Until the feisty young prostitute, Tibs Tyler, takes her under her wing, and the two girls, one dark, one fair, set themselves up as a music hall act. As they desperately try to break free from Tibs's violent pimp, and to avoid the educated and wealthy yet sinister Dr Tressing, they are also hoping to make a new life for themselves as the new century breaks.

    

    Forced to quit her terraced house in Bermondsey for rent arrears, Kate has to take the unpalatable step of moving to a slum tenement block in Milldyke Street, Dockhead. Here she meets the attractive Amy Almond whose friendship opens new doors of opportunity for fresh relationships. When Kate stumbles over the murdered body of a single woman who lived in the next block, she realises that she, herself, could be a target. She turns to the attractive and sympathetic Sergeant Cassidy for protection and finds that her emotions, as well as her life, are in danger...

    A heartwarming saga of marriage and friendship in a small country town. Young newly-weds Ellen and Richard Lancy are delighted when they have a son to complete their family. But their happiness is short-lived when a tragic accident changes everything. Ellen must stay strong to protect herself and her family. When help comes from an unexpected source, it also brings misunderstandings and disapproval from her neighbours. Can Ellen keep those she loves safe, and overcome the difficulties life has thrown at her? The heartwarming tale of a courageous woman in a rural English town in Victorian times. Another gripping and bittersweet story from the bestselling author of the much-loved Apple Tree Saga. "Sheer country magic." James Herriott

    To mask betrayal, or deceit. But what happens when those lies start to catch up with us? When our lives begin to be shaped by the lies of others?The late 'noughties'. A global recession looms. A group of old friends, all leading outwardly successful, interesting lives. All in apparently loving, secure relationships. Yet all, in some way, lying to those closest to them, concealing secret worries, jealousies, desires. This group of friends is about to discover that the truth won't stay buried for ever...Welcome to the darker side of love.

    This torrid series of sizzling, nasty, erotic short stories are guaranteed to leave you hot, bothered and... spent. Behind closed doors... everybody's a freak. Open the door and cum inside. You just might see a familiar face or two. Who knows; you might even see yourself. ;)

    Then Charlie's business empire crashes and he vanishes. While their privileged beautiful daughters Olivia and Emma have to come to terms with being broke, eleven-year-old Mac refuses to talk about what happened. When Charlie's estranged mother, Vera opens her doors to the broken family, secrets emerge that reveal there was more to Charlie than meets the eye. But Charlie's shell shocked family aren't the only ones asking questions . . . The darkly enigmatic Russian billionaire Lukaz Mihailov arrives in Dublin with some unfinished business. What better way to track down Charlie than befriend his pretty and very vulnerable, abandoned wife Shelley . . . Is blood is always thicker than water? Maybe Charlie's family are simply better off without him ....

    So she did. But she didn’t know about the other occupant that never left, not until it was much too late. Piper Williams is barely keeping her larder stocked, and is way behind on the rent when for the price of the back taxes she can claim a house that has been in her family for generations past. Seeing it as a solution to her financial woes and an opportunity to be left alone to work in peace  Piper empties what is left of her bank account and moves in. Yet old places need work and everything is on the fritz. But ‘old’ doesn’t account for the face that sometimes appears in the window. And 'old' doesn’t account for that stain that keeps returning on the rug. And ‘old’ doesn’t account for the old armoire that holds an ancient cloak that is only sometimes dry. When events turn hellishly evil and Piper finds herself in the battle of her life, can she find a way to put the house to rest or, like those that her passed before her, will she be destroyed and bound to the house forever?

    

    He thought he understood the way the world worked, but now, as a sacrificial lamb of the credit crunch he finds himself drifting... drifting into the clutches of the ever resourceful Pete who could find the angle in a Fairy Liquid bubble... and into the arms of the enigmatic hippy girl, Astrid, who’s about to introduce Tony to rabbits, magic caves and the joys of mushrooms. eBook of the Month Club describes ‘The Return of the Hippy’ as “The funniest and most heart warming novel of the year.”

