Book picks similar to
How To Be Married by Polly Williams
chick-lit
chicklit
fiction
marriage
A Scattered Life
Karen McQuestion - 2010
She also acquires a new family: mother-in-law Audrey, disapproving and suspicious of Skyla’s nomadic past; father-in-law Walt, gruff but kind; and Thomas’s brothers, sofa-bound Jeffrey, and Dennis, who moved across the country seemingly to avoid the family. Skyla settles into marriage and motherhood, but quiet life in small-town Wisconsin can’t quell feelings of restlessness. Then into her life comes Madame Picard, the local psychic from the disreputable bookstore, Mystic Books, and new neighbor, Roxanne, whose goal in life is to have twelve kids even though she can’t manage the five she has. Despite her family’s objections, Skyla befriends Roxanne and gets a job at the bookstore, and life gets fuller and more complicated than she ever imagined. Exceptionally heartwarming and inevitably bittersweet, A Scattered Life is a story that will stay with the reader long after the last page is read.
The Little Lady Agency
Hester Browne - 2005
Melissa panics, but she needs the cash - and what harm can providing lonely men with stimulating conversation over dinner do? More exciting still, she'll get to wear a disguise...Enter her alter ego: Honey. As flirty and feminine as a Bond girl, as confident and sexy as Mary Poppins in silk stockings, Honey brings out a side to Melissa she never knew she had. A side that will get her into hot water, (and out of it) and that she'll never want to lose...
Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend
Jenny Colgan - 2009
But deep down she suspects that her best friends are actually rather nasty, and that her lifestyle doesn’t really amount to much. Her father wants her to make her own way in the world. to make him proud. But after one shocking evening her life is changed for ever.Scraping a living as an assistant to a ‘glamour’ photographer; living in a hovel on the Old Kent Road with four smelly boys; eating baked beans from the can – this is one spectacular fall from grace. Sophie is desperate to get her life back – but does a girl really need diamonds to be happy?Full of warmth and humour, Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend is the charming new comedy from the wonderful Jenny Colgan.
The Never Never Sisters
L. Alison Heller - 2014
Gifted storyteller L. Alison Heller has written another witty and moving page-turner that will captivate readers and keep them guessing right up until the satisfying end.Sometimes you just need to get away…. Marriage counselor Paige Reinhardt is counting down the days to summer, eager to reconnect with her workaholic husband at their cozy rental cottage in the Hamptons. But soon a mysterious crisis at Dave’s work ruins their getaway plans. Paige is still figuring out how to handle the unexplained chill in her marriage when her troubled sister suddenly returns after a two-decade silence. Now, instead of enjoying the lazy summer days along the ocean, Paige is navigating the rocky waters of a forgotten bond with her sister in the sweltering city heat. As she attempts to dig deeper into Dave’s work troubles and some long-held family secrets, Paige is shocked to discover how little she knows about the people closest to her. This summer, the self-proclaimed relationship expert will grapple with her biggest challenge yet: Is it worth risking your most precious relationships in order to find yourself?
Mum on the Run
Fiona Gibson - 2011
She knows the other mothers have been in training for at least three months – even though they're trying to pretend that they haven't. Laura's vowed never to take part, but the morning of the School Sports Day she makes a fatal error and promises her daughter that if she eats her Rice Crispies, she will run. With no escape, Laura is forced to take part and as she moves towards her inevitable humiliation, she is horrified to spot her husband Jed flirting with Celeste the delectable French girl who works with him.Determined to put up a fight and to show Jed there is still plenty of spice left in their marriage, Laura decides it is time to give her body the work out it has been desperately crying out for. But when Laura makes a special new friend at the running club that she has joined, she gets much more than she bargained for.From buying sexy lingerie displayed alongside the gherkins at Tesco to struggling into the last playsuit in Topshop, this novel is full of humour and Laura is a true heroine for our times. A sparkling, witty novel, that fizzes off the page.
The One That Got Away
Leigh Himes - 2016
. .Overworked mom. Underappreciated publicist. Frazzled wife of an out-of-work landscaper. A woman desperately in need of a vacation from life--and who is about to get one, thanks to an unexpected tumble down a Nordstrom escalator.Meet Abbey van Holt . . .The woman whose life Abbey suddenly finds herself inhabiting when she wakes up. Married to handsome congressional candidate Alex van Holt. Living in a lavish penthouse. Wearing ball gowns and being feted by the crème of Philadelphia society. Luxuriating in the kind of fourteen-karat lifestyle she's only read about in the pages of Town & Country.The woman Abbey might have been . . . if she had said yes to a date with Alex van Holt all those years ago.
Simply Divine
Wendy Holden - 1999
Not only does she have a less-than-satisfying relationship with her boring and cantankerous boyfriend, who has a host of other insecurities, but now her eccentric magazine editor has made her the personal ghostwriter for the towns latest bedazzling, blonde, and busty socialite: Champagne D'Vyne. While Jane reels from the annoying and distasteful business of investigating, and then glamorizing, the vacuous details of Champagne's life, her new assignment suddenly becomes intertwined with her personal life in surprising ways. Will her own romantic prospects broaden? Will she be able to help save her best friend's dilapidated country manor with a matchmaking scheme? At once whimsical and satirical, Simply Divine is already a smash hit in England, and will undoubtedly be a crowd-pleaser for American readers.
Between the Tides
Patti Callahan Henry - 2007
But her father's last wish to have his ashes scattered there, and his young colleague's desire to write an article about him, conspire against Catherine. Hoping to stop her family's secrets from being exposed, she travels to her once-beloved Lowcountry town-and embarks on a poignant trip into the past...a journey that might lead her into a new life of love, forgiveness, and self-discovery.
