Book picks similar to
The Boy Next Door by Cathy Woodman
chick-lit
romance
really-good-but-not-awesome
add-shelves
The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp
Poppy Dolan - 2012
. . Sam’s average relationship lasts seven weeks. And that’s when he really tries. So Molly decides to give Sam the woman’s point of view in the complicated game of dating. And when a freshly made-over Sam quickly meets – and keeps − the love of life, his desperately single friends are soon lining up to experience Molly’s Bad Boyfriends’ Bootcamp. For Molly, whose dot com business combusted into a dot bomb disaster, it presents a whole new profit-making opportunity. She’s providing a valuable service to these witless blokes, after all. Together with best friend and local fashionista Rachael and the gorgeous but deadly gym instructor Josie, Molly is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to reforming bad boyfriends. Fixing other people's problems also provides Molly with a handy distraction from her own. Namely, an over-achieving mother, a sparse love life and a very sorry-looking overdraft. Add into the mix Sam’s best friend Patrick, who seems oddly immune to Molly’s makeover techniques but determined to hang around nonetheless, and it soon becomes one problem too many . . .
Recipe for Love
Sasha Wagstaff - 2012
So why, when Cassia Blake has just three months to organise her wedding, has he suddenly granted her magazine an exclusive, all-access interview? Against Cassia's better judgement, she hands the wedding planning over to her frosty mother-in-law, and flies out to Italy to spend time with Rocco. But Rocco isn't exactly looking forward to Cassia's arrival. Persuaded to do the interview to help publicise his business, he has enough on his plate with his fiery girlfriend, wedding-obsessed sister and fiercely protective grandmother. And now it seems as if someone is trying to sabotage his restaurants too... Cassia's summer in Sorrento is shaping up to be a recipe for disaster. But could it also be a recipe for love?
Savannah From Savannah / Savannah Comes Undone
Denise Hildreth Jones - 2005
It is a place know to most as Savannah. It is a place know to me as home. I wish I could tell you it was my love for this city that precipitated my return. But I did not return out of a mere longing for home. I returned because I have something to prove to home. I am Savannah...from Savannah. Savannah Comes Undone Seeing my mother as the lead story on the six o'clock news was no great cause for alarm...until the camera revealed her chained to a downtown monument! I thought I knew my mother—but right now I'm not sure I even know myself. I'm currently a journalist for the Savannah Chronicle. And I don't need drama. Really. I can create my own. Who needs extra? But in spite of the mind-boggling events in Savannah this week, the truth is going to be revealed by one of its very own. I am Savannah...from Savannah.
The Daring Debutantes Series (7-Book Bundle)
Ann Fairfax - 2015
These headstrong women cannot help but keep London society dangling on a string, but will they find a husband or lose themselves in the game? Immerse yourself in the Daring Debutantes world with this seven-volume series from #1 New York Times bestselling author M.C. Beaton. Henrietta (Book 1): Henrietta’s plain features seemed to guarantee her a solitary future. But with some unexpected wealth, Henrietta sets out to conquer London's high society and win the heart of Lord Beau Reckford. Molly (Book 2): She was a precocious American upstart who thought beauty, brains, and bravery were enough to conquer London society. Well, he'd show her! Nobody spurned Lord David Manley, the most eligible bachelor in town. Penelope (Book 3): Penelope, golden-haired and fresh from the county, has stolen the heart of the desirable Earl of Hestleton. But the Earl begins to doubt Penelope's true love. Can the belle keep her beau? Lucy (Book 4): How could lady’s maid Lucy Balfour hope to win the favor of Andrew, Viscount Harvey? Hamish MacGregor, the wily old butler, proposes they conquer London society as "father" and "daughter" and meet the king himself. Annabelle (Book 5): Annabelle Quennell gets a chance at a London Season to snare a wealthy husband. But before she sets off, Mad Meg the Gypsy predicts trouble ahead! Kitty (Book 6): Kitty Harrison, once achingly poor, is now a wealthy heiress. But Kitty realizes that to save her life and win the man she loves, she’ll have to learn to play the game. Sally (Book 7): "Aunt Mabel", the lovelorn magazine columnist, is summoned to prevent the Duchess of Dartware's son from a terrible marriage. Who would guess that behind Aunt Mabel's ageless wisdom is the real eighteen-year-old Sally Blane?
