Book picks similar to
Staying On by C.M. Taylor


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Flora and Grace


Maureen Lee - 2013
    Having been educated in Switzerland, Flora has been unable to return home to the UK since the outbreak of war, much to her delight. She is far happier there than she had been with her elderly aunt. As Flora watches, a cattle train draws closer to the station, pulling a fleet of slatted trucks behind. But the trucks don't contain animals. From within come the sounds of humans, groaning, pleading, on a desperate journey across the Swiss countryside. Horrified, Flora runs to the train as it slowly clatters through the station, and as she does so, a filthy bundle of rags is pushed out into her arms. Through the slats of the train, she hears a desperate plea: 'Take him. His name is Simon.'As the train disappears, Flora is left holding a tiny baby boy. Everything looks just the same as it did moments before - the sun, the sky, the station - but nothing will ever be the same again.SUNDAY TIMES bestseller Maureen Lee has written a powerful, moving story of war, motherhood and love.

The Santiago Sisters


Victoria Fox - 2015
    They couldn’t survive apart.It was fate, forever destined to come to this: from birth to death, two halves of the same whole. Twins Calida and Teresita Santiago have never known a world without each other…until Teresita is wrenched from their Argentinian home to be adopted by world-famous actress Simone Geddes.Now, while Teresita is provided with all that money can buy, Calida must fight her way to the top – her only chance of reuniting with her twin.But no one can predict the explosive events which will finally bring the Santiago sisters into the spotlight together…

Murder By The Broads


Anthony Tamiozzo - 2018
    While at a crime scene he is informed of another murder. But Burnt is also having problems at home. He suspects his wife is having an affair. As the clues unfold DS Burnt begins a game of cat and mouse.What links the two murders to a doctor and a psychiatric hospital? Trying to juggle his personal life and the job, Burnt must navigate Great Yarmouth and the surrounding areas to catch a killer and stop a vicious gang.

But I Love You Anyway


Sara Lewis - 1997
    Two sisters confront love, marriage, and a failing business in this “charming and deceptively breezy second novel” (Publishers Weekly) that “deftly explores big issues like loyalty, trust, sorrow, and disappointment in sure, bright, effervescent prose” (New York Times Book Review).

B-Mother


Maureen O'Brien - 2007
    Brokenhearted and emotionally abandoned by her mother, Hillary consoles herself with city boy Miles, and at sixteen finds herself pregnant and a shame to her family. With few choices available to her—her parents won’t help her raise the child and the baby’s father doesn’t offer any support—she gives her baby boy up for adoption. Hillary endures the next eighteen years anticipating the day her natural-born son can legally contact her.  A touching portrait of a broken family, the effects of an adolescent’s life-altering decision, and survival after the ravages of devastating loss, B-Mother is an exquisitely realized drama featuring a cast of characters you won’t soon forget.

What I Left Behind


Jennifer Archer - 2020
    The owner of a successful restaurant and newly engaged to a man she loves, she’s ready to put her regrets behind her and embrace what lies ahead. But when a boy named Nick Pearson shows up at her door claiming he’s her grandson and needing her help, Ally can no longer ignore the questions that have haunted her since she was sixteen.Leaving her fiancé and her life behind, she embarks on a cross-country road trip with the orphaned teen to find his grandfather – Ally’s first love who disappeared without a word thirty years ago, leading her to give up their baby for adoption. But will learning the devastating reason he tore her life apart release her from the past…or draw her back?In What I Left Behind, bestselling author Jennifer Archer offers an emotional page-turner about love and loss, family and forgiveness.

How Was It For You?


Carmen Reid - 2004
    Not even when you want it to. After five years and every medical procedure possible, Pamela and Dave still haven't been able to get pregnant. Their baby longing has become a dark cloud that hovers over their marriage, which is now so rocky that they need hiking boots just to negotiate dinner. It's probably not the best time for them to up and move out of London so that Dave can follow his dream of running an organic strawberry farm. Especially when Pamela's so vulnerable and their new neighbor is devastatingly handsome farmer Lachlan Murray. While Dave seems content to follow his bliss -- taking up weeding and becoming obsessed with manure -- Pamela's tempted to hitch a lift in Lachlan's 4 x 4 and ride off into the sunset. Although there is Lachlan's wife, Rosie, to consider. Pamela's London friends think she's gone insane -- contemplating infidelity with a farmer! -- but they don't know just how far she's prepared to go for a baby. Does she?

