Sweet Pastries & Sourdough: (Little Duck Pond Cafe, Book 15)


Rosie Green - 2021
    But when Katja's ski-ing holiday ends in disaster, a new teacher must be found very quickly. Anita is up for the challenge, but - fresh from a break-up and an operation that's left her feeling physically and emotionally vulnerable - the last thing she's looking for when she moves to Sunnybrook is a new relationship. So it's Sod's law that she should find herself with not one but two guys vying for her attention. Sven, from Denmark, is a bit of an enigma - but maybe passion lurks beneath his cool reserve? And as for twenty-five-year-old football coach Ross - surely she'd be asking for trouble getting involved with a gorgeous man a decade her junior? (Although her football-mad son Rufus seems to love him.)Moving in with Bertha proves a real comfort - but can Anita get to the bottom of what's troubling the older woman?Anita's job at the True Loaf Bakery is only temporary, but she finds herself drawn ever deeper into life in the village - especially when she finds a child's bracelet from long ago, in the rubble of the newly-renovated building. Solving the mystery of who it belongs to takes Anita on a journey of discovery - a journey that might just help her discover what her own heart really needs...

Bedlam & Breakfast at a Devon seaside guesthouse


Sharley Scott
    She is certain she and Jason have a strong and loving relationship that can weather any storm. Hooked by the beauty of Torringham with its quaint harbour and stunning coastline, they purchase Flotsam Guesthouse which needs more than a lick of paint to keep it afloat. Soon, Katie finds that renovating and running a guesthouse is taking its toll, especially when dealing with challenging guests and madcap neighbours, Shona and Kim. Katie comes to learn that trouble is afoot whenever Shona begs a favour. However, when her adored daughter moves back to their old hometown, she wonders if they’ve made a huge mistake, especially when cracks begin to show in her marriage. Her seaside idyll is crumbling along with her relationship. Should she let Flotsam Guesthouse founder while she salvages her marriage? Katie needs to decide where her priorities lie. The only issue is, she doesn’t know.

The Appetizer When You're Not His Main Course


Ni'cola Mitchell - 2010
    Enjoying her life as a stay at home wifey, the couple is expecting a set of twins. Their life could not have been any more picture perfect, until the day that Yazmin was involved in a hit and run accident. Scared for the life of her babies, Yazmin damn near goes into shock after she attempts to call Trey only to be greeted by his wife of the past ten years……Monae and Malik have had a drama free long distance relationship for the last two years. Malik is a Marine, and is stationed in San Diego. They both have an understanding that once Monae graduates from UCLA, they will have their dream wedding. Planning an intimate surprise party just for two in his apartment, Monae discovers that she is not the only woman waiting for “her” man to come home……Knowing that Devaugn is in a relationship, Nia simply don’t care. He is the ideal man, and Nia is convinced that if she works hard enough, she can show him that she is all the woman that he needs. Stephanie will be a thing of the past and Devaugn can start taking care of Nia and her three children full time. Or will he…….These three friends all have one thing in common; they are really their man’s chick on the side. What happens when a woman find’s out that she is not her man’s main course, she is only the appetizer…..

Open Doors


Gloria Goldreich - 2008
    After a lifetime spent utterly devoted to her soul mate and their marriage, Elaine is now tetherless, faced with widowhood and all the decisions that come with it, not least of which is what to do with her rambling, now-empty family home. Anxious to console their mother in her time of grief, Elaine's four grown children urge her to put everything on hold and spend some healing time with them. But visiting each unique and complicated child opens Elaine's eyes to the fact that the children she raised have become adults she hardly knows: Sarah, who abandoned Western life for an orthodox enclave in Jerusalem; Lisa, Sarah's accomplished twin and polar opposite, who will do anything for a child of her own; Peter, trapped in a hollow marriage in California; and Denis, the youngest, who just wants Elaine to accept his gay lifestyle.As Elaine tries to bridge the physical and emotional miles, her eyes are opened to the startling truths of her own family, and what she must do to come to terms with her kids' lives—and a future that's completely, wonderfully…hers.

