But she’s not the only one. Handsome IRS agent Ethan Cunning is surveying Kate too, but for entirely different reasons. He is attempting to nail Kate’s playboy boss. Ethan and Sloane decide to help each other, which sends Sloane’s wobbly life spinning out of control. She’ll have to face danger, humiliation, and – scariest of all – the dating scene, to lure her daughters’ father home. Losing control was the best thing to happen to Sloane…until it turned lethal.

    Completely unprepared and suffering an acute sense of loss, she and her father continue quietly, trying to live by the well-intentioned advice of friends, hoping that time really is a great healer and that they will, eventually, move on. Life changes very little until Sarah leaves for university and begins her first serious relationship. Along with her new boyfriend comes his mother, the indomitable Hazel Poole. Despite some misgivings, Sarah finds herself drawn into the matriarchal Poole family and discovers that gaining a mother figure in her life brings mixed blessings. A mother-in-law who just can't let her sons grow up, a midwife who treats her charges like girls in a private school dormitory. These are some of the people who Sarah must deal with as her own pregnancy turns to motherhood and she realises that she must find her own two feet. Looking Past is a tale of family, friendship, love, life and death – not necessarily in that order. This is the second novel from Katharine E. Smith, author of Writing the Town Read. The narrator’s voice is clear and strong, with vivid descriptions and intelligent observations. Readers will quickly empathise with Sarah, whose grief and confusion at the loss of her mother at key moments in her life is contrasted with a dry and sometimes subtle humour derived from situations and characters which help colour the book. The father-daughter relationship which develops between the bereaved husband and daughter feels very real, as both come to terms with their grief and learn how best to live together. Sarah's father is unassuming and appealing, as he struggles to find a way to deal with his broken heart and support his daughter throughout school, puberty and on into adulthood. Smith's readers have praised her honesty, realism, warmth and humour. Both Looking Past and Writing the Town Read - Katharine's first novel - are written from a strong female first person perspective. However, don't be fooled into thinking this is chick lit - or indeed exclusively women's fiction. Looking Past has received praise from a number of male readers, including an ex-US Marine. You don't get much more macho than that! Nevertheless, this is a story guaranteed to strike a chord with mothers, daughters - and daughters-in-law - everywhere. The dual settings of Yorkshire and Cornwall will interest people with strong links to those places but the characters and events hold universal appeal. This is a book for people who like people. Looking Past was selected for the People's Book Prize Winter 2015 Collection.

    She has a handsome boyfriend, is portraying her idol in a major motion picture, and gets to live in beautiful Rome for the next two months. Once there, she befriends a young woman named Sophie with whom she begins to explore the city. Together, they discover all the amazing riches that Rome has to offer. But when Amelia’s boyfriend breaks up with her over her acting career, her perfect world begins to crumble. While moping in her hotel suite, Amelia discovers a stack of letters written by Audrey Hepburn that start to put her own life into perspective. Then, she meets Philip, a handsome journalist who is under the impression that she is a hotel maid, and it appears as if things are finally looking up. The problem is she can never find the right time to tell Philip her true identity. Not to mention that Philip has a few secrets of his own. Can Amelia finally have both the career and love that she’s always wanted, or will she be forced to choose again?With her sensory descriptions of the beautiful sites, decadent food, and high fashion of Rome, Hughes draws readers into this fast-paced and superbly written novel. Rome in Love will capture the hearts of readers everywhere.

    The notorious cowboy meets his match… Cord Lawson instantly distrusted the young woman in a smart suit who’d just arrived in Whistle Stop. She was very pretty and clearly a city girl—but with memories of his failed marriage still darkening his mind, he’s determined to steer clear! But she’s sniffing around his land—land that has been in his family for generations. There was no way he’d let it go—even if the bank was threatening to foreclose, and even if selling could give Whistle Stop a new lease on life. Alexis Greer had one mission—close the deal on the Lawson ranch; without it, her father’s land development company would go bankrupt. But the word around town is to keep clear of Cord and to stay away from his precious land. What had happened to cause such a handsome cowboy to live such a solitary existence? However, determination was Lexi’s middle name. She just had to keep on trying to breach Cord’s barriers, to appeal somehow to his head and heart—even if it put her in danger of losing both of hers…to him.

