As he struggles to make a dent in the icy exterior of the townspeople he wonders if his efforts will be wasted--then he meets Matilda, and everything changes.From the moment they meet Danny finds himself entranced by her ambition, and Matilda is captured by his passion and determination. But life in Bear Creek is difficult for outsiders and despite the attraction, their blossoming romance could end in tragedy.How can Danny choose between the chance at love and his life's dream? Will Matilda lose her independence if she admits how she feels?Grace Cranfield dreams of freedom from high-society and the suitors her parents push onto her. When all seems lost, she finds a chance at hope when she spots an ad in the church from a Montana rancher looking for a wife.Left alone after the sudden deaths of his brothers, Malcolm Wilson longs for someone to help build a new life from the rubble of his old one. Grace is charming and kind, and as sparks fly she finds herself on a train speeding towards a new home, but also a world like nothing she's ever known.Will Grace be able to find a place in this new world and discover who she truly is? More importantly, will she survive long enough to get the chance?All Mayme Ruble wants is to feel like she belongs. When she comes across an ad from a farmer looking for a wife, she feels a glimmer of hope--a chance to start over and maybe even find love.Thomas Harris has spent most of his life running his farm, and now it's time for him to marry. Mayme's kind, honest response strikes a chord with him and there is instant chemistry. She leaves her hometown with tentative optimism that a new chapter in her life is about to begin.Despite Thomas' warmth and the welcoming townspeople, Mayme struggles to shed her self-consciousness. All seems well, until disaster strikes in Bear Creek and Mayme is forced to make a decision: will she step up and be the woman she hopes to become? Or will she lose this chance at happiness once and for all?When Rachel Maxwell discovers that her home - and her hand in marriage - have been sold to notorious poker player, Salis Dangerfield, her world is thrown into turmoil. Despite the stories swirling around town, Rachel has no plans to give in easily.Salis is a ruthless businessman and highroller. But right now, he's just a man in search of a safe haven. Faced with distrust from both his wife and the locals, it seems as though he and his young sister will never find their footing in Bear Creek.Rachel soon discovers the kind man behind the facade and Salis thinks he may have finally found the peace he's been looking for.Will Salis be able to overcome his demons? Can he and Rachel find a way to be together even when the whole world is against them?In Bear Creek Brides: Books 9-12, you will discover four captivating stories of vulnerability, danger, and determination as these four brides navigate peril and heartache to hold onto the chance for true love.

    Funny and touching, these monologues from original live broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion focus on the summer season.Includes: "The Living Flag," "The Tollefson Boy Goes to College," and "Tomato Butt."

    Greg's rugby-playing days are well and truly behind him, thanks to countless pints of beer and chicken curry.When Elise, a radio DJ and Zoe's best friend, tells them about a new competition, it seems like the perfect opportunity to turn their lives around. Fat Chance will pit six hefty couples against one another to see who can collectively lose the most weight and walk away with a £50,000 prize.So begins six months of abject misery, tears, and frustration--that just might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to them--in another laugh-out-loud look at the way we live now from bestselling author Nick Spalding.

    Then got out of bed and had a brisk rub down with the pumice stone. I opened the curtains and saw that the sun was shining brightly. (A suspicion is growing in my mind that the BBC is not to be trusted.)Margaret Hilda Roberts is a rather ambitious 14 � year old grocer's daughter from Grantham. She can't abide laziness, finds four hours of chemistry homework delightful and believes she is of royal birth - or at least destined for great things. But Margaret knows that good things never come to those who wait . . .These are the secret diary entries of a girl born into an ordinary life, yet who might just go on to become something really rather extraordinary, and she is brilliantly brought vividly to life by bestselling author Sue Townsend, Britain's favourite comic writer for over three decades.'Essential reading for Mole followers' Times Educational Supplement'Wonderfully funny and sharp as knives' Sunday TimesSue Townsend is Britain's favourite comic author. Her hugely successful novels include eight Adrian Mole books, The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 55�), Number Ten, Ghost Children, The Queen and I, Queen Camilla and The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year, all of which are highly acclaimed bestsellers. She has also written numerous well-received plays. She lives in Leicester, where she was born and grew up.

