Book picks similar to
The Big Happy by Scott Mebus


fiction
lit
general-fiction
english-novels

Softgoods: All the Pretty Things Women Are Dying to Wear


Consuelo Saah Baehr - 2012
    

Yesterday Erased


Andy Schrock - 2013
    An unlikely meeting with a cop and a skateboard sends his life in a completely new direction. He starts high school and, along with his group of misfit friends, soon becomes a contender on the Cincinnati skateboard scene. Along the way he quickly learns that life off the board isn’t so simple. The party life is snatching his friends away from their boards. He winds up stuck in an on-again and off-again love triangle. And he realizes that not fitting in just may be the death of him. YESTERDAY ERASED is a hard-to-put-down, 109,000-word commercial fiction piece, based on my own experiences growing up. It deals in themes any young adult, skateboarder or not, can relate to and leaves you pondering your life when you’re done. No matter who you are, you'll find a piece of yourself in this book! The author, Andy Schrock, spent most of his time growing up on a skateboard. He now makes a living creating content online as well as running his own skateboard company, ReVive Skateboards. He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife and their son.

Camp Scoundrel: Doing what it takes to survive paradise


David Luddington - 2018
    What Michael doesn’t expect, is to be put in charge of a group of offenders and sent to a remote location in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Spain to teach them survival skills as part of their rehabilitation programme. But Michael knows nothing at all about survival skills. He was sort of in the SAS, yes, but his shining record on the “Escape and Evasion” courses was more a testament to his computer skills than his ability to catch wildlife and barbecue it over an impromptu fire. Basically, he was the SAS’s techy nerd and only achieved that position as a result of a bet with a fellow hacker. Facing a stark choice between starvation or returning home to serve out their sentences, the group of offenders under Michael’s supervision soon realise that the only way to survive is to use their own unique set of skills – the kind of skills that got them arrested in the first place.

The List: A Love Story in 781 Chapters


Aneva Stout - 2006
    The ex who can't stop talking about the French girlfriend who dumped him. The cute young bartender who knows how to make a Manhattan straight up. And, of course, Mr. Right—who looks like Liam Neeson, writes poetry like e.e. cummings, plays the guitar like Jimmy Page. Until he turns out to be a complete and total jerk.Narrated in 781 chapters—The List is an irresistible look at love, dating, friendship, sex, cats, thongs, and shopping. And a story that's as pleasurable, as interesting, as gossipy, as truthful, as reassuring, as compelling, as sane, as necessary as a late-night phone call to your best friend ever. Pour a cup of tea, curl up on the couch, and read to your heart's content.

Fish Heads and Duck Skin


Lindsey Salatka - 2021
    Tina yearns for this new setting to bring her the zen-like inner peace she's always heard about on infomercials. Instead, she becomes a totally exasperated fish out of water, doing wacky things like stealing the shoes of a shifty delivery man, spraying local women with a bidet hose, and contemplating the murder of her new pet cricket.It takes the friendship of an elderly tai chi instructor, a hot Mandarin tutor, and several mah-jongg-tile-slinging expats to bring Tina closer to a culture she doesn't understand, the dream job she never knew existed, and the self she has always sought. Fish Heads and Duck Skin will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered who they are, why they were put here, and how they ever lived before eating pan-fried pork buns.

Something's Wrong with Your Scale!: A Romantic Comedy


Van Whitfield - 1999
    Nice Guy who's found companionship and comfort with Marsha.  The only problem is that he's become too comfortable.  Weighing seventy-five pounds more than when the courtship first began, the newly food-obsessed Sonny just can't stay away from Marsha's marvelous dishes, even in the middle of their breakup conversation.Determined to slim down and get his girlfriend back, Sonny joins the FutraSystem weight-loss center and meets potential love interest Kayla, as well as a host of other colorful characters. In a heartwarming tale that is alternately hilarious, wise, and ultimately self-affirming, Whitfield has created a thoroughly delicious and engaging novel sure to be enjoyed by those who have waged the battle of the bulge, or know someone who has.

Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society


Rich Hall - 2005
    A man not above faking his own death to sell more records, this is his not quite true story of romance, recidivism, country music, and an unshakeable belief in Marriage at First Sight.

Hold On Until Your Fingers Break (Tales of the Unusual, #1)


Luke Smitherd - 2015
    what happens when you never let go of the ones you love?

Becoming Finola


Suzanne Strempek Shea - 2004
     Newly unemployed, Sophie White has nothing better to do when her recently widowed best friend, Gina, invites her along on a much-needed, postcrisis getaway. When, after only one day in Ireland, Gina decides she should do her grieving back at home, she urges Sophie to remain and make the most of the summer in Booley, the tiny seaside village that was their destination. A job offer accepted on a whim lands her in the village's craft shop, and in the position once held by Finola O'Flynn, a woman who'd swiftly left town a few years before. Sophie takes on Finola's job of creating beaded bracelets, but also takes over Finola's abandoned home, then Finola's left-behind wardrobe, and finally, after her own episode of lost love, Finola's discarded man, charismatic shop owner Liam. But could Sophie -- or anyone -- ever take over the legendary place that her predecessor still holds in the hearts of Booley? Friend, confidante, and guru to all -- literally a lifesaver to some -- even in her absence Finola continues to captivate. Her myth manages to reenergize Sophie, who passes along the gift through bracelets she infuses with invented "powers" that make the wearers believe they have what it takes to face life's challenges. But is Sophie powerful enough to face a whopper of her own when Finola returns to Booley and to the life she deserted? Does Sophie have the magic to make room in one tiny village for two women who want the very same life?