Nobody Loves A Ginger Baby
Laura Marney - 2005
Not being happy all the time makes them stressed out of their tights. Carol practises uninhibited sex which ends with her panty liner stuck to the bottom of someone's shoe. Donnie, after a mystery bite in a third world country, thinks he's incubating a nest of spiders up his bum. Daphne gets fat. She makes soup all the time and wonders if Woolworth's sell a hose pipe to fit a Vauxhall Vectra. Pierce is a poet; a fat balding womaniser who's only steady relationship is with a cup at the sperm bank. He's the only one not on anti-depressants, and he's the hero.
The Lost and Found Girl
Catherine King - 2011
When the legitimacy of her twin babies with Edgar is called into question, the tiny infants are taken from Beth and sent far away. James is adopted by Edgar's uncle, the very wealthy Lord Redfern, master of Redfern Abbey. But little Daisy is sent to a cold-hearted childless couple who raise her to be a maid rather than a daughter. When Daisy, at 16, finally escapes her hard life with her adoptive brother Boyd, they arrive at the Abbey to seek work and refuge. Little does Daisy know that her flesh and blood is the next in line to be Lord of the Abbey. There is a strange connection between Daisy and James, something they can neither explain nor ignore. But will the truth be discovered in time?
Pause Between Acts
Mavis Cheek - 1988
She rejects the outside world and embarks on a contented existence of isolated self-indulgence. But when her nice neighbours Fred and Geraldine introduce her to the roguishly desirable actor Finbar Flynn the walls of the citadel begin to crack . . .
A Jersey Affair (The Jersey Scene Book 2)
Georgina Troy - 2014
What she doesn't expect is to meet a mysterious entrepreneur, Sebastian Fielding, when she gets there. He helps ease the sting of rejection as he introduces her to the ancient sites he knows and loves. Unfortunately, soon after Paige returns to her island home in Jersey, she discovers that not only is Sebastian's company taking over the struggling store where her business is based, but that her concession is probably surplus to his requirements. How can Paige stop her fledgling business from going under? And what can she do to fight the gossip now that the paparazzi have published their untruths about 'A Jersey Affair'?
Cupidity
Holly Hepburn - 2013
Modern day matchmaking is tough – people are busy, their hearts are harder to hit and he’s had enough of wall-to-wall romance. And St Valentine has noticed…Annelise is a Lost Cause. She runs a dating agency but her heart is colder than a penguin’s feet. She thinks love is about compatibility and has no time for passion.Can Cupid prove to St Valentine that he hasn’t lost his touch by melting Annelise’s heart? Or is it curtains for Cupid?A romantic comedy novella - 23,000 words long'Gorgeously romantic, unputdownable and utterly delicious!' Miranda Dickinson, Sunday Times Bestseller (Fairytale of New York, It Started With A Kiss, When I Fall In Love)'A completely charming, fantastically funny, romantic romp, perfect reading for a sunny afternoon.' Scarlett Bailey (Married by Christmas, The Night Before Christmas, Santa Maybe)
Results Not Typical
Catherine Ryan Howard - 2011
Their slogans “Where You’re Fat and We Know It!” and “Where the Fat IS Your Fault!” are recognised around the globe, the counter in the lobby says five million slimmed and their share price is as high as their energy levels. But today the theft of their latest revolutionary product, Lipid Loser, will threaten to expose the real secret behind Slimmit’s success…As Director of Security, hunky Aaron Green is held responsible and threatened with his job. Spying an opportunity to get back into Aaron’s pants, Marianne Brand, head of Slimming Operations, offers to help him track down the intruder – but what she’s really hoping to find is her missing Much, Much More Muffin, a secret prototype she believes the intruder ate. Meanwhile Slimmit CEO Nicola Darcy struggles to stay conscious in the three layers of constricting underwear she needs to hide her new muffin top, while her daughter Emmy – deemed “unacceptably beyond corporate Appearance Policy parameters” – pushes paper in Slimmit’s basement and dreams of a skinny life, one she hopes her secret membership of Fat Club, Slimmit’s main competitor, will eventually bring her.The race is on to retrieve the Lipid Loser and save Slimmit from total disaster. If their secrets get out, their competitors will put them out of business. If the government finds out, they’ll all go to jail. And if their clients find out… Well, as Slimmit’s Slimming Specialists know all too well, there’s only one thing worse than a hungry, sugar-crazed, carb addict – an angry one.Will the secret behind Slimmit’s success survive the day, or will their long-suffering slimmers finally discover the truth?