    She’s landed an internship with the fabulous Selah Smith, event planner for the Hollywood elite, taking her from small-town Texas to the bright lights of LA. Landon soon finds herself in a world in which spending a million dollars on an event—even a child’s birthday party—is de rigueur and the whims of celebrity clients are life-and-death matters. At first, the thrill of working on A-list parties and celebrity weddings is enough to get Landon through the seventy-five-hour workweeks and endless abuse at the hands of her mercurial boss. But when the reality of the business reveals itself, she’s forced to make a choice: do whatever it takes to get ahead, or stay true to herself.Drawing on the author’s real-life experiences as an event planner to the stars, Party Girl takes readers on an adventure among Hollywood’s most beautiful—and most outrageous—people, revealing the ugly side of Hollywood’s prettiest parties.

    Her teeth are perfect. Her body is toned. Her handbag is Vuitton. Having survived a car accident—in a Mercedes no less—Lexi has lost a big chunk of her memory, three years to be exact, and she’s about to find out just how much things have changed.Somehow Lexi went from a twenty-five-year-old working girl to a corporate big shot with a sleek new loft, a personal assistant, a carb-free diet, and a set of glamorous new friends. And who is this gorgeous husband—who also happens to be a multimillionaire? With her mind still stuck three years in reverse, Lexi greets this brave new world determined to be the person she…well, seems to be. That is, until an adorably disheveled architect drops the biggest bombshell of all.Suddenly Lexi is scrambling to catch her balance. Her new life, it turns out, comes complete with secrets, schemes, and intrigue. How on earth did all this happen? Will she ever remember? And what will happen when she does?With the same wicked humor and delicious charm that have won her millions of devoted fans, Sophie Kinsella, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Shopaholic & Baby, returns with an irresistible new novel and a fresh new heroine who finds herself in a life-changing and utterly hilarious predicament…

    He talks to the models, he reads hundreds of filthy readers' letters, he organises the photoshoots and even gets to direct the action. He has, according to his non-porn friends, "the best job in the world". But Godfrey Bishop has a problem. Godfrey Bishop is going through the sex drought to end all sex droughts. He hasn't been with a woman in over a year and this knee-twisting frustration is magnified a hundred times by his daily grind. He feels like Billy Bunter put in charge of the cake shop, only to have the Atkins diet forced upon him at gun point. Chuck into the mix a twelve girl orgy, a stable of alcoholic co-workers, an angry argumentative feminist, a naked run from justice and an obsessive nutty reader who thinks Godfrey is trying to scupper his chances of marrying the magazine's centre-spread girl and you have Danny King's filthiest and funniest novel yet – according to the back of the book. Godfrey Bishop has "the best job in the world" – and it's doing his f*cking head in.

    1 bestselling author Robert Bryndza.Coco Pinchard has just turned forty, and is feeling fabulous. Her long-held dream to be a writer has been realised, with the publication of her debut novel, her son, Rosencrantz, is attending a prestigious London drama school, and her musician husband, Daniel, seems more in love with her than ever. Coco feels poised to enter an exciting new chapter in life.When the New Year dawns after a hideous Christmas spent with her awful in-laws, Coco catches Daniel in bed with a younger woman, her novel flops, and Rosencrantz goes spectacularly off the rails.As her once-happy life unravels, and any chance of an exciting new chapter recedes into the distance, Coco's new iPhone becomes her confessional.Through emails to loyal friends Christopher, a neurotic middle-aged socialite, and Marika, a slightly alcoholic schoolteacher, Coco begins to document her seemingly endless (and often hilarious) run of bad luck.When Coco reaches the top of the local allotment list (after putting her name down nineteen years previously) she meets the drop-dead gorgeous Adam, and she's back in the world of dating as a single forty-something. Read the emails that tell the hilarious, feel-good tale of Coco picking up the pieces!Fans of rom coms by Sophie Kinsella will be glued to the pages of this totally addictive page-turner.

