The past also haunts the present in Afternoon of a Faun, where an accusation of historic sexual assault plunges Marco Rosedale, an English journalist in New York, into a series of deepening crises. Together these stories offer a sharply observed vision that will resonate with anyone interested in the clash of power and desire in our embattled contemporary lives.

    HIs faith shattered, Jacob flees the comforts of his community and disappears. He lands up in a predominantly black town in rural Alabama, where he meets Rosie, the single mother of a young son. Their developing relationship, along with the rekindling of his love of music, precipitate events that will change both their lives. This debut novel is a powerful page-turner that follows a complex man on a journey of salvation after tragedy.J.J. Gesher is the pen name for co-authors Joyce Gittlin and Janet B. Fattal. Together, Janet and Joyce have won several prestigious screenwriting awards, including the Geller Prize and the Screenwriting Award at the Austin Film Festival. Their first screenwriting collaboration was produced as a Lifetime Television feature.Joyce Gittlin has written and directed such television shows as Wings, Frasier, and Everybody Loves Raymond and has written more than ten feature films for Disney, Paramount, and 20th Century Fox. She has an MFA from NYU.Janet B. Fattal has a masters in Comparative Literature from UCLA and has taught literature and writing at the college level. The editor of several memoirs, Janet leads many Los Angeles–area book groups, including for the Skirball Cultural Center, Hadassah, and the Brandeis alumni association. The co-authors both live in Los Angeles.

    Otis Till, the area's visionary winemaker, has been known to howl at the moon--fully nude. Single mother Margot Pierce moved across the country to build an inn, but so far all she does is binge on gelato, the Hallmark Channel, and fantasies of murdering her ex. High school senior Emilia Forester is the daughter of celebrity parents struggling to build her own life outside of their shadow. And Brooks Baker is a man haunted by his past spent living on the streets as an orphan. Somehow, everyone lives together harmoniously, their lives intertwined like the vines in Red Mountain's beautiful and renowned vineyards.But in a place where everyone knows each other, secrets are like poison...and right now Otis, Margot, Emilia, and Brooks all have something to hide. When their secrets come to light, will their small mountain be stronger for it--or will lives be torn apart?Heartfelt and wonderfully descriptive, Red Mountain is the story of four complicated people living in a beautiful landscape unlike anywhere else. Told from multiple perspectives and rich with vivid descriptions of wine life, this novel will transport you from the first page to the last.Boo writes contemporary dysfunctional fiction for open-minded soul searchers that enjoy books by such authors as Pat Conroy, Liane Moriarty, Amor Towles, Jojo Moyes, and Celeste Ng. Look out for the sequel, Red Mountain Rising, coming soon!

    A remarkable dress. An extraordinary friendship. This is the second book in the wonderful "Shoestring" series. Meltdowns are a funny old thing. You can be as together as you like, and then one day - BOOM - something throws you into a messy tailspin and you freefall into full panic mode. For some people it can be triggered by something as simple as turning thirty. For others - me for example - a meltdown is a little more complicated. And the trigger is something rather more serious than a birthday. Pandora Schuster is about to turn thirty but that's the least of her worries. She's just been tested for a hereditary family illness and, expecting the worst, she's desperate for her ex-boyfriend and father of nine-year-old Iris to be a part of her daughter's life. But there are two major problems: Olivier Huppert lives in Paris and he has no idea that Iris even exists. Pandora secretly tries to find Olivier during her serendipitous thirtieth birthday weekend to Paris, but the trip doesn't exactly go to plan. Back in Dublin, as the agonising weeks until her test results crawl by, Pandora manages to find some distraction with her kind and sensible boyfriend, Declan, and thanks to the increasing bond with her fellow Shoestring Club members as they time-share a fabulous new designer dress. But matters of the heart are not easily forgotten and Pandora is forced to make some serious decisions. She is determined for Iris to know who her father is and creates a memory box filled with photos, letters and mementoes. Pandora's box conjures up magical memories of the time she spent with Olivier in Paris until the past and the present start to collide and she finds herself having to choose between her head and her heart.

    Devastated by his loss, but secure in their love, Claybird feels as though life could almost go on as usual in their small, sleepy Southern hometown.Until Uncle Gabe comes back.A stranger to Claybird, Uncle Gabe is a brilliant academic who disappeared twenty years ago. Despite the deep mystery that surrounds him, Gabe's humor and intellect shine, and he quickly positions himself in the role of the Catts family's patriarch, filling the role of Claybird's dead father. Gabe and Claybird become coconspirators and best friends, until a slip of the tongue unveils the real history of their relationship, a heart-wrenching revelation that turns Claybird's world upside down.

    With lives at stake, can Catherine trust him?When Catherine discovers herself the guardian of a filthy, skinny puppy, she has every intention of finding him a good home. She does not mean for it to be her home. Now, Hyde has grown into a big, powerful dog and her best friend. By joining mountain search and rescue, Catherine hopes to turn this accidental relationship into a blessing for more than just the two of them. Soon, however, she wonders if she has made a terrible mistake. . . .Stories in the Angel Paws series celebrate the unique bond between canines and humans with heartfelt, moving, and insightful tales for anyone who has ever loved a dog.

    The second was that at her wedding she would walk down the aisle wearing a collective-gasp-from-the-congregation dress. Years ago Anna pirouetted out of her cosy hometown village in a whirl of ambition…but when both of those fairy-tale dreams came crashing down around her ballet shoes, she and fiancée Seb find themselves back in Nettleton, their wedding and careers postponed indefinitely…Don’t they say that you can never go home again? Sometimes they don’t get it right… This one summer is showing Anna that your dreams have to grow up with you. And sometimes what you think you wanted is just the opposite of what makes you happy…Don't miss this brilliant sequel to The Parisian Christmas Bake Off out May 2014!

