Book picks similar to
Emily by Jilly Cooper
romance
fiction
chick-lit
jilly-cooper
The Love of My Life
Louise Douglas - 2008
He should have been my happy ending. Instead, he is the sad beginning to my story.’
When Olivia and Luca fell in love as teenagers and eloped to London, they broke the hearts of those closest to them. Luca’s parents run Marinella’s restaurant, the colourful hub of life in an otherwise bleak seaside town, and his mother, Angela, has never forgiven Olivia for causing such a rift in her beloved family. On a freezing January night Olivia’s life is shattered when she learns that Luca has been killed in a car accident. Left with nothing, and gripped by an overwhelming grief, Olivia abandons her job and returns home to where Luca has been buried just to be close to him – even though she knows she will not be welcome. Facing her past and Luca’s family is not easy. When Olivia meets Luca’s married twin brother, Marc, she discovers a man experiencing a loss almost as painful as her own. Their desolation draws them into an affair which both know has no future, but fills the space where Luca should be. And when it spirals out of control, the consequences are both explosive and cruel… The Love of My Life is a beautiful novel that portrays both the innocence of childhood, and the dynamics of love and loss with deftness and sensitivity. It is, above all, a stunning debut from an author with a unique and natural narrative voice.
The Goodbye Quilt
Susan Wiggs - 2011
Wedding quilts, baby quilts, memorial quilts—each is bound tight with dreams, hopes and yearnings.Now, as her only child readies for college, Linda is torn between excitement for Molly and heartache for herself. Who will she be when she is no longer needed in her role as mom? What will become of her days? Of her marriage?Mother and daughter decide to share one last adventure together—a cross-country road trip to move Molly into her dorm. As they wend their way through the heart of the country, Linda stitches together the scraps that make up Molly's young life. And in the quilting of each bit of fabric—the hem of a christening gown, a snippet from a Halloween costume—Linda discovers that the memories of a shared journey can come together in a way that will keep them both warm in the years to come….
It's All Greek to Me
Katie MacAlister - 2011
Iakovos Papaionannou is perfection on every level, except for his unpronounceable name. And Harry can't stop herself from falling hard and fast for him.Iakovoos knew his sister hired her favorite band to perform at her birthday party; he's just not sure where this six-foot-tall, wild-haired, tempestuous woman fits in, or how she's already ended up in his bed-and in his heart. Harry is so not his type. She's as infuriating as she is intriguing, and she can't keep her hands off his butt. But she just may be the woman who knocks him off the world's most eligible bachelor list for good . . .
Never Greener
Ruth Jones - 2018
Always thinking the grass is greener on the other side. But it never is. It’s still grass. Just a different patch of it, that’s all.’*****The past has a habit of tracking us down. And tripping us up.When Kate was twenty-two, she had an intense and passionate affair with a married man, Callum, which ended in heartbreak. Kate thought she’d never get over it.Seventeen years later, life has moved on – Kate, now a successful actress, is living in London, married to Matt and mother to little Tallulah. Meanwhile Callum and his wife Belinda are happy together, living in Edinburgh and watching their kids grow up. The past, it would seem, is well and truly behind them all.But then Kate meets Callum again.And they are faced with a choice: to walk away from each other . . . or to risk finding out what might have been.Second chances are a rare gift in life. But that doesn’t mean they should always be taken . . .
The Seven Steps to Closure
Donna Joy Usher - 2012
Things go from bad to worse when she discovers that, not only is her ex-husband engaged to her cousin - Tash, the woman he left her for - but that Jake is also running for Lord Mayor of Sydney.Desperate to leave the destructive relationship behind and with nothing to lose, she decides- with encouragement from her three best friends - to follow the dubious advice from a magazine article, Closure in Seven Easy Steps.The Seven Steps to Closure follows Tara on her sometimes disastrous- always hilarious - path to achieve the seemingly impossible.
The Beach Café
Lucy Diamond - 2011
She's tried making a name for herself as an actress, a photographer and a singer, but nothing has ever worked out. Now she's stuck in temp hell, with a sensible, pension-planning boyfriend. Somehow life seems to be passing her by. Then her beloved aunt Jo dies suddenly in a car crash, leaving Evie an unusual legacy - her precious beach cafe in Cornwall. Determined to make a success of something for the first time in her life, Evie heads off to Cornwall to get the cafe and her life back on track - and gets more than she bargained for, both in work and in love...
The Peach Keeper
Sarah Addison Allen - 2011
The Blue Ridge Madam—built by Willa’s great-great-grandfather during Walls of Water’s heyday, and once the town’s grandest home—has stood for years as a lonely monument to misfortune and scandal. And Willa herself has long strived to build a life beyond the brooding Jackson family shadow. No easy task in a town shaped by years of tradition and the well-marked boundaries of the haves and have-nots.But Willa has lately learned that an old classmate—socialite do-gooder Paxton Osgood—of the very prominent Osgood family, has restored the Blue Ridge Madam to her former glory, with plans to open a top-flight inn. Maybe, at last, the troubled past can be laid to rest while something new and wonderful rises from its ashes. But what rises instead is a skeleton, found buried beneath the property’s lone peach tree, and certain to drag up dire consequences along with it.For the bones—those of charismatic traveling salesman Tucker Devlin, who worked his dark charms on Walls of Water seventy-five years ago—are not all that lay hidden out of sight and mind. Long-kept secrets surrounding the troubling remains have also come to light, seemingly heralded by a spate of sudden strange occurrences throughout the town.Now, thrust together in an unlikely friendship, united by a full-blooded mystery, Willa and Paxton must confront the dangerous passions and tragic betrayals that once bound their families—and uncover truths of the long-dead that have transcended time and defied the grave to touch the hearts and souls of the living.Resonant with insight into the deep and lasting power of friendship, love, and tradition, The Peach Keeper is a portrait of the unshakable bonds that—in good times and bad, from one generation to the next—endure forever.