With You and Without You
Deborah J. Wolf - 2003
That changed on the day a tragic accident ripped her husband away from her - and shattered everything.
The Love Book
Fiona O'Brien - 2011
'Not something you'll ever want to put down' Sunday Independent
'One of the smartest writers of popular fiction around' Irish Independent
On an autumn day in 1981, three schoolgirls write their petitions for love at St Valentine's shrine in Whitefriar St Church, Dublin. Thirty years later, freelance journalist Vonnie unexpectedly returns home from her life in California and reunites with her two friends: Abby, now married to a plastic surgeon and Diana, a high-powered businesswoman.As the three friends examine their lives, they learn that finding love was the easy part ... it's what comes afterwards that proves complicated. If they were to do it all again, would they wish for the same things?
Welcome To Fat Chance, Texas
Celia Bonaduce - 2015
To earn a cash bequest that could change her life, she’ll have to leave California to live in tiny, run-down Fat Chance for six months—with seven strangers. Impossible! Or is it?Trading her sandals for cowboy boots, Dymphna dives into her new life with equal parts anxiety and excitement - after all, she’s never felt quite at home in Santa Monica anyway. Maybe Fat Chance will be her second chance. But making it habitable is going to take more than a lasso and Wild West spirit. With an opinionated buzzard overlooking the proceedings and mismatched strangers learning to become friends, Dymphna wonders if unlocking the secrets of her own heart is the way to strike real gold
. . . and Baby Makes Two: A Novel
Judy Sheehan - 2005
But that’s before she sees the perfect child. There he sits in his stroller, angelic and beautiful, magnetic and serene– and he makes Jane question everything she has and everything she thought she wanted. Suddenly all she can see are babies and pregnant woman everywhere. Were there always so many of them? And while there was once a man in her life–her one true love, Sam, gone from this world too soon–there is no man now. Jane must make a choice: possibly become a bitter and childless old lady, letting her biological clock tick on ’till menopause, or tend the ache in her heart now, by becoming a single mother. As Jane struggles to make the most important decision of her life, friends and family offer no shortage of opinions. There’s Ray, her “hubstitute” and gay best friend who would be jealous of any kid who got Jane as a mom; Sheila, her sister, who went from zero to sixty when she eloped with Raoul–who had two young twin sons– and has mixed feelings about being a new mommy; her strict, Catholic father who can’ t imagine what level of hell Jane would banish herself to if she becomes a single mother; and the women of Families with Children from China who are preparing to adopt orphan daughters–without a man in sight. Just as she thinks she’s made up her mind, Jane discovers one small wrench in her plans: handsome, charming, funny Peter, who just happens to be (unhappily) married. . . . And Baby Makes Two is a heartbreakingly honest, wonderfully addictive, and funny novel about love and loss, family and friendship. Judy Sheehan, co-creator of the smash hit Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding, has perfectly captured the delights and dilemmas of the scariest job in the world: motherhood.From the Hardcover edition.