    Open at your own risk. Sarah and Tommy have the same kinds of problems as most any ten-year-old girl and six-year-old boy. Homework, bullies, Dad not going in to work since Mom ran off to fuck the postman. That sort of thing. But they're not going to take their problems lying down. After a quick bus ride into town to buy a gun, they think their problems are all but solved. That is, until a creepy weirdo follows them into an alley. But they aren't the only ones in that alley. What they discover will make you soil your pants in terror. It will make your skin crawl. It might even give you... Shingles.

    To say the least. She calls Sweet Meadow, Georgia, home, where she works for her father doing auto repairs. She also drives the tow-truck, although Sweet Meadow's rather colorful denizens tend to treat Bertie more like the local, free taxi service. You know, someone has to get to a doctor's appointment or pick something up at the dry cleaners. Bertie's favorite day of the week is Friday, when she leaves the wrecker with her father for the whole weekend and joins her friends at the Dew Drop Inn for a night of dancing. Her best friend, Mary Lou, sometimes fixes her up with dubious dates, although Bertie has to remind her friend not to tease her hair too high for those occasions. Like the time when they went to Carrie Sue's open house, and a ceramic cow with angel wings hanging from a ceiling fan locked its hooves into Bertie's big hair and refused to let go. She had to wear it all night, dangling chain and all. Bertie's nearly perfect life is about to take a downhill turn, however. It starts when her landlord, Pete, currently a resident in a nearby nursing home, starts showing up at her house. In his birthday suit. A very badly wrinkled birthday suit. And then she goes to her mailbox, a rubber large mouth bass, and finds a notice from the zoning commission saying she can no longer park the wrecker in her driveway. The notice is signed by George Bigham. But when she goes to the courthouse to take care of her little problem, it is only to discover George Bigham is deceased. And Mary Lou's pregnancy test just came up positive. Can it get any worse? In a word... yes.

     In less than 24 hours Nate Merritt loses his job, his girlfriend, and his estranged Aunt Edna. But after Edna’s will bequeaths him a historic mansion deep in the backwoods of Louisiana, Nate hatches a daring plan: he’ll renovate the house and flip it for a tidy profit. The fact that Nate doesn’t know anything about home improvement doesn’t deter him at all. Too bad Nate doesn’t realize the mansion in question happens to be haunted. And the ghost who lives there might not be so indiscriminate about Nate’s ability. Humorous and irreverent, The House That Jack Built is a story of learning how to move on into the next chapter of life—as well as a tribute to every disastrous renovation ever attempted by a homeowner. And ghosts. Don’t forget the ghosts.

    But for five of Seek Software’s employees, it’s shaping up to be as much fun as a trip to the dentist.Long-term singleton Sophie has a crush on colleague Nathan but worries he doesn’t even know her name. And is there really any point in her sending a card to the man who organises the annual office Anti-Valentine’s party?Overweight, insecure, and still living with his mum, Calum’s desperate for a girlfriend. He’s recently met the woman of his dreams online but his exaggerated profile might mean tonight’s first date could also be their last.Mark’s been besotted with Julie since she kissed him at the office Christmas party. While she doesn’t seem to remember a thing, today might be his best chance to remind her. If only he could work out how.A Day at the Office is a wise, wonderfully moving, and laugh-out-loud novel about life, love, and relationships by bestselling novelist Matt Dunn.

    

    Then, on the day she gives birth to their first baby, James informs her that he's leaving her. Claire is left with a newborn daughter, a broken heart, and a postpartum body that she can hardly bear to look at.She decides to go home to Dublin. And there, sheltered by the love of a quirky family, she gets better. So much so, in fact, that when James slithers back into her life, he's in for a bit of a surprise.

    What she doesn't have is a ring on her finger, and after being left at the altar, she's in no hurry. Besides, she has plenty of other issues to tackle, including her wayward father, a new rival at work, and an ever-shrinking amount of personal time. To keep sane, Waverly makes a habit of jotting down "Honey Notes," her own brand of self-deprecating wisdom and pipe-dream for a line of greeting cards. As Waverly stumbles back into the dating scene (no stalkers or jean shorts, please), her personal and professional lives threaten to collide. Perfect on Paper reminds readers that everyone has a bad date (or twelve), and that everyone needs a best friend to tell them, “Honey, you are not alone."