The lease on a decrepit flat that fortunately only had a couple of months to run. 2. The lease on a failing coffee shop - that had ‘always been her dream’.3. Horace the cat. The client base on the once thriving shop was now threadbare. The salvation for Jack - and the shop - could be right in front of his very eyes; the beautiful and underappreciated shop assistant and friend, Emma. Her insistence that Jack cared about someone – other than himself – would bring him closer to those who were keeping his business alive; his elderly customers. A disgraced, ex-BBC presenter and a world record attempt would also be a key ingredient in the success of the Isle of Man’s only dating and social club for the elderly – The Lonely Heart Attack Club.

    Fans of Bridget Jones will love this!" TotallyBooked BlogWhat do you get when you cross a neck brace, a jellyfish, and an encounter with a gorilla? Dating disasters only a quirky and fun woman could endure. With her thirtieth birthday fast-approaching, Paige Taylor knows she must get more than her toes wet in the dating pool. After all, she's spent way too long pining over Alec Wright, who's perpetually unavailable. Now, with some encouragement from her best friend, Paige is ready to take the plunge and find Mr. Right. But when a catalogue of catastrophic dates ensue, Paige questions what she's always wondered. Is Alec Wright her Mr. Right? An Amazon UK, and international, #1 bestselling contemporary romance, humour, and romantic comedy novel.

    M. Claud's, one of Manhattan's largest department stores. For years they've loathed each other, and the fact that they're vying for the same promotion doesn't help their relationship. But when they accidentally get locked in the store on Christmas Eve, sparks will fly and they'll discover just how perfect they are for each other in this sweet holiday romance.

    No crowded shops, no corny office parties, no fruitcakes, no unwanted presents. That's just what Luther and Nora Krank have in mind when they decide that, just this once, they'll skip the holiday altogether. Theirs will be the only house on the street without a rooftop Frosty the snowman; they won't be hosting their annual Christmas Eve bash; they aren't even going to have a tree. They won't need one, because come December 25 they're setting sail on a Caribbean cruise. But, as this weary couple is about to discover, skipping Christmas brings enormous consequences - and isn't half as easy as they'd imagined.A classic tale for modern times, Skipping Christmas offers a hilarious look at the chaos and frenzy that has become part of our holiday tradition.

    Joining single father Ben Hanson and his children for the holidays seems an easy enough task until Santa informs her that Ben is the man behind the disturbing new book 'Beyond Bah Humbug: Why Lying to Your Children about Santa Claus is a Bad Idea'.Posing as Miss Kane, the children's new nanny, Carol pulls out all the stops to show Ben how fun Christmas can be, all the while struggling to understand how one man could hate the holidays so much. How could she, Santa's only daughter, be so attracted to a man who refuses to believe her father exists?**Please note - this book was originally titled Carol's Christmas**

    What began as a mutual interest in sneak-reading comic books in class evolved into a friendship which has outlasted a great many Presidents and a whole lot more, besides.Teddy and Ray, along with two other boys, formed the core of a group of kids who did everything together. As teenagers, they discovered that restaurants gave free coffee refills even if you didn't order anything else, leading to a lifetime's worth of bottomless cups and frustrated restaurant owners. Now in advanced age, Teddy and Ray still meet regularly to drink too much coffee and talk about the things old guys usually tend to talk about. In between, they flash back to various times and events which helped shape their lives.One of their once-close group, who has enjoyed a modestly successful career in Hollywood, comes up with the idea of making a movie about their youthful experiences together and what came after for each of them. This would, of course, include starring the surviving originals as the present-day versions of their cinematic selves. For some, however, facing their past, present and inevitable future all in one sitting proves considerably more difficult than it looks on the silver screen.

    Poignant and hilarious, in a vein similar to Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story and David Sedaris’s The Santaland Diaries, Lamb’s Christmas tale focuses on a feisty parochial school fifth grader named Felix Funicello—a distant cousin of the iconic Annette!

     One family. A tiny flat in Notting Hill. A beautiful neighbour. A very angry dog. A horny Welshman. An enormous turkey. On the biggest day of the year. What could possibly go wrong? Meet Ben Canterbury, 29, single, lives in a poky flat in Notting Hill with horny Welshman, Rufus. His life has been one disappointment after another. What makes it worse is that his brother, Jamie, is the complete opposite - a Barrister to Ben’s Barista - with a family and a proper house in Twickenham. In an attempt to compete with his perfect brother, Ben insists he hosts the family Christmas, but it isn’t long before he realises he’s way out of his depth. Ben’s flat isn't big enough for everyone (including one very angry dog), the Christmas tree’s from the £1 shop, the decorations are hung with Blu-Tack, and the turkey might not fit in the oven. Ben’s definitely not feeling the Christmas spirit. But when beautiful new neighbour, Mhairi McGregor, appears at his door, Ben’s Christmas worries go out of the window and he begins to wonder if it might not be the worst Christmas in history after all. Amid all the drama, drinking and carnage of Christmas Day, will Ben find true love or will it be another disappointment to add to the list? A Notting Hill Christmas is a brilliantly funny, feel-good, festive novella perfect for fans of romantic comedies like Love Actually and Notting Hill.

