The Worst Witch


Jill Murphy - 1974
    She's always getting her spells wrong and she can't even ride a broomstick without crashing it. Will she ever make a real witch?

Fast Friends


Jill Mansell - 1991
    But Roz Vallender and Loulou Marks are no ordinary guests. Roz, stunning and self-assured, is notorious as a TV presenter and superbitch, whilst the reckless Loulou owns Vampires, the trendiest wine bar in town. Horrified to discover that husband Jack has been playing around, Camilla determines to make some changes. With a little help from her friends she soon finds out that life in the fast lane is a lot more fun and the future still holds plenty of surprises.

A Justifiable Madness


A.B. Morgan - 2017
    But who is he and why is he so keen to spend time in a psychiatric hospital?When Mark is admitted, silent and naked, the staff are suspicious about his motives.Dealing with this, as well as the patients on the ward, Mark’s troubles really begin once he is Sectioned under the Mental Health Act. When decisions about his future are handed to Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Giles Sharman, Mark’s life goes from bad to worse.  Drugged, abused and in danger, Mark looks for a way out of this nightmare. But he’s about to learn, proving that you are sane might not be easy as it sounds…

The Night of Wishes


Michael Ende - 1989
    But a small cat and a raven are waiting to foil their plans and save the world.

Tomb of the Lost


Julian Noyce - 2011
    In four parts.Tomb of the Lost is an action/adventure novel that spans 2300 years.Babylon, Persia 323bc.On a bed a man lays dying. Alexander the great, King, the Lion of Macedon has a mysterious fever. He became king at twenty, dying at thirty three, having conquered the known world. Following his death his General and friend Ptolemy takes the body and inters it into a magnificent tomb in Alexandria, Egypt. The very city Alexander founded.Two thousand three hundred years later and the leader of Germany Adolf Hitler who is a great collector of antiquities orders the sarcophagus, lost two thousand years before by Julius Caesar's legionaries, to be found and brought to Berlin.Hitler assigns a team of his Wehrmacht commanded by a General and his Colonel and a team of SS led by a fanatical Major to locate it.With their mission a success the Germans descend on the port town of Gabes, Tunisia just as the town is about to be over run by the British and as the battle for North Africa reaches its brutal climax the sarcophagus is lost once again leaving only one man alive to tell the tale.That man is Alfred Dennis.Nearly seventy years later and marine archaeologist Natalie Feltham and her team with the help of Peter Dennis, a journalist and grandson of Alfred Dennis, make the greatest discovery in modern archaeology.Now it's a race against time for Natalie and her team as dark powers from Germany's Nazi past try to take what is rightfully hers.

Excess Baggage


Judy Astley - 2000
    But as a penniless and partnerless house-painter with an expired lease on her flat and a twelve-year-old daughter, she could hardly turn down her parents' offer to take them on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Caribbean. She'd just have to put up with her sister Theresa (making no secret of preferring Tuscany as a holiday destination) and brother Simon (worrying that there might be some sinister agenda behind their parents' wish to take them all away) with their various spouses, teenagers, young children and au pair. In a luxury hotel, with bright sunshine, swimming, diving, glorious food and friendly locals, any family tensions should have melted away in the fabulous heat. The children should have been angelic, the teenagers cheerful, the adults relaxed and happy. But...some problems just refuse to be left at home.

The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe


Mary Simses - 2013
    Ellen leaves Manhattan and her Kennedy-esque fiance for Beacon, Maine. What should be a one-day trip is quickly complicated when she almost drowns in the chilly bay and is saved by a local carpenter. The rescue turns Ellen into something of a local celebrity, which may or may not help her unravel the past her grandmother labored to keep hidden. As she learns about her grandmother and herself, it becomes clear that a 24-hour visit to Beacon may never be enough. The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe is a warm and delicious debut about the power of a simpler life.