A Rosie Life In Italy: Why Are We Here?


Rosie Meleady - 2020
    Everyone dismisses her long-term dream to live in Italy as another ‘mad hippy whim.’ While she’s busy planning other people’s happy endings, grief, eviction and debt nip at her heels. Trying to stabilise her life as an entrepreneur in the middle of an economic crash is almost impossible.When her landlord suddenly doubles the rent, Rosie is left with no choice but to pack up her family, two dogs and possessions into a 20-year-old camper van and head off in search of her own happy ending in sunny Italy.She soon discovers integrating into life in a new country isn’t as easy as it looks on TV, especially when the language is a minefield of accidental sexual innuendo. And trying to buy an abandoned villa in Umbria from eight crazy cousins with a longstanding family battle bubbling under the surface doesn’t make it any easier. While Rosie is determined to create the perfect life for her family in Italy, despite a hurricane, a raucous family dispute and a little thing called a global pandemic to top it all off, she begins to realise that the Italian dream may be too big for her. Will she ever get to live her rosy life in Italy? Or has she bitten off more than she can chew?

Degrees of Love


Rachel Basch - 1998
    For Lily and Jack, that moment comes when their baby daughter, home alone with Lily, pulls a pot of boiling water off the stove and suffers terrible burns. It is an accident, but the state suspects abuse and takes temporary custody of the child.To win her back, Lily and Jack must prove to strangers that they are good parents and that their daughter belongs with them and their two sons. They must convince others even as they struggle to once again believe it themselves...even as they begin to fall away from each other just when they most need to be together.Rachel Basch's remarkable debut is an eloquent and touching story about family and individuality, guilt and blame, and how love can fail us or save us, often to our great surprise. It is a book to be cherished, a rich novel that will linger in every reader's mind and heart.

A Christmas Wish


Lizzie Lane - 2013
    Her wastrel father arranges for her sisters to be sent to their grandparents, her brother to be adopted, and Magda to live with her Aunt Bridget.But her aunt holds a bitter resentment towards her, and Magda’s dreams of reuniting her family seem hopeless...

A Different Kind of Happy: A family in patchwork can be perfect


Rachaele Hambleton - 2021
    A partner she loves, five amazing kids and a house by the sea. But life is never simple and there is more than a little emotional baggage coming along for the ride.Starting with that tw*t of an ex-husband who doesn't pull his weight. Then there's the untrained puppy, the work/life balance, a custody battle for the children and all the everyday ups and downs and chaos of being a patchwork family.Surrounded by family dramas and mums who seem to have all their sh*t together, Jo must find a way to make friends and make it work in this new town.Barbecues on the beach and dog walks open up new conversations, but as Jo gets to know everyone better, the picture perfect families might be in need of more help than she first thought...When normal is not an option, surprises can lead to a different kind of happy family.

