Babsey makes sure that her family doesn't mix with the rougher people in the neighbourhood - she considers herself a cut above the local community. When her niece Louisa needs a home - her mother is dead, and her father at sea - Babsey does her duty and brings the girl into the household.But Louisa doesn't quite fit in with Babsey's plans. Although life under Aunt Babsey's roof is comfortable, Louisa is acutely aware of the desperate poverty around her. And, as she grows up into a thoughtful young woman, the harsh realities of love and betrayal, war and death, make her determined to find her own way. Louisa will eventually be made famous throughout her city - known for ever as Liverpool Lou. And she might just find love along the way...

     As usual, Maupin’s tone is both bittersweet and achingly funny in this tale of a post-catastrophic San Francisco and a young man’s resilient love for his mother. Cover Design by Darryl Vance

    This time, though, instead of cruising the American road together, Otto Ringling and Volya Rinpoche are part of the famous meditation master's offbeat weight loss clinic, held over the course of ten Saturdays in a New York City yoga studio. "These characters have been alive in my imagination for a decade now," Merullo says, "and I just had the sense that Rinpoche, out of his deep compassion, would try to do something about America's obesity epidemic. I've also been fascinated for a long time by the way addiction works—whether it's addiction to food, drugs, alcohol, sex, work, or anything else—the way it occupies the mind and moves us to do things we know we would be better off not doing. I've always wondered what advice Rinpoche would give on the subject."Known—across twenty books, scores of essays, and twenty-five years of publishing—for being willing to try his hand at an unusually wide variety of themes, subjects, and genres, here Merullo works for the first time in the novella form, putting together a deft, moving, and tightly compressed tale that includes his trademark mix of spiritual inquiry and ordinary human emotions. "This story is about the challenge of losing weight, yes," the author says, "but there's a twist to it at the end, and that opens into a wider territory. I tried to approach it with a full appreciation for the difficulty of breaking old habits, and I gave up a beloved food myself for ten weeks, just to keep things honest."While it does not promise to help readers with their troublesome eating habits or other addictions, Rinpoche's Remarkable Ten-Week Weight Loss Clinic does look at those painful issues from a fresh angle, one full of sympathy and wisdom. It will certainly please lovers of the Buddha Trilogy, and perhaps bring new fans to the hundreds of thousands who've already enjoyed the travels and conversations of Otto and his enlightened teacher.

    Eliza is angry. Very angry, and very, very hot.Late for work and dodging traffic, Eliza's still reeling from the latest row with her husband Paddy. Twenty-something years ago their eyes met over the class divide in oh-so-cool Britpop London, but these days their eyes only meet to bicker over the three-seat sofa.Paddy seems content filling his downtime with canal boats and cricket, but Eliza craves the freedom and excitement of her youth. Being fifty feels far too close to pensionable, their three teenage children are growing up fast, and even the dog has upped and died. Something is going to have to change—menopause be damned!Woman of a Certain Rage is a smart and funny novel for all the women who won't be told it's too late to shake things up, and Eliza is a heroine many will recognise. She may sweat a lot and need a wee all the time, but she has something to prove.

    Ruby is always hungry, but she will go without if it means her young brothers can eat. 1930s Bermondsey might be called the larder of London, with its pie, pickle and jam factories, but for the poor working classes, starvation is often only a heartbeat away. When Ruby's neighbour suggests she ought to go to the Methodist Mission for free food, Ruby knows her father will be furious, but that she has no other option. It is a decision that will change the course of her life forever, split her family and in the end lead her to face a terrible choice between duty and a great love.

    These are mixed fortunes ahead for Evie, and while Lucy grows up in the beautiful Irish countryside, Linnet is all too often forced to throw herself on the mercy of the enormous, impoverished Sullivan family. Life in a slum court during the thirties is far from easy -but when tragedy strikes it becomes the only existence possible for Linnet. Destitute, she disappears into the Liverpool slums like an teardrop in an ocean. Lucy, meanwhile, urgently needs her sister by her side. But she has little idea, when she leaves the farm and sets off to look for Linnet, how their meeting will change their lives for ever. . .

    Billie Summers has always been quite content in her little cottage in the Cotswolds. Sure, half the house hasn’t been renovated, but what’s the point when it’s only her? Working part-time at her uncle’s bookshop and planning writer retreats with her best friend allows her to pay the bills. What more could anyone want?That is until Oliver Forest, the bad boy of the book world, turns up to one of her retreats and points out that Billie hasn’t done anything very adventurous. Couple that with her best friend falling head over heels and beginning to drift away from their Friday night wine and dinner plans, Billie is starting to wonder if it isn’t time she took control of her life.So she starts a list: get fitted (properly) for a bra, fix up rest of house, find a ‘career’ and well, get a tattoo … Her life might just get the makeover it needs, too bad irritating and far-too-attractive for his own good, Oliver keeps showing up … Because sometimes you need an adventure!

