda Lohrey. 2021
Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2021. Erica Marsden’s son, an artist, has been imprisoned for homicidal negligence. In…
a state of grief, Erica cuts off all ties to family and friends, and retreats to a quiet hamlet on the south-east coast near the prison where he is serving his sentence. There, in a rundown shack, she obsesses over creating a labyrinth by the ocean. To build it—to find a way out of her quandary—Erica will need the help of strangers. And that will require her to trust, and to reckon with her past. The Labyrinth is a hypnotic story of guilt and denial, of the fraught relationship between parents and children, that is also a meditation on how art can both be ruthlessly destructive and restore sanity.By Donna Hill, Gwynne Forster, Parry Brown. 2006
A teenager's newborn triplets are separated when she dies in childbirth. Jamilla is adopted, Leticia is placed in a group…
home, and Clarissa becomes a ward of the state. All grow up to be financially successful--and finally reunite with one another at age thirty-three. Explicit descriptions of sex. 2006