    Its affectionate, wacky, and wryly realistic portrayal of an American family’s typical Christmas joys and travails in small-town Depression-era Indiana has entered our imagination and our hearts with a force equal to It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.This edition of A Christmas Story gathers together in one hilarious volume the gems of autobiographical humor that Jean Shepherd drew upon to create this enduring film. Here is young Ralphie Parker’s shocking discovery that his decoder ring is really a device to promote Ovaltine; his mother and father’s pitched battle over the fate of a lascivious leg lamp; the unleashed and unnerving savagery of Ralphie’s duel in the show with the odious bullies Scut Farkas and Grover Dill; and, most crucially, Ralphie’s unstoppable campaign to get Santa—or anyone else—to give him a Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle. Who cares that the whole adult world is telling him, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid”?The pieces that comprise A Christmas Story, previously published in the larger collections In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories, coalesce in a magical fashion to become an irresistible piece of Americana, quite the equal of the film in its ability to warm the heart and tickle the funny bone.From the Hardcover edition.

    On Christmas Eve, Maryanne and Nolan Adams tell their kids the story they most want to hear --- how Mom and Dad met and fell in love. It all started when they were reporters on rival Seattle papers ... and next thing you know, Here Comes Trouble!Christmas is also a time for ... fruitcake. Rookie reporter Emma Collins hates fruitcake; for that matter, she hates Christmas, too. When three Washington State women are finalists in a national fruitcake contest, the story is assigned to her. That's bad enough. It gets worse when she has to fly in a small plane (scary!) with a smart-aleck pilot named Oliver Hamilton (sexy!) and his scruffy dog (cute!). In the end she meets three wise women, falls in love and learns There's Something About Christmas.

    She's got problems though when bits of her ex-husband turn up in different places and the slimy DI Savage seems to be bending the evidence to link her to the death. Add the fact that she's being pressured into taking a ‘job’ by hard-nosed Vera Devlin from the estate and having to work in a topless bar to make ends meet and you can see she's up against it. Desperate to extricate herself from the mess she breaks into her old marital home to find the diary of her dead husband, except that his mother has taken up residence and arrives back early from bingo… Set against a backdrop of Northern council estate life, this fast paced, humorous novel exemplifies the problems caused by poverty, piles and unruly children, think Jeremy Kyle meets the Thorn Birds and you won't be far wrong!

    After the death of her mother, the last two years have been rough and money is tight. A full-time nursing student, she feels her prayers have been answered with the temporary job of personal assistant to John Laurencelli. The billionaire is rumored to be demanding and difficult but India soon realizes there’s more to him than bad press and weapons-grade dangerous good looks. But with everything on her plate, she doesn’t have time to be falling for her new boss.John Laurencelli lives, eats, and breathes his business and making money. For his own reasons, he’s avoided Christmas for two decades. But it’s proving difficult this year when his new assistant wears vintage holiday aprons, hums Christmas tunes, and likes to spread good cheer. Despite his determination not to celebrate the season, it isn’t long before India opens his eyes to what’s missing in his life.Can they overcome their fears and misgivings to make it a truly wonderful Christmas for each other?Each book in The Happy Holidays Series is a standalone novel and can be read in any order.

    Mix thoroughly for the perfect Christmas murder.Well, almost perfect.It’s one month until Christmas in Dunbarton and the town is buzzing with the news that a famous celebrity chef is coming to judge and televise the gingerbread competition at the new community centre. Confident that the event will attract hordes of food-loving visitors to town, the mayor has Dunbarton decked out in all its Christmas finery and directs Alicia and the deputy mayor to make sure everything runs smoothly.All is going as planned until a body is found in the life-sized gingerbread house outside the community centre, with a gingerbread dove stuffed in the victim’s mouth. The distraught mayor once again calls on Alicia and Chris to solve the murder before it sounds a death-knell to the holiday festivities.It’s not long before Alicia and Chris discover that it’s not all sugar and spice in the world of big-time baking and that one too many cookies can be the death of you.

    Now she’s not sure what she is. Uncomfortable with people and burned out from overwork, she retreats to a rural village in Yorkshire to find peace and solitude over Christmas.After being dumped by the woman he was going to propose to, lawyer Vinnie is not intending to trust anyone with his heart again. All he wants is to be left alone.When Tracey gets caught in a blizzard, the only place she can take shelter is Vinnie’s cottage.Trapped together in the middle of nowhere, will they learn how to melt the walls they’ve built around themselves?Snowed In is a standalone novella in a series of contemporary romantic comedies set in the rural Yorkshire village of Trewton Royd. If you like small town romances, beta heroes and sparkling dialogue, you’ll love this book by award nominated author Rhoda Baxter. Read Snowed In today!

    Several people want Edmonds in jail, including a man who says he works for an international toy company. Witness by witness the facts come out but who is to be believed and are there any True Believers? As the courtroom clock ticks down on Christmas Eve, it becomes clear that the fates of the defendant and Christmas are inextricably intertwined. A local newspaper reporter stirs things up by blogging about what he calls the “Trial of the Century” and tweets that the “Court’s Ruling Could Halt Christmas for Thousands.” Can an irascible judge looking toward retirement find it within himself to save Christmas?