Bewildered by the demands of motherhood and dissatisfied by her work, she has also grown understandably resentful of her husband: Mark has serious difficulties of his own and whilst harsh self-reliance has kept him sane, it has alienated his wife.When Lucy falls in love with Angus, a pianist in his sixties, her shock is extreme. Adamant that she will not deceive her husband, she instead asks his advice. Mark’s reaction, however, is startlingly unorthodox, leaving Lucy to steer an impossible course between duty and desire, adventure and security. As her marriage falters and Angus presses for commitment, she is forced to choose between family and self, with lifelong consequences for everyone. Infused with her trademark precision, clarity and dark humour, Mary Loudon’s searing, highly-charged novel My House is Falling Down is a fearless exploration of what infidelity means when no one is lying, and how brutal honesty may yet prove the biggest taboo in our relationships.

    She likes to spy from the crumbling wall into the gardens and imagine that one day she’ll escape her meager existence and live there surrounded by its otherworldly splendor. Then one day Dante, the son of the villa’s powerful industrialist owner, invites her inside and shows her the enchanting Mermaid Garden. From that moment, Floriana knows that the only destiny for her is there, in that garden, with Dante. But as they grow up and fall in love, their romance causes a crisis, jeopardizing the very thing they hold most dear.Decades later and hundreds of miles away, a beau-tiful old country house hotel on England’s Devon coast has fallen on hard times after the financial crash of 2008. Its owner, Marina, advertises for an artist to stay the summer and teach the guests how to paint. The man she hires is charismatic and wise and soon begins to pacify the discord in her family and transform the fortunes of the hotel. However, he has his own agenda. Is it to destroy, to seduce, or to heal? Whatever his intentions, he is certain to change Marina’s life forever.Spanning four decades and sweeping from the Italian countryside to the English coast, this new story by Santa Montefiore is a moving and mysterious tale of love, forgiveness, and the past revealed.

    After the death of her beloved twin brother, Felix, and the break up with her long-time lover, Nathan, Greta Wells embarks on a radical psychiatric treatment to alleviate her suffocating depression. But the treatment has unexpected effects, and Greta finds herself transported to the lives she might have had if she'd been born in a different era.During the course of her treatment, Greta cycles between her own time and her alternate lives in 1918, as a bohemian adulteress, and 1941, as a devoted mother and wife. Separated by time and social mores, Greta's three lives are achingly similar, fraught with familiar tensions and difficult choices. Each reality has its own losses, its own rewards, and each extracts a different price. And the modern Greta learns that her alternate selves are unpredictable, driven by their own desires and needs.As her final treatment looms, questions arise. What will happen once each Greta learns how to stay in one of the other worlds? Who will choose to remain in which life?Magically atmospheric, achingly romantic, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells beautifully imagines "what if" and wondrously wrestles with the impossibility of what could be.

    1 bestselling author Robert Bryndza.Coco Pinchard has just turned forty, and is feeling fabulous. Her long-held dream to be a writer has been realised, with the publication of her debut novel, her son, Rosencrantz, is attending a prestigious London drama school, and her musician husband, Daniel, seems more in love with her than ever. Coco feels poised to enter an exciting new chapter in life.When the New Year dawns after a hideous Christmas spent with her awful in-laws, Coco catches Daniel in bed with a younger woman, her novel flops, and Rosencrantz goes spectacularly off the rails.As her once-happy life unravels, and any chance of an exciting new chapter recedes into the distance, Coco's new iPhone becomes her confessional.Through emails to loyal friends Christopher, a neurotic middle-aged socialite, and Marika, a slightly alcoholic schoolteacher, Coco begins to document her seemingly endless (and often hilarious) run of bad luck.When Coco reaches the top of the local allotment list (after putting her name down nineteen years previously) she meets the drop-dead gorgeous Adam, and she's back in the world of dating as a single forty-something. Read the emails that tell the hilarious, feel-good tale of Coco picking up the pieces!Fans of rom coms by Sophie Kinsella will be glued to the pages of this totally addictive page-turner.

    Hoping to shore up her memory, he prompts her with songs, photographs and questions about the 1940s, when she was a young woman and he a child in a small Cumbrian town. But he finds that most of all it is her own mother she longs for - Grace, the mother she barely knew. John sets out to recreate their buried family history, delving into the secrets and silences of Mary's fractured childhood as he imagines the life of her spirited mother. Reaching from the late 19th century to the present, this becomes a deeply moving, reflective elegy on three generations linked by a chain of love, loss, and courage.