    Among the ex-pats already there is straight-talking Duke Hanson, whose all-American values cannot prevent him falling, then sinking, helplessly in love with a sophisticated Pakistani girl. In the ensuing tangle of Anglo-American-Oriental relations, the strangest things for those who have come out East are revealed in the very people with whom they arrived…

    The Book of Craw -- comprised of poems and proverbs from Craw's own notebook -- is the companion volume to The Dirty Parts of the Bible: A Novel.

    Donna Hill introduces sisters long divided by their mother's favoritism--now reunited in Washington, D.C., one sister's sudden illness is the catalyst for a long waited reconciliation.Carmen Green takes two very different sisters to beautiful Martha's Vineyard, where a week in the warm and healing sun brings mutual understanding.Jamice Sims unites two estranged sisters in new York City where their childhood loyalty is tested, a new life is welcomed--and a family restored. From three favorite authors, Sister, Sister brings you three short stories about the trials and bonds of sisterhood.

    . . Brutal, brisk, and believable . . . . The finale sings." -- New York Daily News.A strategy born of desperation: an assassination to end the war. Only one event can turn the tide. Hitler believes that the death of one man—Franklin Delano Roosevelt—will save Nazi Germany. From a prisoner of war camp near Fort Lewis, Washington, where 50,000 German soldiers are interned, Wehrmacht Captain Kurt Monck—a man of frightening resources with ruthless intelligence whose devious determination is sparked by Berlin’s orders via secret channels to escape the camp and head east. Monck’s trail is picked up by U.S. Secret Service agent John Wren, who hunts Monck as the German nears Franklin Roosevelt’s armored train en route to the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Monck’s only aid comes from his reluctant accomplice Margaret Bayerlein, a widow who provokes a haunting triangular relationship. Pursuit evokes the American home front during the war, as well as historic figures such as J. Edgar Hoover and President Roosevelt. The manhunt crosses the country, and Monck, Wren, and Roosevelt finally meet in an electrifying conclusion.Heart-pounding suspense for readers who love the taut thrillers of Jeffrey Deaver and Frederick Forsyth.“I simply could not put it down.” -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

    Her childhood in the New Forest is idyllic, but when she is fifteen tragedy strikes. Her adoptive parents are killed in a fire, and she is left with her strange, uncommunicative adoptive twin sisters. Sad and lonely, Cathy joins a local theatre group, where she becomes besotted with one of the directors. Nico is forty, and very good-looking, but he preys on vulnerable young girls, and has set his sights on Cathy. She is petite and pretty, and she is due to inherit a fortune.On her sixteenth birthday, Nico blackmails the twins into allowing Cathy to marry him. Their marriage soon turns sour, and after their daughter, Sammy-Jo, is born Cathy escapes with the child to Spain. But one day, Nico finds them...

    I became more immersed with every page, as the plot twisted and turned its way to the end. Kathleen O'Donnell has done an outstanding job with her first book. Can't wait to hear more from her. Hurry! – Ryker, five star review on Amazon. Claire’s a rich widow on a mission, who partakes with abandon from the pharmacy stored in her Prada purse. Rob’s an aging reality show celebrity. Stuck on the same flight, bound for the same eccentric town, she hates him on sight. She thinks she knows all there is to know about him but is dying to find out more. He’s disinterested but somehow still sees right through her. But they’ve both got big problems. Hers is in the Louis Vuitton carryon in the overhead. His is in his pants. To Claire’s dismay, Rob turns up everywhere she goes, yet they form the unlikeliest of friendships. He cares for her in ways she’s never known before. He could be the best thing in her life—or the worst. In a place full of secrets, including their own, they help each other find answers they didn’t even know they were looking for, yet some questions linger. What happened to Rob’s first wife? What happened to Claire’s husband? Will they live through the answers? The Last Day for Rob Rhino is a dark, tragic, and funny novel about the bonds of family and friendship. If you’d love a Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins, or Stieg Larsson novel with a humorous twist, this would be it.

    His travels take him to a pond whose dwellers, ruled by Toad the Elder, have never questioned the certainty of their surroundings. But two young frogs, Daikon and Hodo, inquisitive and rebellious, convince Ping to take them on a journey that will change their lives forever.This delightful story captures the fears and doubts faced by all who choose to leave the familiar to make their way in an unknown world, and teaches them to find their true path. As Ping says, "It is never too late to be what you can become."

    A traveling salesman consigned to a late-night bus ride. A prison inmate stripped of everything but his pride. A teenage runaway. Mismatched lovers. In his debut collection of short fiction, award-winning novelist Craig Lancaster returns to the terrain of his Montana home and takes on the notion of separation in its many forms - from comfort zones, from ideas, from people, from security, from fears. These ten stories delve into small towns and big cities, into love and despair, into what drives us and what scares us, peeling back the layers of our humanity with every pag