Risky Mission


Dan Latus - 2011
    Look forward to more of Mr Latus’ work.’ Sandra M. Frank Doy, contract security specialist, is flat broke. Then beautiful and mysterious Vlasta George shows up at his door. She'll give him good money to take her to a secret location in Europe, no questions asked. WHAT COULD GO WRONG? The woman’s husband is a murderous Teesside gangster. She is running away to start a life without him, taking her two young kids and a million pounds with her. HE WANTS HER BACK. DEAD OR ALIVE. But there is someone even more dangerous — someone from the past — who also has an interest in the money. Before long, two of Vlasta’s circle are found dead. Doy finds himself in a frantic chase across Europe, travelling into unknown territory, battling an enemy he doesn’t understand, for vendettas he is not involved with. Will he be able to protect his client — and make it out alive? Perfect for fans of Lee Child, Peter James, Robert Galbraith and Michael Grant. MEET FRANK DOY, a quick-thinking, fast-talking security consultant turned private investigator. He has a talent for finding himself in the seediest corners of the most dangerous cities in Europe. He doesn’t go looking for trouble. He lives in a converted miner’s cottage on an isolated stretch of the Cleveland coast. But he never backs down from a fight and he never turns away those who are desperate. So trouble finds him. ‘Dan Latus’s style is trimmed, hard and fast. There isn’t a paragraph or word in there that doesn’t belong, so the story really rips along.’ Jack R. ‘The more I read the more I enjoyed it. Good plot and characters with some twists and turns.’ Atabarac ‘What I greatly appreciated was this writer's ability to get me feeling that I was witness, not merely an audience.’ C. W. A. ‘More like this please, publishers.’ Rob M. FRANK DOY SERIES Book 1: RISKY MISSION Book 2: OUT OF THE NIGHT Book 3: A DEATH AT SOUTH GARE

The Ghosts and Hauntings Collection


Cat Knight - 2019
    SIXTEEN BOOK HAUNTED HOUSE AND GHOSTS BOXED SET Rundown houses might seem like a bargain, inherited houses might seem like a gift. A sea change might seem the best thing to do. Until you find that you are not alone. Not alone at all…. Cat Knight brings you bone chilling fear in sixteen creepy haunted house tales. Are you ready to sleep with the light on? Come with Cat and enter into a world of paranormal, where the living must vie for their right to remain or join the dead in the afterlife. Hovering spectres. Scratching in the wardrobe. Vengeful ghosts. Sinister entities that whisper, call and kill. This set of sixteen hair raising ghost stories will have you too afraid to come out from under the covers. Featuring 2 books never released as singles. Titles in this boxed set includes: The Haunting of Elleric LodgeThe Haunting of Grayson HouseThe Haunting of Fairview HouseThe Haunting of Weaver HouseThe Haunting of Seaview CragThe Haunting of Keira O’ConnellThe Haunting of Ferncoombe ManorThe Haunting of Highcliff HallThe Haunting of Stone Street CemeteryThe Haunting of Knoll HouseThe Haunting of Hellfleet Point LighthouseThe Haunting of Harrow HouseThe Haunting of Rochford HouseThe Haunting of the Grey LadyThe Haunting of Blakely ManorThe Gypsy HauntingIf you read stories in the occult, occultism, horror, supernatural and paranormal genres then add these to your reading list.

Par for the Course


Ray Blackston - 2008
    Golf, politics, and romance collide in Par for the Course as golf range owner Chris Hackett meets an attractive political correspondent who turns his world upside down.In Par for the Course, Chris Hackett owns and operates Hack's Golf Learning Center, an eccentric golf range in Charleston, SC. Chris jumps at the chance to step up his game when an attractive new student and political correspondent, Molly, suggests that Chris capitalize on the current, highly polarized, presidential election. This pitting of right versus left means even more income, plus a sharp new girlfriend, and soon Chris, his sidekick, Cack, and their unique golf range are the talk of the town . . . until someone takes the political insults too seriously. Will Molly stick around as Chris learns the true meaning of "playing politics"? And will Chris realize how much he wants her to?

Scandalous Lies


Nigel May - 2015
     SUSPENSE: Georgia’s best friend, ballroom dancing sensation Mitzi, has vanished with boyfriend Foster while on holiday in California. Can Georgia get to the truth of their disappearance before it’s too late? SECRETS: Reality TV star Nova could give the Kardashians a run for their money. But while she allows millions of viewers into her fabulous home, she’s unaware what her husband, celebrity mogul Jacob, is up to behind closed doors … SEX: Tanya is filthy rich, married to a man who adores her but she is restless. And her sexual appetite is about to get her into a whole lot of trouble. SCANDAL: Victoria, once the trophy-wife, has lost her mojo. Determined to get her life and marriage back on track, she’s desperate to inject some excitement in her life – but at what cost? From the glitz of Hollywood to the glamour of Milan and the exotic luxury of India, Scandalous Lies is a deliciously unputdownable read.