    Then her father, activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, was murdered there, and she didn't return for 10 years.Recently, she decided to rediscover and come to terms with the country her father loved. She travelled from the exuberant chaos of Lagos to the calm beauty of the eastern mountains; from the eccentricity of a Nigerian dog show to the empty Transwonderland Amusement Park—Nigeria's decrepit and deserted answer to Disneyland. She explored Nigerian christianity, delved into its history of slavery, examined the corrupting effect of oil, investigated Nollywood. She found the country as exasperating as ever, and frequently despaired at the corruption and inefficiency she encountered.But she also discovered that it was far more beautiful and varied than she had ever imagined, and she was seduced by its thick tropical rainforest and ancient palaces and monuments. Most engagingly of all, she introduces us to the people she meets and gives us hilarious insights into the Nigerian character: its passion, wit, and ingenuity.

    Elvis Oke, a teenage Elvis impersonator spurred on by the triumphs of heroes in the American movies and books he devours, pursues his chosen vocation with ardent single-mindedness. He suffers through hours of practice set to the tinny tunes emanating from the radio in the filthy shack he shares with his alcoholic father, his stepmother and his stepsiblings. He applies thick makeup that turns his black skin white, to make his performances more convincing for American tourists and hopefully net him dollars. But still he finds himself constantly broke. Beset by hopelessness and daunted by the squalor and violence of his daily life, he must finally abandon his dream.With job prospects few and far between. Elvis is tempted to a life of crime by the easy money his friend Redemption tells him is to be had in Lago's underworld. But the King of the Beggars, Elvis's enigmatic yet faithful adviser, intercedes. And so, torn by the frustration of unrealizable dreams and accompanied by an eclectic chorus of voices, Elvis must find a way to a Graceland of his own making.Graceland is the story of a son and his father, and an examination of postcolonial Nigeria, where the trappings of American culture reign supreme.

    Only Alison is now desperately ill and she needs Fran's help. She wants to find her husband a new wife, and leave her young daughter with a new mother. Fran finds the whole idea deeply uncomfortable, but it's hard to refuse your closest friend at the best of times, let alone ignore her dying wishes.So Fran reluctantly logs on to an internet dating site, where she stumbles across a startlingly familiar profile. 'Footloose' describes himself as divorced, but his photo looks exactly like Fran's husband, Max. What's a wife to do when she suspects her husband's cheating and can't bear to confront him outright? Posing as 'Sassy', Fran sends a reply to 'Footloose' and sets out to date her own husband... But this increasingly crazy plan leads Max to start to have doubts of his own. Torn between suspicion and love, life for Fran just got very complicated - can her marriage survive?

    They have only one desire: to make a fortune by exploiting the mineral wealths of the country. They work during the day in mining concession and, as soon as night falls, they go out to get drunk, dance, eat and abandon themselves in Tram 83, the only night-club of the city, the den of all the outlaws: ex children-soldiers, prostitutes, blank students, unmarried mothers, sorcerers' apprentices …Lucien, a professional writer, fleeing the exactions and the censorship, finds refuge in the city thanks to Requiem, a youth friend. Requiem lives mainly on theft and on swindle while Lucien only thinks of writing and living honestly. Around them gravitate gangsters and young girls, retired or runaway men, profit-seeking tourists and federal agents of a non-existent State.Tram 83 plunges the reader into the atmosphere of a gold rush as cynical as, sometimes, comic and colorfully exotic. It's an observation of human relationships in a world that has become a global village. It could be described as an African-rap or rhapsody novel or puzzle-novel hammered by rhythms of jazz.

    It shouldn't have been like this. Being on television was meant to lead to fame and a glamorous social life. But for Lizzie Partridge, forty-something, divorced and TV cook on Midlands This Morning, it meant dinners for one, coping alone with an air-head adolescent daughter and following middle-aged men into corner shops pretending she needed a bottle of Lea & Perrins.Her good friend Louie - if only he wasn't gay - thought he knew what the trouble was: Lizzie was always on the wrong side of the glass, looking in at other people's lives.Whatever the truth of that, things for Lizzie were going to get a lot worse before they got better.....