It ends with a promise. On her deathbed Frances extracts it from her three daughters—the utterly capable homemaker Alice; the recalcitrant Allegra, a recovering alcoholic; and bohemian Edie, who shrinks in the face of any commitment: their promise to “look after Libba.” As if the formidable, tough-minded Libba Charles, author of ten books, a literary celebrity, needed looking after. Yet when they are summoned by Libba to Creek Cabin, their mother’s summer hideaway in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, they go. None of them is prepared, though, for what they will discover there—about their mother, about Libba, about themselves—in this poignant, adroit rendering of reunions and farewells.

    If finding her mother Nellie in hospital after a savage beating from her husband wasn’t enough, Emily’s plight deepens when she yields to the advances of Tommy, a young soldier, and becomes pregnant with his child.Not for nothing is Victoria station nicknamed the ‘palace of tears’. As trainloads of men leave for the Western Front, and Emily says goodbye to Tommy, she is left contemplating the life of a single mother. Yet amidst the devastation, happiness still lies within her grasp… A classic saga of World War One, Palace of Tears is a perfect read for fans of Carol Rivers, Sally Warboyes, and Annie Murray.

    Anna Hall arrives in Sebring, Maine with her two teenage boys and a bold dream. Investing her late husband's life insurance policy into the classy yet nearly forgotten motel, Club Blue, the ambitious single mother hits the much-needed reset button on her troubled life. However, when peculiar guests arrive and strange sounds leak through the oddly thick walls, Anna quickly finds her lifelong dream plummeting into a short-lived nightmare.The Haunting of Meade MansionEmily thought she was leaving her money troubles behind when she inherited an old house from her great aunt who went missing the previous year.When she and her husband Jesse arrive at the house, they discover Aunt Matilda was murdered--and the culprit is still at large. Guided by the ghosts of Matilda and the orphans she raised, Emily and Jesse must catch the criminal and save themselves before it's too late.

    But they struggled to cope with the devastating news their daughter Emmie has incurable cancer. It feels like their world – and their relationship – has come crashing down. They must do everything to support their little girl, but can they stop their marriage falling apart? Unbeknownst to her parents, Emmie is on a mission. She is determined to make them see what brought them together in the first place – and make them fall in love all over again. One Last Wish is a spellbinding, unputdownable and heartbreaking read, perfect for fans of Alice Peterson, Amanda Prowse or Adele Parks. Praise for Ella Harper ‘A great book to curl up with’ Daily Mail ‘Warm, perceptive and razor sharp. It’s everything you want from a novel’ Veronica Henry ‘You won’t be able to stop reading’ Heat Magazine‘Poignant, heart-wrenching, and wonderfully uplifting too. A remarkable debut full of well-crafted characters that stayed with me long after the last page’ Alexandra Brown‘Move over authors, a new queen is in town! Ella Harper has written a book that will have you gripped from page one to the very last. This is a story that will contend well with Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You and Cecelia Ahern's P.S. I Love You’ Book Shelf‘A beautiful and moving read that had me hooked from the start. I couldn’t put it down until I knew what happened!’ Jill Loves to Read‘A bittersweet, heart-wrenching story that will make you think a lot and wonder what you would do’ Lost in Chick-litElla Harper learned foreign languages, and imagined she might eventually get a glamorous job speaking French. After climbing her way up the banking ladder, Ella started idly mapping out the beginnings of a novel on an old laptop. When she realised her characters were more real to her than dividends and corporate actions ever could be, she left her job to become a writer.

    has dared to take on a difficult, grief-stricken period of English history, and done so with sensitivity and understanding; EARTH AND HEAVEN is the clever, compelling result' The Times

    This lenticular journal cover sets in motion images of slithering, shuffling zombies from the bestselling graphic novel The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks. Filled with lined pages, this all-purpose journal is perfect for jotting down notes, making to-do lists, plotting your own survival strategy, and is just the creepy thing for zombie fans everywhere.

    No more than eeny, meeny, miney, mo and who we were supposed to catch by the toe.Wish Mooney’s earliest memory in life is finding a corpse in the Waterford River. Jarring stuff for a four-year-old, yet far from the most shocking or bizarre he would witness growing up in west end St. John’s next door to the Waterford Hospital. Or, as it was unabashedly labelled before the advent of political correctness: the Mental.An unfortunate moniker, but one legitimately derived from the original name of the place—the Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases—when it opened in 1854. Not until 1972 would it be renamed after the river that runs by it. But in Mooney’s world, which revolved mostly in and around the asylum’s drab, depressing confines in the mid-1970s, it was colloquially the Mental, just as its largely despondent inhabitants were the mental patients.Thus was the oft-surreal environment that unavoidably enveloped Wish and the rest of the Irish Catholic Mooney clan, including the quietly acknowledged other realities of the place—the sad, the tragic, the maniacal. Little did Wish ever consider that any or all of that would come full circle later in life when, as the court reporter for the Daily News, he would be thrust into the middle of his own life story, replete with shocking conclusion.