    He’s miserable because the woman he was planning on marrying has dumped him.He’s now worried that with his A-list celebrity status he won’t find a woman who genuinely loves him. Ruby devises a plan to disguise Steve, so that he is unrecognisable as the famous Hollywood actor, in a hope to help him find true love. It worked for Clark Kent, right?As Steve searches for his not-so-perfect woman and has a taste of normality, his relationship develops with his sister. But will he find the right woman before he has to head back to his real life in Hollywood?

    She never expected to fall for her hot, twenty-three-year-old neighbor, Jason Grant. Will their budding romance survive in spite of the age difference? What will happen when Jason returns to college in the fall? Is this just a summer fling or do they have a chance at forever? A sweet and sexy romance novel that will captivate you from beginning to end.

    Theresa Marshall of Fifth Avenue and Southampton, Long Island, has done the unthinkable: she's fallen in love with her young paramour, Captain Octavian Rofrano, a handsome aviator and hero of the Great War. An intense and deeply honorable man, Octavian is devoted to the beautiful socialite of a certain age and wants to marry her. While times are changing and she does adore the Boy, divorce for a woman of Theresa's wealth and social standing is out of the question, and there is no need; she has an understanding with Sylvo, her generous and well-respected philanderer husband.But their relationship subtly shifts when her bachelor brother, Ox, decides to tie the knot with the sweet younger daughter of a newly wealthy inventor. Engaging a longstanding family tradition, Theresa enlists the Boy to act as her brother's cavalier, presenting the family's diamond rose ring to Ox's intended, Miss Sophie Fortescue—and to check into the background of the little-known Fortescue family. When Octavian meets Sophie, he falls under the spell of the pretty ingénue, even as he uncovers a shocking family secret. As the love triangle of Theresa, Octavian, and Sophie progresses, it transforms into a saga of divided loyalties, dangerous revelations, and surprising twists that will lead to a shocking transgression ... and eventually force Theresa to make a bittersweet choice.Full of the glamour, wit and delicious twists that are the hallmarks of Beatriz Williams' fiction and alternating between Sophie's spirited voice and Theresa's vibrant timbre, A Certain Age is a beguiling reinterpretation of Richard Strauss's comic opera Der Rosenkavalier, set against the sweeping decadence of Gatsby's New York.

    Just when his life seems to be back on track, he meets Emily Kowalski, younger sister of his new best friend.Emily’s the kind of girl he’d always dreamed of—sweet, smart, and sincere. But he’s made a mess of his life and ruined his chances for earning the love and trust of a woman like her.Could Dan be the man Emily’s been waiting for? How could he be when every time they get close he pulls away? And will he ever be free from his shady past and the ex-girlfriend who refuses to stay there?

    With the help of the two meddling mamas, she's determined to show him she's "The One"—not that scrawny redhead who's rapidly becoming more than his casual "flavor of the month." Convincing Nick to stop thinking of her like his sister won't be easy, but Ellana's canoodling with the Italian Stallion, chef Giovanni Cavallini, to make Nick jealous. Of course, Giovanni's only too happy to oblige—he's got his own agenda—but now that she has Nick's attention, is it too late?With the matchmaking mamas doing their best to interfere, Ellana's stuck in a quandary: Which one of these tempting chefs will she choose?

    No one is really sorrowing, except maybe her granddaughter Hania, whose own career as a concert artist never took off due to a terrible weight problem. Feeling unwanted, Hania arrives in Warsaw for the funeral hoping for a warm welcome from her relatives. Instead, they saddle her with their appalling children, decamp, and refuse to return. Hania’s situation is at first improved and then complicated when a neighbor ─ the very correct, very austere descendant of an old Polish family ─ asks her to proofread an amateur history project. Hania sets to work with a will, and Pan Doctor Prince Konstanty Radzimoyski is surprised when his ideas get more editing than he bargained for. Typing pages of the past, rediscovering her native city, and playing the piano all contribute to taking Hania’s mind off her problems, but can’t change her awareness that the children need help and that her growing attachment to her employer will only give her pain. The summer Hania spends between love, hostility, and the weight of history tests her resourcefulness, but her fresh ideas and readiness to carry on brighten the lives of her new acquaintances. Still, no one, least of all Hania herself, expects that her beautiful qualities will make Konstanty forget her figure and other excess baggage. This book contains a history of Poland in a nutshell and is about seeing beyond the conventions.