    Armitage's protagonist is the feckless Barney, thirtysomething, divorced, and alienated from his autistic son. His only passion are his mates, "the old friends, the ones you were brought up with, who go further back than you remember, who've been there since the beginning. You didn't choose them--they're like family. Like blood." When Barney unearths what turns out to be a priceless relic from his childhood days--the "little green man" of the novel's title--he gets back in touch with his old gang: Winkie, Pompus, Stubbs and Tony Football. Desperate to "turn back the clock" and relive their childhood escapades, Barney proposes a game of truth or dare. Each member of the gang "dares" another. Failure to complete a dare leads to disqualification. The winner walks away with the priceless little green man. As the stakes get higher, friendships begin to dissolve as hairy women are seduced, sheep are slaughtered and excrement eaten. In the process the gang reveal some of their deepest secrets, from abuse to impotence, and as the game begins to get out of hand, Barney himself has to confront the responsibilities of adulthood. The problem is that the novel's brutally frank portrayal of both Barney and his gang is so convincing that it becomes difficult to feel any sympathy for anyone. Little Green Man is a tough, uncompromising debut novel, but many fans of Armitage may feel it lacks the originality of his highly acclaimed poetry. --Jerry Brotton

    A bond punctuated by absence and distance...Two continents. Two cities. Two people.And letters. Hundreds of them.Over years. Across oceans. Between hearts.Between Abhi, who is training to be a neurosurgeon in London, and Uma, who is just stepping into the world of medicine in Kolkata. As they ink their emotions onto paper, their lives get chronicled in this subtly nuanced conversation through letters ... letters about dreams, desires, heartbreaks, and longings... about a proverbial good life falling apart, about a failed marriage, a visceral loss, and about a dream that threatens social expectations...Letters that talk. And don't. Letters about this and that. Letters about everything...Letters with a story you would never expect.

    Untethered explores what bonds truly form a family and how, sometimes, love knows no bounds. Char Hawthorn, college professor, wife and stepmother to a spirited fifteen-year-old daughter, loves her family and the joyful rhythms of work and parenting. But when her husband dies in a car accident, the “step” in Char’s title suddenly matters a great deal. In the eyes of the law, all rights to daughter Allie belong to Lindy, Allie’s self-absorbed biological mother, who wants the girl to move to her home in California.While Allie begins to struggle in school and tensions mount between her and Char, Allie’s connection to young Morgan, a ten-year-old-girl she tutors, seems to keep her grounded. But then Morgan, who was adopted out of foster care, suddenly disappears, and Char is left to wonder about a possible future without Allie and what to do about Morgan, a child caught up in a terrible crack in the system.

    ‘Captivating’ Heat Magazine ‘Beautiful… heartwarming’ Zara Stoneley ‘A wonderful ray of reading sunshine’ Heidi Swain Everyone’s favourite bus goes on a summer adventure full of sunshine and the promise of romance…Charlie has a new helper on her bus, her free-spirited and loveable cousin, Delilah, who’s paid a visit to the charming Cornish village of Porthgolow and is helping out on Charlie’s adorable cream tea bus.When the Director of a new TV series filming further along the coast tells Delilah that the bus would be the perfect addition to their onsite catering, she takes him a bit too literally, and before long she and the bus have taken a rather unexpected journey…

    Did one of them kill to get it?Prep school sweethearts Ian and Andi Copeland are envied by everyone they know. They have successful businesses, a beautiful house in St. Louis, and their eldest daughter, Cassidy, is following in their footsteps by attending prestigious Glenlake Academy. Then, a submerged car is dredged from the bottom of a swimming hole near the campus. So are the remains of a former writer-in-residence who vanished twenty years ago—during Ian and Andi’s senior year.When Cassidy’s journalism class begins investigating the death, Ian and Andi’s high school secrets rise to the surface. Each has a troubled link to the man whose arrival and sudden disappearance once set the school on edge. And each had a reason to want him gone. As Cassidy unwittingly edges closer to the truth, unspoken words, locked away for decades, will force Ian and Andi to question what they really know—about themselves, about the past, and about a marriage built on a murderous lie.

    Unfortunately, their wedding party is a tangle of ex-housemates, ex-friends and ex-lovers. So this wedding isn’t just a wedding, it’s a reunion. Can anything be salvaged from the past? And what really happened between them all, back at university? Find out in this wonderful contemporary romance.Formerly published as 'Little White Lies'.

    Everyone piles through its gates - and Cupid lies in wait to sprinkle a little midsummer madness on them all.Teacher Ginnie is desperate to forget her crush on headmaster Mark, and hopes glamping might do the trick. But Mark is also heading for Wild & Free to reform his college band ... desperate not to be seen by anyone he knows. Mark's bandmate James dreams of a festival blow-out with his son, Guy ... until his wife Victoria's ambition kills the dream. Now she and Guy are en route to Wild & Free instead but when Guy meets Shanna-Mae and falls for her earthy charms, Victoria is determined to snap Cupid's arrow.Will the magic of the festival send them wild? Or set them free to find peace and love?

    The big bike in her garage hasn’t been ridden for a couple years now. It is no more than a symbol of her loss and reminds her of her own lack of usefulness.When the very large, very excited Mikkel Gunnarsen arrives to buy it, his pleasure in the bike makes the decision to sell to the younger man much easier than she imagined it would be. The same is also true for the decision that ends with Mikkel spending the night in her bed.Kia knows the blissful moments with Mikkel are only momentary relief, but being with the younger man is certainly inspiring.