Rabbit Cake


Annie Hartnett - 2017
    Twelve-year-old Elvis Babbitt has a head for the facts: she knows science proves yellow is the happiest color, she knows a healthy male giraffe weighs about 3,000 pounds, and she knows that the naked mole rat is the longest living rodent. She knows she should plan to grieve her mother, who has recently drowned while sleepwalking, for exactly eighteen months. But there are things Elvis doesn’t yet know—like how to keep her sister Lizzie from poisoning herself while sleep-eating or why her father has started wearing her mother's silk bathrobe around the house. Elvis investigates the strange circumstances of her mother's death and finds comfort, if not answers, in the people (and animals) of Freedom, Alabama.

Sun, Sea and Sangria


Victoria Cooke - 2020
    Having moved to the Canary Islands for a fresh start, she has never had much time for romance, channelling all her energy into managing all-male dance troupe – the Heavenly Hunks.With golden beaches, sparkling blue water and relaxing after work with a glass of sangria – or three – for Kat, it’s summer all year round. But despite life being postcard perfect, Kat can’t help but wonder if she is missing out on the most important thing of all… love.The dancers are all well-known for their flirtatious antics and aren’t looking for anything serious… except Jay. Sitting by the pool, watching the sun reflecting in the water, Kat feels like she can tell him anything.Handsome, caring and a good listener, he ignites a fire in Kat’s heart that scares her witless. But her relationship with Jay should stay strictly professional… right? There is absolutely no way that she can be his boss and his date.As the temperature rises, will Kat be able to take the plunge, let go of her past and find romance in paradise?

Lizzie & Dante


Mary Bly - 2021
    Once settled into a luxurious seaside resort, Lizzie has to make big decisions about her future, and she needs the one thing she may be running out of: time.She leaves the yacht-owners and celebrities behind and sneaks off to the public beach, where she meets a sardonic chef named Dante, his battered dog Lily, and his wry daughter Etta, a twelve-year-old desperate for a mother. While Dante shows Lizzie the island's secrets, and Etta dazzles with her irreverent humor, Lizzie is confronted with a dilemma. Is it right to fall in love if time is short? Is it better to find a mother briefly, or to have no mother at all? And the most difficult question of all: What if falling in love inevitably leads to broken hearts?A transporting, all-consuming story about love, courage, and Italian wine, Lizzie & Dante demands to know how far we should travel to find a future worth fighting for.

The Girls at 17 Swann Street


Yara Zgheib - 2019
    The bread was more difficult, but if she could just lose a little more weight, perhaps she would make the soloists’ list. Perhaps if she were lighter, danced better, tried harder, she would be good enough. Perhaps if she just ran for one more mile, lost just one more pound.Anna Roux was a professional dancer who followed the man of her dreams from Paris to Missouri. There, alone with her biggest fears – imperfection, failure, loneliness – she spirals down anorexia and depression till she weighs a mere eighty-eight pounds. Forced to seek treatment, she is admitted as a patient at 17 Swann Street, a peach pink house where pale, fragile women with life-threatening eating disorders live. Women like Emm, the veteran; quiet Valerie; Julia, always hungry. Together, they must fight their diseases and face six meals a day.Yara Zgheib's poetic and poignant debut novel is a haunting, intimate journey of a young woman's struggle to reclaim her life. Every bite causes anxiety. Every flavor induces guilt. And every step Anna takes toward recovery will require strength, endurance, and the support of the girls at 17 Swann Street.

Losing My Inhibitions


Olivia Spring - 2019
    She’s just got her life together after a messy divorce. Should she risk it all for a forbidden fling? A year after leaving her controlling ex, Roxy’s divorce is finally official. She’s got her confidence and career back on track and is ready to start enjoying some no-strings-attached fun. But just when Roxy thinks she has her dating plan all mapped out, a hot younger single man unexpectedly appears. On paper, he sounds like exactly what Roxy’s been looking for, until she’s warned that he’s strictly off limits. Getting involved with him will put her career, home and everything she’s worked for in extreme jeopardy. There’s a million reasons why Roxy shouldn’t give into his charms. The trouble is, he’s just too tempting... Will Roxy take a chance and risk it all to pursue a forbidden fling? And if she does, can she find a way to let him rock her world, without turning it upside down? Losing My Inhibitions is a laugh-out-loud, racy, romantic comedy with a modern twist. This story is about self-love, new beginnings, forging your own path in life and being true to yourself. It can be read as a standalone novel or as a prequel to The Middle-Aged Virgin and Only When It’s Love. Ideal for fans of Sophie Kinsella, Marian Keyes and Lindsey Kelk. Download Losing My Inhibitions by exciting new British author Olivia Spring today! www.oliviaspring.com
 Social media: @ospringauthor #LosingMyInhibitions