    For five months, and two thousand miles, the wagon train lumbers toward California on the Oregon Trail and into big trouble. The emigrants endure disease, dirt, and attacks from outlaws, and invaded Indians. Bitter strife erupts between ill-matched pioneers forced together by necessity.The 1845 wagon train is part of a vast westward movement; a monument to Americana that fascinates readers 175 years later.In one of the wagons is a heart-sick physician, Hannah Blanc, whose tribulations are Jobian: the suicide of a beloved husband, unfair denial of her medical career by graybeards of the profession, and a nightmarish new "marriage of necessity to a vile man named Ed Spencer.The guide is a hard-to-figure mountain man, Nimrod Lee, who knows the trail, but is also looking a man he needs to kill. Guilt over the murder of his Crow wife beclouds his conscience. Betrayal of his word to her chief father threatens his life. The killer of his wife is still out there.A love affair between Hannah and Nimrod is inevitable, but it's complicated, because for both, painful histories and mixed-up emotions make tall walls. The heart of the story is the pool of misgivings that threatens to drown their tenuous affair.The wagon train is a village of strangers locked together with no escape.Beyond all they must endure, the pioneers keep fighting, and keep coming. Those who make it are survivors; survivors with a great story to tell.

    Eugene and Tatiana had fallen in love that summer ten years ago. But certain events stopped them from getting to truly know each other and they separated never knowing what could have been. But one busy morning on the Paris metro, Eugene and Tatiana meet again, no longer the same teenagers they once were. What happened during that summer? Does meeting again now change everything? With their lives ahead of them, can Eugene and Tatiana find a way to be together after everything? Written in gorgeous verse, In Paris With You celebrates the importance of first love. Funny and sometimes bittersweet this book has universal appeal for anyone who has been in love.

    Then she paid her own way through after he was done...with college and with her, when he walked out the day after he got his degree. But now she was finished and enjoying a graduation present to herself in the form of one month in a mountain cabin between Bozeman and West Yellowstone. Things were definitely changing for Cass Wright. The vacation turned into a job opportunity at a local brewery. And she was intrigued by one of Bozeman's talented sculptors and spent money she didn't really have to buy one of his creations that she swore emitted invisible sex waves. It didn't take long to figure out that it wasn't the sculpture emitting those waves, but the sculptor himself.Josh's sculptures were not what most people would consider conventional. They each depicted a couple at one point or another in that journey where interest turned to desire, desire turned to hunger, and hunger turned to satisfaction. They weren’t pornographic or even exotic but more sensual or suggestive. He never used models, so it shocked him when he realized his latest sculpture was in the image of a woman he had seen the night before at a benefit for the Battered Women's Shelter. A woman with alluring green eyes, who was now standing on the outside of the ropes that cordoned off the area where he was working. The woman who just bought that same sculpture. Little did he know that in the coming days he would find life imitating art and then art imitating life...until she got that new job. Then he found himself way over a line that he hadn't even known was there.

    I’m sorry. Please take care of him for me. And maybe one day I’ll get to explain.Angie knows a lot about her best friend Kitty.She knows Kitty is mad and wild and loves to wear clashing colours. She knows she’s incredibly funny and generous but also very unreliable.And she knows that there is a perfect explanation for Kitty standing her up on her birthday.She thinks she knows everything about Kitty, except she doesn’t.Kitty knows that she is the happiest she has ever been.She knows she’s so lucky to have a lovely boyfriend, Simon and a best friend like Angie.But what she doesn’t know that on this night, her past is finally going to catch up with her and change everything.Heartbreaking and uplifting, Me and You is a story about how hard it is to leave our old selves behind, the tough choices we sometimes have to make and how love and friendship can heal even the most damaged of hearts.

    But when an interiors magazine sends a good-looking photographer to take pictures of Claire's perfect home, he makes her wonder if the house means more to William than she does. This is the beautifully observed and poignant love story of a woman who has to find out if home really is where the heart is.