Ruth Wyatt: Rescued By The Sheriff


Jan Motion - 2014
    Ruth Wyatt grew up in an orphanage after she lost her parents in a stage coach robbery. The family had thought she had also died in that robbery until 16 years later, someone told her cousin that they had seen a girl who could be his sister. From there, the family tracked her down and sent her a train ticket to come home. But it wasn't as easy as that.

That Good Night


Richard Probert - 2016
    With the help of an old sailing buddy living in Maine, Charlie plans to go AWOL permanently, buy a boat, and hit the high seas, where he will live out the remainder of his life on his own terms.Nothing ever goes quite as planned, though, and as Charlie heads towards Maine on a 46-foot sailboat, he strikes up an unexpected romance with Abigail, a woman decades his junior. Things take a darker turn, though, when he discovers a former FBI agent-turned-insurance-investigator hot on his trail. Agent Roberts has been hired to find out what happened to Charlie: bring him back if he s alive, or determine he s dead so his estranged sons can collect on his life insurance policy. Roberts doesn t expect a fight from the old man, but that s just what he gets. Because Charlie has no intention of ever returning to Sunset, whether in handcuffs or a pine box.Funny, heart-warming, and heart-breaking, "That Good Night" tells the story of a man who, rather than rail against going gentle into that good night, as Dylan Thomas wrote, instead wishes to simply sail into a sunset of his own choosing."

Second Place Sister


Sue Horner - 2014
    Ali” to friends and family. Janelle Jennings: a forty-nine-year-old bestselling romance author, Botox-stuffed narcissist, four-time ex-wife (but who’s counting?), and all-around spoiled brat. What could these two possibly have in common? Uncork the wine. Bring out the calming chocolate. Ali Lawrence’s diva sister, Janelle Jennings, is making an unexpected visit to their hometown of Willoughby, Georgia, and Ali needs help. Since they were schoolgirls, Ali has suffered ridicule and criticism from her prom queen, beauty pageant older sister, whom their mother still coddles at Ali’s expense. Ali is suspicious of her sister’s motives for visiting Willoughby, and especially her odd behavior and uncharacteristically long stay. Something’s not quite right, and Ali is both curious and concerned. During this visit, Ali vows to stop being a bitter doormat and stand up to Janelle. But when Ali discovers a secret that has the potential to destroy Janelle’s career and tarnish her reputation, will she expose her sister, or, for the sake of family unity, will she protect her? Can the sisters finally come to terms with each other, admire their achievements, and ignore their faults, or will their relationship continue to disintegrate, bringing bedlam to Willoughby in the process? Someone has to take the first step: Will it be Janelle in her stepladder stilettos or Ali in her ratty, old running shoes?

Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" (Screen Adaptations)


R. Barton Palmer - 2008
    Literature and film adaptations studies students will find plenty of material to support their courses and essay writing on how the film versions provide different readings of the original text. Focussing on several film versions and adaptations, the book discusses: the literary text in its historical context, key themes and dominant readings of the text, how the text is adapted for screen and how adaptations have changed our reading of the original text. There are many references to the literary text and screenplays and the book also features quotations from directors, critics and others linked with the chosen film and text.

The Magic of Starlight


Anita Stansfield - 2021
    With only her few possessions, she flees her former life with no thought of returning. What she discovers upon her arrival at Rookhaven Hall, however, is quite different from what she anticipated. When the enigmatic Lord Edmond Rookburne returns from his long travels in India, the handsome widower shocks the household with the addition of three young children. They are not his lordship’s own blood but are Indian orphans left in his care. As their nanny, all Elsie sees is the desperate need of the traumatized little ones. She sets to work enveloping them in love and concern, and Edmond is immediately drawn in by Elsie’s exceptional warmth. Working together as unlikely caretakers, they forge a genuine friendship. But when they find themselves spiraling toward a forbidden romance, both Edmond and Elsie know that a life together would be impossible. For Edmund, the constraints of Society are absolute. But for Elsie, it is the secret of her past that ensures their love can never be.

