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Observation City by Kerry Louise Connelly


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Everything You Are


Kerry Anne King - 2019
    Now, unable to play, adrift in an alcoholic daze, and with only fragmented memories of his past, Braden wants desperately to escape the darkness of the last eleven years.When his ex-wife and son are killed in a car accident, Braden returns home, hoping to forge a relationship with his troubled seventeen-year-old daughter, Allie. But how can he hope to rescue her from the curse that seems to shadow his family?Ophelia “Phee” MacPhee, granddaughter of the eccentric old man who sold Braden his cello, believes the curse is real. She swore an oath to her dying grandfather that she would ensure Braden plays the cello as long as he lives. But he can’t play, and as the shadows deepen and Phee finds herself falling for Braden, she’ll do anything to save him. It will take a miracle of forgiveness and love to bring all three of them back to the healing power of music.

Your Perfect Year


Charlotte Lucas - 2016
    He’s going to enjoy the day… For hyper-particular publishing heir Jonathan Grief, the day starts like any other—with a strict morning fitness regimen that’ll keep his divorced, easily irritated, cynical, forty-two-year-old self in absolutely flawless physical condition. But all it takes to put a crimp in his routine is one small annoyance. Someone has left a leather-bound day planner with the handwritten title Your Perfect Year in his spot on his mountain bike at his fitness course!Determined to discover its owner, Jonathan opens the calendar to find that someone known only as “H.” has filled it in with suggestions, tasks, and affirmative actions for each day. The more he devotes himself to locating the elusive H., the deeper Jonathan is drawn into someone else’s rich and generous narrative—and into an attitude adjustment he desperately needs.He may have ended up with a perfect year by accident, but it seems fate has set Jonathan on a path toward healing, feeling, and maybe even loving again…if only he can meet the stranger who’s changing his life one day at a time.

Pam of Babylon


Suzanne Jenkins - 2011
    Pam and his two lovers discover secrets and lies, and each other. The first book in the series. Book #10 available for preorder.

The Magic Touch


Kelly Florentia - 2016
    So there are no big surprises when, yet again, she turns down her long-term partner Harry’s marriage proposal. They’re a solid, secure couple – a piece of paper won’t make any difference. That is until she accidentally stumbles across a flirtatious text message from one of his female colleagues on his phone. Overcome with suspicion and an impending fear of losing Harry, Emma goes on a quest to get to the bottom of his secret affair with the help of her ninety-three-year-old neighbour, Alistair, her best friend Ola, and Harry’s sister-in-law’s psychic app, The Magic Touch.

The Lies You Tell


Ruth Mancini - 2012
    Which is quite fitting really, given what happened.'Cambridge, 1992.For Lizzie Taylor, one moment changes her life forever. When she accidentally steps out in the path of an oncoming car, an old friend comes to her rescue and everything she thought made her happy starts to unravel: the long-term boyfriend no longer feels like her soulmate and her job isn't fulfilling anymore.Lizzie starts to make drastic changes, not knowing that a terrible betrayal will rip apart the new life she's built. Set in the early 1990s in Cambridge and London, it's a story of love, friendship, divided loyalties and the moral choices we face everyday.What readers are saying about The Lies You Tell:'The story is both entertaining and enlightening in equal measure. There is a poignancy which tugs at the heart strings ... I hope to be able to read more from this talented author in future novels' Jo Barton, Amazon Top 500 Reviewer.'A thought-provoking, intelligent read, that I wholeheartedly recommend' Bookworm.'I enjoyed the way it was written and found it really easy to read – in fact I couldn't put it down and finished it within 24 hours! I felt like I quickly got to know and love the characters – especially Lizzie. This is Ruth's first novel and I'm definitely looking forward to the next!' Esther Willis.'This is a beautifully written story and one that I would highly recommend. Ruth Mancini has a great talent and I will certainly be looking to read more by this talented author in the future' Torrenstp.

I Don't Have a Happy Place: Cheerful Stories of Despondency and Gloom


Kim Korson - 2015
    Because really, does everyone have to be happy?Aside from her father wearing makeup and her mother not feeling well (a lot), Kim Korson’s 1970s suburban upbringing was typical. Sometimes she wished her brother were an arsonist just so she’d have a valid excuse to be unhappy. And when life moves along pretty decently--she breaks into show business, gets engaged in the secluded jungles of Mexico, and moves her family from Brooklyn to dreamy rural Vermont—the real despondency sets in. It’s a skill to find something wrong in just about every situation, but Kim has an exquisite talent for negativity. It is only after half a lifetime of finding kernels of unhappiness where others find joy that she begins to wonder if she is even capable of experiencing happiness.In I Don’t Have a Happy Place, Kim Korson untangles what it means to be a true malcontent. Rife with evocative and nostalgic observations, unapologetic realism, and razor-sharp wit, I Don’t Have a Happy Place is told in humorous, autobiographical stories. This fresh-yet-dark voice is sure to make you laugh, nod your head in recognition, and ultimately understand what it truly means to be unhappy. Always.

No Regrets


Bernard O'Keeffe - 2013
    He’s had a bad year. Sarah, his wife of nearly twenty five years, has walked out on him to move in with Colin. Perhaps they simply grew apart, perhaps the magic was no longer there, or perhaps, as his friend Jerry suggests, Rick has become boring. This nagging thought, together with too much beer on New Year’s Eve and shock at the sudden death of his college friend Alex, leads Rick to a New Year’s resolution… To make the most of the time he has left, and show himself and his old friend Jerry that he is not boring, he will undertake a peculiar challenge: for a whole year he will accept every invitation that comes his way. Any invitation. No excuses. No regrets.