Blood Wounds


Susan Beth Pfeffer - 2011
    . .Sixteen-year-old Willa is fortunate to have a happy blended family. But a frantic phone call from Pryor, Texas, shatters the calm. Willa’s birth father has murdered his second wife and daughters . . . and the police think he’s on his way east to hunt down Willa and her mother. As this disturbing tragedy inevitably exposes family secrets to Willa and her community, she struggles with her own destructive secret.

The Daughters of Erietown


Connie Schultz - 2020
    By the popular Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.In the 1950s, Ellie and Brick are teenagers in love. As a basketball star, Brick has the chance to escape his abusive father and become the first person in his blue-collar family to attend college. But after Ellie learns that she is pregnant, they get married, she gives up her dream of nursing school, and Brick gets a union card instead.From there, this riveting novel tells the story of Brick, Ellie, and their daughter Samantha. It illuminates the issues facing working-class families and their communities, as it chronicles the evolution of women's lives in America. It also explores how much people know about each other and pretend not to, and the secrets that explode lives.

Regarding Anna


Florence Osmund - 2015
    When certain clues draw her to a boardinghouse once owned by Anna Vargas, she becomes convinced that Anna was her real mother. She believes the boardinghouse walls have been harboring vital secrets for years, but when she meets up with the cantankerous old woman who had bought the place after Anna’s death, she questions whether she’ll ever be able to peel back all the layers surrounding her parentage.The lies and deceit that Grace unearths in her pursuit to validate her identity are shocking, complicated, and not all buried in the past. Does this force Grace to back down, or just heighten her determination uncover the whole truth?

Count the Ways


Joyce Maynard - 2021
    Theirs is a seemingly idyllic life of summer softball games and Labor Day cookouts, snow days and skating on the pond. But when a tragic accident permanently injures the family’s youngest child, Eleanor blames Cam. Her inability to forgive him leads to a devastating betrayal: an affair with the family babysitter that brings about the end of their marriage.Over the decades that follow, the five members of this fractured family—and the many others who make up their world—make surprising discoveries and decisions that occasionally bring them together, and often tear them apart. As we follow the family from the days of illegal abortion and the draft through the early computer age, the Challenger explosion, the AIDS epidemic, the early awakenings of the #MeToo era, and beyond, through the gender transition of one of the children and another’s choice to cease communication with her mother, we witness a family forced to confront essential, painful truths of its past and find redemption in the face of unanticipated disaster.With endearingly flawed characters and a keen eye for detail, Joyce Maynard transforms the territory she knows best—home, family, parenthood, love, and loss—into the stuff of a page-turning thriller. In this achingly beautiful novel, she reminds us how great sorrow and great joy may coexist—and frequently do.

Reunion


Hannah Pittard - 2014
    Five minutes before her flight is set to take off, Kate Pulaski, failed screenwriter and newly-failed wife, learns that her estranged father killed himself. More shocked than saddened by the news, she reluctantly gives in to her older siblings' request that she join them--and her many half-siblings, and most of her father's five former wives--in Atlanta, their birthplace, for a final farewell.Written with huge heart and bracing wit, REUNION takes place over the following four days, as family secrets are revealed, personal deceits are uncovered, and Kate--an inveterate liar looking for a way to come clean--slowly begins to acknowledge the overwhelming similarities between herself and the man she never thought she'd claim as an influence, much less a father. Hannah Pittard's "engaging and vigorous"* prose masterfully illuminates the problems that can divide modern families-and the ties that prove impossible to break. (*Chicago Tribune)

Only Human


Diane Chandler - 2020
    One family... one summer... one woman...Anna Bond is floundering. Tiger mum to tricky teen Sophie, now slipping through her fingers, and loyal wife to big sociable Ollie, whom she no longer trusts, what does she do next with her life? Once a confident career woman, after so many years at home and the school gate, Anna now finds her mind is chattering and her soul is searching - for what matters. Then Jack walks into their lives. Sophie’s first boyfriend is a breath of fresh air for the whole family, and Anna gradually discovers new purpose for herself. But when deceit creeps in, tensions surface, and she finds herself propelled through a tangled web of secrets and lies towards a devastating climax.