    Victor becomes the surrogate son and companion of a woman named Liza, who renames him “Jim” and depends on him for any news about the world outside their door. Raised in these odd yet touching circumstances, Jim is never quite sure of Liza’s relationship to the Captain, who is often away on mysterious errands. It is not until Jim reaches manhood that he confronts the Captain and learns the shocking truth about the man, his allegiances, and the nature of love. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by John Auchard.

    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.

    It is the end of England's brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha's husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won't come to anything. And Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master. When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking—and attractive—than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing. But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For despite Agatha's reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war.

    Downtown is deserted, businesses are closing, and the idea of civic pride seems old-fashioned to residents rushing through the streets to get somewhere else. Bridgeford seems to have lost its heart. But there is one thing that just might unite the community -- music. The local choir, a group generally either ignored or mocked by most of Bridgeford's inhabitants, is preparing for an important contest, and to win it they need new members, and a whole new sound. Enlisting (some may say drafting) singers, who include a mother suffering from empty-nest syndrome, a middle-aged man who has just lost his job and his family, and a nineteen-year-old waitress who dreams of reality-TV stardom, the choir regulars must find -- and make -- harmony with neighbors they've been happy not to know for years. Can they all learn to work together, save the choir, and maybe even save their town in the process? All Together Now is a poignant and charming novel about community, family, falling in love -- and the big rewards of making a small change.

    Since then, she’s had little time—or inclination—to think straight, much less fall in love again. Now, she’s been offered an incredible dream house in the country. Of course, accepting means having to cope with her domineering mother-in-law, her husband’s wacky family, and all their assorted scandals. But suddenly, none of it matters. Because she’s met HIM. His name is Charles; he’s a famous television writer, gorgeous, witty, charming, and very, very attracted to her. And, he’s married. Well, a woman can’t have everything. Or can she?In this delightfully sexy, amusing romp through mishap and desire, Catherine Alliott hits the shores of America with a romantic comedy of manners and unexpected passion—in which her plucky heroine discovers that despite her best intentions, love has a plan all its own!

    Hidden beneath the comfortable family life she shares with her successful husband Matthew and their two sons lies a shameful secret that has haunted Dinah for fifteen years. She and Matt never speak of it or the impossible choice he forced her to make all those years ago: they think the cracks have been papered over.But when a chance encounter brings the past into sharp focus once more, Dinah realises she can no longer deny the truth. She decides to risk everything - her husband, her sons, her perfect lifestyle, in order to claim what was always hers.

    For the first time, she meets someone in this life whom she recognises from a previous existence. But this man is a murderer, convicted of killing his wife. As Julia seeks to find out more, past and present entwine, culminating in a dramatic conclusion.101K words (approx).For a more detailed description of the story, I recommend the review by D Figueroa in the US store.Other books by this author:Cave. A gripping tale of friendships and relationships, set in Wales at the turn of the millennium.The Cat and the Cathedral. The first of a YA/adult trilogy with a slightly supernatural premise. Set in modern day Exeter.Bloody Scared. A humorous vampire spoof.Editing a Better Book. A comprehensive guide to all aspects of editing.

    What begins as an earnest spring clean of unwanted household debris - a never-touched omelette maker here, a hideous collection of chintz ornaments there - soon spirals out of control. Before long Lou is hiring giant skips, in which to dump the copious amounts of junk she never knew she had. Lou's loved ones grow concerned - and not a little disgruntled. Where has all this energy come from, her husband Phil wonders? Why is clearing out cupboards suddenly more important than making his breakfast? And since when does quiet, meek, down-trodden Lou snap rude retorts at his sister, her mother, and even Phil himself? The truth is, the more skips Lou fills, the more rubbish she lets go off, the more light and air can get to those painful, closed-up places at the centre of her house: a lovingly prepared room for a baby she would never have; an empty space her best friend Deb once occupied; and a gaping wound left by her husband's affair three years ago.Even lovely Tom Broom, the man who delivers Lou's skips, starts to grow worried about his best customer. But Lou is a woman on a mission, and not even she knows where it will end ...

    . . just in time for his wife to learn the extent of his affair. Rudderless and remorseful, Richard embarks on a series of misguided attempts to win Anne back while focusing his creative energy on a provocative art piece to prove that he's still the man she once loved.Skillfully balancing biting wit with a deep emotional undercurrent, debut novelist Courtney Maum has created the perfect portrait of an imperfect family-and a heartfelt exploration of marriage, love, and fidelity.

    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...