    Sorry. Yours, Sheb Woolly Ledoux. Asshole.” Eugenia is nine years old, a synaesthesiac and a tightrope walker. She adores her father and his lunatic charms; she loves that he takes her fishing in the middle of the night and calls her Stunt. Sheb has always promised he’ll one day take her to the moonscape of northern Ontario, where astronauts train; instead he writes a note, blows up a shoulder-pad factory, and leaves. His heartbroken daughter is left behind with her mother, the sharp-edged former ingenue Mink, and her sister, the death-obsessed and hauntingly beautiful Immaculata.After a fake funeral for Sheb, Mink vanishes too. Eugenia and Immaculata, left alone, double in age overnight. Immaculata becomes a swan-like giantess, and soon finds her calling caring for Leopold, a diseased and irresistible malcontent down the street. Eugenia, however, stays the same: dark and diminutive, and bereft. She finds herself a bicycle and sets off to track down her father, encountering an astronaut and a waitress named Cupid along the way.Stunt is the first novel by one of Canada’s most acclaimed playwrights. Like synaesthetic Eugenia, your senses will be addled as Dey’s words take on colours, tastes, and smells, somehow coming to mean more than you thought they did; they depict, with compassionate hilarity and luminous heartbreak, the love between a girl and her father.

    He gives me what I think I want; passion, release, and a chance to wipe away past hurt. He takes what he needs, controlling me in a way I've never experienced before.I think it will be enough, but it isn't. Even before he's left my hotel room, I'm craving more. I don't even know his name.But sometimes people are not who they seem, and when my stranger reveals his true identity, things get complicated. Rich and powerful, Aaron is a man who could destroy everything I've worked for, but underneath his dominance there's something about him that draws me.Is it possible to trust a man who concealed his identity in order to possess you? Aaron has secrets that are wrapped around his heart and finding love was never part of the plan. But as I learn more about my stranger, resisting him might just become impossible.This is a standalone romance, but characters from Billion Dollar Daddy do make an appearance!

    Lucy Von Alstyne sends fictitious letters to her friend Alicia, pretending to be the father of Alicia's twins, and the two welfare mothers and their five children set off on a journey to find him, facing along the way the complications of living in poverty and raising fatherless children.

    The band's story unfolds through the eyes of Jim, a small-town violin prodigy who struggles with her past as well as her present; and Rize, an emotionally charged trombone player who is stuck playing sidekick to his best friend, charismatic lead singer Jules. As the band's popularity mounts, the pressures of road-life and success begin to complicate relationships and The Angel Riots' chaotic world threatens to implode. Dark and dazzling, this novel will firmly establish Kaslik's reputation as a young literary talent.

    An Ivy League graduate who grew up on Park Avenue takes his first job at the most sensational tabloid newspaper in New York City - and soon finds himself writing promotional stories about a cash giveaway contest intended to keep the paper alive! Jack Stone is not your everyday reporter, and his real education doesn’t begin in earnest until he hooks up with streetwise photographer Vinnie Corcora to do stories about the contest winners - a cast of characters who bring new meaning to "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It’s a wild ride that defies expectations and stereotypes, and along the way Jack earns a Ph.D in the human condition - while learning the true meaning of love, loyalty and friendship.

    Morbidly amused by the decadent decay of his surroundings, he watches the patrons fall into their nightly oblivion, making notes for his novel. In the hope of uncovering their secrets and motives, he establishes tentative friendships with the cast of variously pathological regulars. But as his tenure at the bar continues, he begins to serve himself more often than his customers, and the moments he lives outside the bar become more and more painful: he loses his wife, his way, himself. Trapped by his habits and his loneliness, he realizes he will not survive if he doesn't break free. And so he hatches a terrible, but necessary plan of escape and his only chance for redemption. Step into Ablutions and step behind the bar, below rock bottom, and beyond the everyday take on storytelling for a brilliant, new twist on the classic tale of addiction and its consequences.

    When his father dies, Anil becomes the de facto head of the Patel household and inherits the mantle of arbiter for all of the village’s disputes. But he is uneasy with the custom, uncertain that he has the wisdom and courage demonstrated by his father and grandfather. His doubts are compounded by the difficulties he discovers in adjusting to a new culture and a new job, challenges that will shake his confidence in himself and his abilities.Back home in India, Anil’s closest childhood friend, Leena, struggles to adapt to her demanding new husband and relatives. Arranged by her parents, the marriage shatters Leena’s romantic hopes and eventually forces her to make a desperate choice that will hold drastic repercussions for herself and her family. Though Anil and Leena struggle to come to terms with their identities thousands of miles apart, their lives eventually intersect once more—changing them both and the people they love forever.

    His arrival changes everything, and sets in motion a rapid-fire plot with all the twists and turns we expect of Coupland. By turns funny and heartbreaking, Eleanor Rigby is a fast-paced read and a haunting exploration of the ways in which loneliness affects us all.