Last Call


Laura Pedersen - 2003
    In fact, he now spends his days crashing funerals for the free food and insight into the Great Beyond. Then he meets Rosamond, a nun playing hooky from the Holy Orders. Hayden is smitten the instant her heavy silver cross smacks him in the face when she leaps up to do the wave at a ball game. Luckily, Rosamond has picked the right person to teach her how to live . . . and to love—because nobody does both better than Hayden MacBride.However, Rosamond’s years in the convent have not prepared her for the oddball characters of Hayden’s world. There’s his ever-fretful, vigilant daughter, Diana, the “Dutchess o’ the Sidelong Glance”; his sweet grandson Joey, struggling to break free of his mother’s overprotective embrace; Hayden’s bagpipe-blowing cronies; the Greyfriars Gang; neighbor Bobbie Anne, a “working girl” full of good advice and tender mercies; and Hank, the sexy architect contemplating the priesthood—a big mistake in Hayden’s book. For Hayden thinks that Hank should be married to his daughter and raising Joey. And he has an elaborate plan to make Hank see things his way. . . .In an uproariously funny novel of love, laughter, and one man’s final call at the riotous watering hole called life, Laura Pedersen proves that miracles are all around us—when we open our eyes and our hearts to embrace them.

The Girl on the Cliff


Lucinda Riley - 2011
    And it is here, on a cliff edge, that she first meets a young girl, Aurora, who will profoundly change her life. Mysteriously drawn to Aurora, Grania discovers that the histories of their families are strangely and deeply entwined . . .From a bittersweet romance in wartime London to a troubled relationship in contemporary New York, from devotion to a foundling child to forgotten memories of a lost brother, the Ryans and the Lisles, past and present, have been entangled for a century. Ultimately, it will be Aurora whose intuition and remarkable spirit help break the spell and unlock the chains of the past.Haunting, uplifting and deeply moving, Aurora's story tells of the triumph of hope over loss.

The Greengage Summer


Rumer Godden - 1958
    And the Marne river flowing silent and slow beyond them all ...They would merge together in a gold-green summer of discovery, until the fruit rotted on the trees and cold seeped into their bones ...

The Last Holiday Concert


Andrew Clements - 2004
    Kids look up to him, and all the teachers let him get away with anything -- all the teachers except the chorus director, Mr. Meinert. When Hart's errant rubber band hits Mr. Meinert on the neck during chorus practice, it's the last straw for the chorus director, who's just learned he's about to lose his job due to budget cuts. So he tells the class they can produce the big holiday concert on their own. Or not. It's all up to them. And who gets elected to run the show? The popular Mr. Hart Evans. Hart soon discovers there's a big difference between popularity and leadership, and to his surprise, discovers something else as well -- it's really important to him that this be the best holiday concert ever, and even more important, that it not be the last.

Diamond Star Halo


Tiffany Murray - 2010
    A tale of fate, loss and rock 'n' roll, 'Diamond Star Halo' shows what happens when a family and a farm become the breeding ground for fame.

A Mango-Shaped Space


Wendy Mass - 2005
    No one knows, and Mia wants to keep it that way. But when trouble at school finally forces Mia to reveal her secret, she must learn to accept herself and embrace her ability, called synesthesia, a mingling of the senses.

Souvenir


Therese Anne Fowler - 2007
    Everyone in their small rural community in northern Florida thought that Meg and Carson would always be together. But at twenty-one, Meg was presented with a marriage proposal she could not refuse, forever changing the course of her life.Seventeen years later, Meg’s marriage has become routine, and she spends her time juggling the demands of her medical practice, the needs of her widowed father, and the whims of her rebellious teenage daughter, Savannah, who is confronting her burgeoning sexuality in a dangerous manner, and pushing her mother away just when she needs her most. Then, after a long absence, Carson returns home to prepare for his wedding to a younger woman. As Carson struggles to determine where his heart and future lie, Meg makes a shocking discovery that will upset the balance of everyone around her.Unfolding with warmth and passion, Therese Fowler’s vibrant and moving debut illuminates the possibility of second chances, the naïve choices of youth, the tensions within families, and the wondrous designs of fate. A searing yet redemptive novel, Souvenir is an unforgettable tale about the transforming power of love.

The Kneebone Boy


Ellen Potter - 2010
    But after their father unwittingly sends them to stay with an aunt who’s away on holiday, the Hardscrabble children take off on an adventure that begins in the seedy streets of London and ends in a peculiar sea village where legend has it a monstrous creature lives who is half boy and half animal. . . . In this wickedly dark, unusual, and compelling novel, Ellen Potter masterfully tells the tale of one deliciously strange family and a secret that changes everything.