Low Country
Anne Rivers Siddons - 1998
Caroline is the chatelaine of a magnificent home, hostess to her husband's wealthy friends and prospective clients, and the official "one-woman welcome wagon" for young, eager talent that her husband, Clay, imports to their corner of South Carolina to work for the family company--a vastly successful land-developing conglomerate. If Caro drinks a little too much for Clay's liking, he knows the reason why, and he takes comfort in the fact that she can escape to the island in the Lowcountry that her beloved Granddaddy left her. Wild and seemingly timeless, the island is a place of incomparable, breathtaking beauty--and it is the one place where Caroline can lose herself and simply forget.Roaming the island is a band of wild ponies, whose freedom and spirit have captivated Caro since she was a child. When she learns that her husband must either develop the island or lose the company that he spent his whole life building, she is devastated. The Lowcountry is Caroline's heritage--the one constant she believed would never change. A resort would not only tame (and therefore destroy) the island she loves--but what will happen to the wild ponies? Spurred to action and inspired with new purpose, Caroline must confront the part of herself that she has numbed with alcohol and careful avoidance, and she must reconsider her priorities--what is important that she would die for it? In fighting to save the island--her island--Caroline draws on an inner strength that forces her to reconsider her role in society, her marriage, and, ultimately, herself. Low Country is a story of personal renewal and transformation --one woman's proper Old South upbringing and expectations colliding with the new South's runaway prosperity. It is magnificently told, and it is Anne Rivers Siddons at her absolute best.
The Pull of the Moon
Elizabeth Berg - 1996
I just wanted you to know I was safe...I won't be back for a while. I'm on a trip. I needed all of a sudden to go, without saying where, because I don't know where. I know this is not like me. I know that. But please believe me, I am safe and I am not crazy. I felt as though if I didn't do this I wouldn't be safe and I would be crazy...And can you believe this? I love you. - Nan.Sometimes you have to leave your life behind for a while to see it and really live freshly again. In this luminous, exquisitely written novel, a woman follows the pull of the moon to find her way home. Sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest, The Pull of the Moon is a novel about the journey of one woman - and about the issues of the heart that transforms the lives of all women.
After You
Julie Buxbaum - 2009
The unexplored doubts of a marriage. And the redemptive power of literature...Julie Buxbaum, the acclaimed author of The Opposite of Love, delivers a haunting, gloriously written novel about love, family, and the secrets we hide from each other—and ourselves.It happened on a tree-lined street in Notting Hill to a woman who seemed to have the perfect life. Ellie Lerner’s best friend, Lucy, was murdered in front of her young daughter. And, as best friends do, Ellie dropped everything—her marriage, her job, her life in the Boston suburbs—to travel to London and pick up the pieces of Lucy’s life. While Lucy’s husband, Greg, copes with his grief by retreating into himself, eight-year-old Sophie has simply stopped speaking.Desperate to help Sophie, Ellie turns to a book that gave her comfort as a child, The Secret Garden. As the two spend hours exploring the novel’s winding passageways, its story of hurt, magic, and healing blooms around them. But so, too, do Lucy’s secrets—some big, some small—secrets Lucy kept hidden, even from her best friend. Over a summer in London, as Ellie peels back the layers of her friend’s life, she’s forced to confront her own as well: the marriage she left behind, the loss she’d hoped to escape. And suddenly Ellie’s carefully constructed existence is spinning out of control in a chain of events that will transform her life—and those around her— forever. A novel that will resonate in the heart of anyone who’s had a best friend, a love lost, or a past full of regrets, After You proves once again the unique and compelling talent of Julie Buxbaum.
It Started With a Tweet
Anna Bell - 2017
A marketing manager by day, she tweets her friends, instagrams every meal and arranges (frankly, appalling) dates on Tinder. But when her social media obsession causes her to make a catastrophic mistake at work, Daisy finds her life going into free-fall . . . Her sister Rosie thinks she has the answer to all of Daisy's problems - a digital detox in a remote cottage in Cumbria, that she just happens to need help doing up. Soon, too, Daisy finds herself with two welcome distractions: sexy French exchange-help Alexis, and Jack, the brusque and rugged man-next-door, who keeps accidentally rescuing her.But can Daisy, a London girl, ever really settle into life in a tiny, isolated village? And, more importantly, can she survive without her phone?
Is This Love?
Sue Moorcroft - 2013
Tamara would do anything for her sister, even sacrifice a long-term relationship. But when Lyddie's teenage sweetheart Jed Cassius returns to Middledip, he brings news that shakes the Rix family to their core. Jed's life is shrouded in mystery, particularly his job, but despite his strange background, Tamara can t help being intrigued by him.Can Tamara find a balance between her love for Lyddie and growing feelings for Jed, or will she discover that some kinds of love just don't mix?
Hissy Fit
Mary Kay Andrews - 2004
And now she’s throwing a Hissy Fit, in the best possible sense. A delicious tale of revenge and renovation, Hissy Fit tells of a wronged spitfire who’s determined to see that the no-good lowdown, lying, cheating varmint of an ex-fiancé who ruined her life and her business gets the comeuppance he so richly deserves…even as she struggles to revitalize a broken-down antebellum mansion for a hunky, if slightly odd, local businessman. If you like the novels of Fannie Flagg, Jennifer Crusie, Adriana Trigiani, and Emily Giffin, or are a devoted follower of Rebecca Wells or Jill Conner Browne’s Sweet Potato Queens, then Mary Kay’s Hissy Fit is not to be missed.