Attic Clowns


Jeremy C. Shipp - 2012
    Shipp spins 13 tales of horror and dark humor in this highly conceptual collection. Angels and demons, husbands and wives, tormented ghosts and an army of men made of soap—all of them trapped in attics of the mind, attics of heaven or hell, the attics we make for ourselves or with which we ensnare others. Meet a paranoid astronaut whose jealousy drives him to extremes beyond murder…a miniature circus spawned from the mind of woman with too much control…the underling demon Globcow who desires redemption even more than the taste of human feet… Men, women, children, and things beyond imagination all interconnect in ATTIC CLOWNS, where laughter is only the prelude to the bizarre and terrible.

You're Not Special


Meghan Rienks - 2020
    As an only child raised in a town of less than 8,000 people and without a Starbucks in sight, Meghan Rienks has always been pretty good at entertaining herself. Then one day—cue the dramatic voiceover—her life changed forever.On June 12th, 2010, Meghan was diagnosed with mononucleosis. Mono is basically just a really bad case of the flu, right? Wrong. To a party crazed 16-year-old, mono is social suicide. More than anything, it’s just plain boring. So, Meghan opened up her 2009 MacBook, used the webcam for something other than a bad Andy Warhol-style photobooth session, and recorded her first YouTube video. Since then, Meghan has shared the ups and downs of her life with the internet, documenting her teenage years for the whole world to see.Now that she’s (mostly) through her awkward stage, Meghan’s here to tell you that it gets better. You’re not alone in the thoughts you think. Sometimes a bad hair day feels worse than a punch in the gut and asking a boy out seems about as difficult as achieving that perfect dewy glow. But despite what you’ve been told, your problems are not unique, your struggles have taken form in everybody else’s life too, and somebody else has felt the way you feel right at this very moment.You’re not special. But you’re also not alone on the bumpy road to adulthood.

Frisky Business


Clodagh Murphy - 2012
    Nine months later, the real fun began ...Romy Fitzgerald likes to do things properly and in the right order. So she always thought she would go the conventional route of boyfriend, marriage, children. Sex in a closet with a stranger dressed as Darth Vader was definitely not how she saw herself becoming a mother.But she has no regrets. Her baby son, Luke, is the best thing that ever happened to her. If only she knew who his father was ... Because though she and 'Darth' shared their deepest, darkest secrets, they didn't swap names or numbers.One year later, Romy is no closer to finding out the identity of her mystery man. But just as she's ready to put it behind her and move on, an old flame comes back into her life and brings with him a whole new set of complications.Kit was 'the one who got away' and Romy wonders if they can reignite what they once had. But Kit has his own secrets to hide. And why is he so eager to play happy families with Romy and Luke?Could he be Romy's dark knight? Or is there another?

Heart of Gold


Fiona Palmer - 2011
    Her job as a wool classer is back-breaking, her family life is a disaster and, after a string of dating debacles, she's put men in the too-hard basket.When strong, handsome Lindsay arrives on the scene as their new shearer, CJ can't help but take notice. They have an undeniable spark, but can she handle the complications and potential heart-break of falling in love?With help from her best friend and an endearing old farmer, CJ learns that when you stay true to yourself and open your heart, anything is possible.

On Dragonfly Wings: A Skeptic's Journey to Mediumship


Daniela I. Norris - 2014
    It aims to give hope to those who have lost a loved one and to those who are about to pass beyond hope that this is not an end. Written for lay people, rather than experienced spiritualists or mediums, and for anyone who is curious about exploring further, it provides practical tools to help readers find their own spiritual truth and path."

Divorce Hotel


B.R. Snow - 2012
    But faced with a crushing, ongoing alimony payment to his ex-wife, Margaret, an aspiring, yet sadly uninspiring actress, John has reached the end of his tether. And it's either get Margaret married or take drastic measures. With the assistance of his permanent residents and his new housekeeper, Emily, who just happens to be the ex-wife of Margaret's new fiance, John puts a plan together to get Margaret off his back, if not out of his life permanently. With a houseful of residents that includes a hygiologist whose mission in life is to make America smell better, a mantologist with a Vegas lounge act, and a political consultant down on his luck, Divorce Hotel comes out swinging on page one and doesn't let up.

Florida


Lauren Groff - 2018
    Groff transports the reader, then jolts us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty, as she writes about loneliness, rage, family, and the passage of time. With shocking accuracy and effect, she pinpoints the moments and decisions and connections behind human pleasure and pain, hope and despair, love and fury—the moments that make us alive.

The Theory of Happily Ever After


Kristin Billerbeck - 2018
    Maggie Maguire, happiness is serious science, as serious as Maggie takes herself. But science can't always account for life's anomalies--for instance, why her fiancé dumped her for a silk-scarf acrobat and how the breakup sent Maggie spiraling into an extended ice cream-fueled chick flick binge.Concerned that she might never pull herself out of this nosedive, Maggie's friends book her as a speaker on a "New Year, New You" cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. Maggie wonders if she's qualified to teach others about happiness when she can't muster up any for herself. But when a handsome stranger on board insists that smart women can't ever be happy, Maggie sets out to prove him wrong. Along the way she may discover that happiness has far less to do with the head than with the heart.Filled with memorable characters, snappy dialogue, and touching romance, Kristin Billerbeck's The Theory of Happily Ever After shows that the search for happiness may be futile--because sometimes happiness is already out there searching for you.