The Secrets of Love Story Bridge


Phaedra Patrick - 2020
    He relishes his job cutting off the padlocks that couples fasten to the famous “love story” bridge. Only his young daughter, Poppy, knows that behind his prickly veneer, Mitchell still grieves the loss of her mother.Then one hot day, everything changes when Mitchell courageously rescues a woman who falls from the bridge into the river. He’s surprised to feel an unexpected connection to her, but she disappears before he can ask her name. Desperate to find out her identity, Mitchell is shocked to learn she’s been missing for almost a year. He teams up with her spirited sister, Liza, on a quest to find her again. However, she’s left only one clue behind—a message on the padlock she hung on the bridge.Brimming with Phaedra Patrick’s signature charm and a sparkling cast of characters, The Secrets of Love Story Bridge follows one man’s journey to unlock his heart and discover new beginnings in the unlikeliest places.Don’t miss Phaedra Patrick’s winning new novel, The Messy Lives of Book People!Check out these other heartwarming stories from Phaedra Patrick.The Curious Charms of Arthur PepperRise and Shine, Benedict StoneThe Library of Lost and Found

A Theory of Relativity


Jacquelyn Mitchard - 2001
    Devastated by his beloved sister's tragic death, twenty-four-year-old bachelor Gordon McKenna assumes that he will be entrusted with raising his niece, whom he has grown extremely close to over the few precious months of Keefer's life. But the child's paternal grandparents have different ideas—and a fierce legal battle ensues that will test the capacity and limitations of family love again and again . . . and no one will emerge from it unscathed or unchanged.Jacquelyn Mitchard, whose powerful, emotionally rich novels have won resounding critical acclaim and a wide, enthusiastic audience worldwide, brings us a soaring, heartbreaking, and unforgettable tale of love and the bonds that unite us all.

Love Written In The Stars


Lorelei Brogan - 2020
    Her world turns upside down when her father forces her to find a suitable husband in order to help with the financial burden that hangs over the farm. Melanie's only concern is her family's well being, so she's left with no choice but to accept the offer of a strange man. On the train to meet her husband-to-be, her life is about to change forever when she meets Alexander; a man who will save her life and put her in a painful dilemma making her doubt her own decisions. Will she give up her father's plan to follow her heart?Alexander, the son of one of the richest ranchers in Merton, is running from a difficult past that will inevitably catch up with him. He meets Melanie in a traumatic way when he bravely helps her escape a train robbery. Determined to protect her, he offers to travel with her and the journey that will bind them forever begins... Even though they don't reveal their true colors at first, they will get to know each other and Alexander's heart will shiver for the first time. Will her secret keep him from claiming her heart? Or will he find the courage to trust her?After spending some time on the road together they will know for certain that fate meant for them to find one other. While her plan to help her family falls into pieces, well-kept secrets will surface as they confront each other. Could Alexander be the salvation Melanie was looking for? Or will the conflict between them be too much to overcome?"Love Written In The Stars" is a historical western romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

A Cosy Countryside Christmas (Life on the Moors, #6)


Eliza J. Scott - 2021
    After having her fingers burnt, she’s been resolutely single for the last year and has sworn to stay that way.Joss Campion’s still reeling from a messy divorce and has vowed never to open his heart to love again.Growing up in the picturesque village of Lytell Stangdale, with the North Yorkshire Moors as their playground, Joss and Ella were best friends. The pair were inseparable.Until the day something happened to ruin their friendship and Joss moved away.An urgent telephone call summons Joss back to the village. His father’s been rushed to hospital and he’s needed to run the farm. When he returns, with his loyal canine companion, Sid, in tow, it isn’t long before he realises things aren’t as they seem. Why is his brother, Rich, being so evasive? And why does he get the impression the farm’s in trouble?Teaching Assistant, Ella, has just broken up for the Christmas holidays and is looking forward to spending more time on her parents’ farm, tending her variety of rescue animals and recharging her batteries.It isn’t long before the pair run into one another and sparks of attraction begin to fly - not that either of them will admit to it. But, just before Christmas, they find themselves thrown together in an unexpected turn of events as a fierce snow blizzard rages around them.Could this be the moment that changes everything? Or is their past too big to ignore?One thing’s for certain, life’s never dull in this little corner of the North Yorkshire Moors.Join Ella and Joss – and all the usual Lytell Stangdale characters – for a heartwarming festive read