In My Dreams It Was Simpler


Tolulope Popoola - 2010
    They have been through many ups and downs together, from their pre-university days to the present time as young career women. They constantly have to deal with the measures of success - striking the perfect balance in all aspects of their lives - careers, relationships, cultural expectations, moral dilemmas and the demands of 'having it all'. Then there are the men: Tade - a guy from Temmy's recent past who is now stalking her, Dayo - who Titi is initially reluctant to introduce to her friends, and Wole who appears to tick all the boxes that Lola is looking for but has a shady past she wants to uncover by all means. They are thrown together in a series of intriguing events and twists, their dreams are shattered, and loyalties are tested to breaking point. Against all odds, the six friends have tried to stay afloat, but they don't know what the future holds.Will they pull through and become stronger? Or will they become victims of circumstances they cannot control? Find out in this intriguing and exciting new fiction series!

. . . 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.

Arizona Clan


Zane Grey - 1958
    Kansas rider Dodge Mercer is an ex-gunslinger hungry for the quiet life and seeking only a little corner of peace in Arizona, so he drifts west looking for a spread of his own, but he runs up against the Southwest's three most dangerous things: a beautiful young woman, sorghum booze runners, and hot-flying lead!

To Kill a Mockingbird / The Agony and the Ecstasy / The Winter of Our Discontent / Fate Is the Hunter


Ernest K. Gann - 1961
    

Rosemillion


J. Helen Elza - 2012
    The strangers came first for the timber. Next they came for the coal. Now, they've returned-for Widows Hollow. Pick McKinley is cursed with a fear of strangers. The strangers taunt mountain people and call them Hillbillys. Now, newly orphaned, illiterate, and impoverished, Pick must leave her mountain home and go among the strangers in town to find work if she and her younger siblings are to survive. Maybe it won't be so bad. Her mama had worked among them, cleaning and mending. Pick could not have been more mistaken. Her first encounter with Dr. Stephen Stalworth, Ashford's favorite son and one of its wealthiest, most powerful citizens, almost cost Pick her life and would have but for intervening fate and her rescuer, Jan Vandeventer, the handsome Bluegrass Son of wealthy, world famous horse breeders. Pick is no hillbilly. She's a survivor who has survived against all odds. She must save herself, her siblings, and her community from Stalworth who has vowed to destroy them and she must do it with the only weapons she possesses; faith, and a fairy tale-- called Rosemillion. In her debut novel, J.Helen Elza has crafted a tale of struggle and survival that transcends reading. Rosemillion is a tale to experience and Widows Hollow, despite its poverty, is a place you will want to return to time and again; To fish with the feisty and unapologetic mountain man, Samuel Llewellyn Simpson, "Stump"; "Pay 'em no mind, Miss, they's hollower 'n a cane pole and not nearly so useful." Or to laugh at the fiery- tempered Early Mae, "Mama- John Johnson"; "What is you up to, Old Man? You a'grinnin like a possum in a hen house!" Or to commiserate with Jan who is caught between his world of ivy-league universities and world champion thoroughbreds and her world of illiteracy and poverty; "Jacques, if you want to end our friendship here and now, you call her a hillbilly one more time! I'm sick of it! You and any one of the rest of our so-called peers pick a label, any label, and it's official! Margaret and Victoria call Pick a hillbilly, so she's a hillbilly, right?" Or to grab your hanky and sob or to stand up and shout for sixteen-year old Pick McKinley; "You may call me white trash and hillbilly. You may hate me and my kind, BUT YOU AIN'T GONNA CAUSE THAT LITTLE BABY TO BE A DYIN!" Written as a woman's novel, Rosemillion also appeals to men: "I really did enjoy reading the book and thought Ms. Miller did a wonderful job of placing the reader in the moment. Also, her character development is superb. I've told friends that I never found myself bored reading Rosemillion as I often do when reading other books. Jerry Snow USN Retired Rosemillion will leave you cheering and wanting more. Fortunately, there is more. Rosemillion is book one in J. Helen Elza's Appalachian Trilogy. Look for book two "Return to Widows Hollow," and book three "The Red Amaryllis," coming soon to book stores and kindles near you.

Across the Pond


Virginia Jewel - 2011