The Day We Met
Roxie Cooper - 2019
The problem is they're both with other people...Stephanie doesn’t believe in fate, true love or living happily ever after. She’s content enough being engaged to Matt. But then she meets Jamie, who understands her more than anyone else ever has.Jamie is happily married to his childhood sweetheart Helen and believes in everything Stephanie doesn’t. So why does he have such a strong connection with Stephanie?When Stephanie and Jamie meet one fateful weekend in 2006 it will change everything...Ten years. Two people. One epic love story.
Early Morning Riser
Katherine HeinyKatherine Heiny - 2021
He is charming, good-natured, and handsome but unfortunately, he has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan. Jane sees Duncan’s old girlfriends everywhere–at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away.While Jane may be able to come to terms with dating the world’s most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she did not have to share him quite so widely. His ex-wife, Aggie, a woman with shiny hair and pale milkmaid skin, still has Duncan mow her lawn. His coworker, Jimmy, comes and goes from Duncan’s apartment at the most inopportune times. Sometimes Jane wonders if a relationship can even work with three people in it–never mind four. Five if you count Aggie’s eccentric husband, Gary. Not to mention all the other residents of Boyne City, who freely share with Jane their opinions of her choices.But any notion Jane had of love and marriage changes with one terrible car crash. Soon Jane’s life is permanently intertwined with Duncan’s, Aggie’s, and Jimmy’s, and Jane knows she will never have Duncan to herself. But could it be possible that a deeper kind of happiness is right in front of Jane’s eyes? A novel that is alternately bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny, Katherine Heiny’s Early Morning Riser is her most astonishingly wonderful work to date.
Charlotte Street
Danny Wallace - 2011
They shared an incredible, brief, fleeting moment of deep possibility, somewhere halfway down Charlotte Street.And then, just like that, she was gone - accidentally leaving him holding her old-fashioned, disposable camera, chock full of undeveloped photos...And now Jason - ex-teacher, ex-boyfriend, part-time writer and reluctant hero - faces a dilemma. Should he try and track The Girl down? What if she's The One? But that would mean using the only clues he has, which lie untouched in this tatty disposable...It's funny how things can develop...
It Felt Like a Kiss
Sarra Manning - 2013
Great job, really good hair, loyal friends, loving family. It’s only her succession of lame duck boyfriends that ruin the picture.Oh, and the world-famous rock-star father she’s never met, who won’t even acknowledge her existence.Then Ellie’s perfect life is smashed to pieces when her secret is sold to the highest bidder and her name, face (and pictures of her bottom) are splashed across the tabloids. Suddenly everyone thinks she’s a gold-digging, sex-crazy, famewhore.Enter David Gold. Charming and handsome David Gold. On paper he’s even more perfect than Ellie, if only he wasn’t her father’s ruthlessly ambitious lawyer whose job is to manage the crisis – and her. He certainly doesn’t think that Ellie’s the innocent party and she doesn’t trust him at all. So why is it that every time they’re alone together, damage limitation is the last thing on their minds?
Wanna Get Lucky?
Deborah Coonts - 2010
Almost everyone writes her off as another Vegas victim. But, Lucky O’Toole, head of customer relations at the Babylon megacasino, smells a rat, though she’s got a lot on her plate: the adult film industry’s annual awards banquet, a spouse-swapping convention, sex-toy purveyors preying on the pocket-protector crowd attending ElectroniCon… Still Lucky can’t resist turning over a few stones.When a former flame is one of the snakes she uncovers, Lucky is certain the woman’s death was no Sin City suicide. To top it all off, Lucky’s best friend, Teddie—Las Vegas’s finest female impersonator—presses to take their relationship to the next level. Leave it to Lucky to attract a man who looks better in a dress than she does.Lucky must manage the Babylon’s outrageous festivities, solve the crime, and struggle to keep her life and libido from spinning out of control.
Cupids Anonymous
Lila Monroe - 2019
Now fall in love with her brand new sizzling standalone - perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella and Christina Lauren!Poppy Hathaway is a professional Cyrano - minus the honking great nose. Need a love note, raunchy sext, or apology letter so epic that your other half will forget you hesitated a beat too long when you asked, 'does this make me look fat?'? She's got you covered. But when her most frequent client, the annoyingly charming (or is that charmingly annoying?) Dylan Griffin comes to her with an unconventional new job, Poppy discovers that three little words can add up to one big complication. Because Dylan doesn't want help seducing another swimsuit model (for once in his life). He wants Poppy's help winning over her his high-school crush (aka, his one true love) - and he's prepared to make it worth her while. Throw in a summer Catskills trip that's equal parts 'Dirty Dancing' and dirty-talking, and this Cupid is soon out of her depth - and head over heels with the last man she expected. But can she find the right words when it comes to her own heart? Or will this happily ever end in disaster?
Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase
Louise Walters - 2014
What you do, to this child, to this child's mother, it is wrong...Roberta likes to collect the letters and postcards she finds in second-hand books. When her father gives her some of her grandmother's belongings, she finds a baffling letter from the grandfather she never knew - dated after he supposedly died in the war.Dorothy is unhappily married to Albert, who is away at war. When an aeroplane crashes in the field behind her house she meets Squadron Leader Jan Pietrykowski, and as their bond deepens she dares to hope she might find happiness. But fate has other plans for them both, and soon she is hiding a secret so momentous that its shockwaves will touch her granddaughter many years later...