Goat In The Meze: A farcical look at Greek life (The Greek Meze Series Book 1)


Katerina Nikolas - 2017
    The elusive underwear thief is busy plundering the local washing lines hoping his identity will never be revealed, whilst the Pappas is up to his neck in nefarious schemes. Mail order Russian bride Masha is indulged by that old fool Vasilis in her passion for plastic surgery, and Stavroula plots to extricate herself from her marriage to the supposedly dead Toothless Tasos. Not a day goes by in Astakos without deviousness and humour as part of the scenic backdrop. The humorous antics of life in a fictional Greek village have the feel good factor to make you laugh-out-loud.

The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part 1


Caimh McDonnell - 2021
    The series has been a critically acclaimed worldwide Amazon bestseller and it is optioned for TV.The two-part box set features the books with the ancillary novellas and short stories presented in the order the author Caimh McDonnell thinks they should be read in, with new introductions written especially for this edition.Please note: All of the novels and short stories have been previously available to readers separately.A Man With One of Those Faces: The first time somebody tried to kill him was an accident; the second time was deliberate. Now, Paul Mulchrone finds himself on the run with nobody to turn to except a nurse who has read one-too-many crime novels and a renegade copper with a penchant for violence. Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history before they’re history.Bloody Christmas: It’s Christmas Eve and DS Bunny McGarry is in the mood to celebrate – he’s back on duty after proving that throwing a senior officer off a building was an appropriate action during an investigation. His festivities are interrupted when someone attempts to assassinate him while he’s taking a leak. Bunny soon finds himself in a race against time to trace a kidnapped child before the people who ordered the hit realise that he is less dead than they had hoped.Dog Day Afternoon: Bunny McGarry always pays his debts, and if that means saving a certain dog from a date with the grim reaper, then so be it. Getting a canine off death row is not as simple as you’d think though, particularly when the pooch in question is a couple of biscuits short of a full dog’s dinner.The Day That Never Comes: Paul Mulchrone’s newly established detective agency is about to be DOA. One of his partners won’t talk to him for very good reasons and the other has seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth for no reason at all. Can he hold it together long enough to figure out what Bunny McGarry’s colourful past has to do with his present absence?

Tea Party Fairy Tales


James Finn Garner - 2012
    His plan may have worked all too well. Now, to save us from creeping socialism, death panels and everything progressive, he has written the antidote, Tea Party Fairy Tales. In Tea Party Fairy Tales, Red Riding Hood stands up for her Second Amendment rights, the Little Match Girl defends the magic of the free market to her grave, and Jack of “Beanstalk” fame shows the moral decay of a life on the dole. For those who find these too long-winded, more than a dozen Aesop’s Fables have been reworked to illustrate the eternal truths of American conservatism in handy, shouting-points form. Tea Party Fairy Tales deserves a place on every young American’s nightstand, right next to the Rush Limbaugh plush doll and a Smith & Wesson automatic, to help prevent the destruction of everything good and true in American culture. “Wake up, Storybookland! Before it’s too late!”

Shadows of Conflict


Jennifer Bohnet - 2013
    But with an American film crew in town intent on uncovering buried secrets from WWII, and a disgruntled relative amongst other problems, life is neither simple nor quiet. When Patrick, her ex-boss, unexpectedly offers Katie her dream media job, she must decide whether it is worth turning her back on everything and everyone in Dartmouth - including Leo, a friend from the past, who wants to be a part of her future. Will Katie make the right decision?

Daisy Days: Hilarious Misadventures


Lynne Gumbleton - 2019
    How did we ever find time to go to work. New to Caravanning. Its mishaps. Its pleasures. Its fun. Susie and Jack take early retirement and end up biting off more than they can chew. An unexpected inheritance changes their lives forever.

The Paradise Gig (Key West Capers Book 15)


Laurence Shames - 2020
    FICTION: Poolside at their motel, the Fab Four fell into conversation with a snappy-dressing local named Bert the Shirt, who listened as the band worked out a harmony to the most beautiful song he’d ever heard--and wouldn’t hear again for over half a century. FACT: That night, the Beatles played an unannounced free concert in the motel bar. Everyone was welcome. Local musicians showed up with guitars and keyboards, and had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of jamming with the Beatles till 4 am. This legendary event has forever after been known to Key West locals as THE PARADISE GIG.FICTION: Next day, hung over and exhausted, the Beatles left for the airport, having somehow lost a stained and battered notebook that held a priceless stash of unrecorded songs. NOW CUT TO THE PRESENT: A beautiful woman is doing a yoga headstand on a Key West beach when she’s abducted by a pair of thugs. An aspiring young singer is offered a recording deal that seems a bit too good to be true. Bad things happen to a couple of one-hit wonders…And old Bert hears a new song that is hauntingly familiar, but that he can’t quite place.Could it possibly be the same song he’d heard at poolside so many years before? Could it be that all the present mayhem circles back through the decades to THE PARADISE GIG? Could the precious, even sacred, Beatles notebook possibly turn up after all these years? Could Bert be the hero who would rediscover that stash of unheard songs for music lovers everywhere—and save a young singer’s life in the process? With Nacho, his intrepid Chihuahua, at his side, and with no one but bumbling detective Pete Amsterdam for an ally, the undaunted Bert the Shirt sets out through the Florida haze to piece it all together, learning along the way how much the world has changed—and how much it has not. In equal parts suspenseful and nostalgic, funny and romantic, this time-bending caper celebrates the power of music and the many tricks of memory, the joys of youth and the comforts of age, and the free and funky spirit of Key West.