The trade paperback edition of David Bowman's prize-winning first novel, Let the Dog Drive, has developed a cult following. Now Bowman's exuberantly praised second novel -- a hard-boiled comedy about love, abduction, and child care, set in a future where electricity has disappeared and fertility is on the wane, but human passions are as messy as ever -- is also in trade paperback.

    The memories of a world at war are fading in the face of a prosperous future. Doors are left unlocked at night, and neighbors are always there to give each other a helping hand.The people here know certain things as fact:Amorea is the best little town there is.The only good Commie is a dead Commie.The Women’s Club of Amorea runs the town with an immaculately gloved fist.And bookstore owner Mike Frazier loves that boy down at the diner, Sean Mellgard. Why they haven’t gotten their acts together is anybody’s guess. It may be the world’s longest courtship, but no one can deny the way they look at each other.Slow and steady wins the race, or so they say.But something’s wrong with Mike. He hears voices in his house late at night. There are shadows crawling along the walls, and great clouds of birds overhead that only he can see.Something’s happening in Amorea. And Mike will do whatever he can to keep the man he loves.

    He then pulled down the zipper of his trousers and aimed at the abyss…Ruan Nanzhu: “…Put your pants on properly!”Super shameless, ill, pampered gong X Shameless, calm shou; a combination of double [or extreme] shamelessness.

    Not being happy all the time makes them stressed out of their tights. Carol practises uninhibited sex which ends with her panty liner stuck to the bottom of someone's shoe. Donnie, after a mystery bite in a third world country, thinks he's incubating a nest of spiders up his bum. Daphne gets fat. She makes soup all the time and wonders if Woolworth's sell a hose pipe to fit a Vauxhall Vectra. Pierce is a poet; a fat balding womaniser who's only steady relationship is with a cup at the sperm bank. He's the only one not on anti-depressants, and he's the hero.

    In short, this is the tragic tale of a saint-like man who transmigrated into a web novel as a mob character and wanted to rehabilitate the villain, only to realize in the end, he became more and more villainous.The ludicrous story:Unable to bear hurting the villain he helped raise, but when it came to compensating with his own body, the unfortunate, straight male reader figured he’d better escape… …Many years later, the same unfortunate saint rubbed his neck, asking, “This is a dog collar you put on me, isn’t it?”The handsome villainous boss gave a glance with his elegant, almond-shaped eyes, and then replied with a devious, charming smile, “That’s to prevent you from running away again.”“If I stay put, will you refrain from destroying the world?”

    But her initial excitement is rapidly followed by a mounting sense of panic when reality sinks in and she realizes just how much work is involved - especially when an innocent mistake leads the festival committee to mistakenly believe that Laura is a personal friend of the author at the top of their wish-list. Laura might have been secretly infatuated with the infamous Dermot Flynn ever since she studied him at university, but travelling to Ireland to persuade the notorious recluse to come out of hiding is another matter. Determined to rise to the challenge she sets off to meet her literary hero. But all too soon she's confronted with more than she bargained for - Dermot. The man is maddening, temperamental and up to his ears in a nasty case of writer's block. But he's also infuriatingly attractive - and, apparently, out to add Laura to his list of conquests ...

    He's loved her since high school. She's holding on to the past. He's worked hard to overcome his. Brooks knew better than to fall in love with Jaclyn. She's a trust fund kid, and he's from the wrong side of the tracks. Guys like him never end up with girls like her. His head understood the rules. His heart was another story.

    Now, as an adult, his life is solid enough to begin taking some risks. So when an intriguing and handsome man asks him on a date, he says yes.But then he’s forced to contend with the man’s brother, whose presence creates conflict, chaos, and confusion that threatens to upend the careful peace Jude’s spent years building.

    Explicit language warning but little erotic content. (11,000 words ~ 43 pages) First published in The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2 (2010).WARNINGContains confused lovelorn werewolves and very pretty ex-Goth mermen who are exclusively interested in each other. May also contain fish, Irish mafia, and a shocking lack of tea.

    Even if it means working for Jameson Stone, the billionaire CEO of Craze Advertising, who’s as hard and unmovable as his name implies. He tells me to demand what I want instead of backing down, something I’ve always struggled with—in the boardroom and the bedroom. There are things I want to try, things I’ve only read in my romance novels, but have been too afraid to ask for.    When my boldness lessons turn into foreplay lessons, it’s nearly impossible not to fall, and if I’m not careful, I’ll end up losing everything I’ve worked for to a man who’ll always choose business over me. A hot and hilarious standalone romantic comedy about a woman who gets in way over her head with her sexy billionaire CEO boss. Guaranteed HEA!

    Her younger sister Mimi is funny and bright but hopelessly lost, with no career prospects, no money, no love life and a string of disastrous mistakes in her past.When Sabrina asks Mimi to be her bridesmaid, Mimi soon learns that 'bridesmaid' actually means 'unofficial wedding planner - servant, slave and general dogsbody'. And, to her horror, she knows that it's going to take more than just patience to whip up the wedding of the century, especially when the official wedding planner has a murky secret that could rock Sabrina and Edward's world...

    Yet her mom, always critical of her, is furious that Elinor is touching any part of the overflowing collection of random possessions. When county inspector Race Ericson threatens a court summons if the hoard isn’t massively reduced in a hurry, he pushes Elinor to choose: Surrender to her mother’s insistence that she do nothing, obey her bossy elder sister’s edict that she sort carefully through every single pile, or satisfy Race’s demand that she ruthlessly clear out the junk? Elinor has never been shy with attractive men. Satisfying Race would be a pleasure. But when family secrets come to light and surprises turn up on her doorstep, Elinor’s task gets even more complicated, forcing her to reevaluate her long-held beliefs about her family—and her life choices. Cleaning Her House is a meaty stand-alone women's fiction novel featuring a rich variety of characters, a romance with a hint of steam, family secrets, and a ton of clutter. There's a happy ending, too. (Maybe not for the clutter.)

    A missing professor. Some nefarious men in gray suits. And a dreamworld called the Troposphere? Ariel Manto has a fascination with nineteenth-century scientists--especially Thomas Lumas and The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read. When she mysteriously uncovers a copy at a used bookstore, Ariel is launched into an adventure of science and faith, consciousness and death, space and time, and everything in between. Seeking answers, Ariel follows in Mr. Y’s footsteps: She swallows a tincture, stares into a black dot, and is transported into the Troposphere--a wonderland where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. There she begins to understand all the mysteries surrounding the book, herself, and the universe. Or is it all just a hallucination?

    A cold and homophobic top matched with a person he hated on a dating app, and discovered that the other was even more clingy than he thought!

    A job as a house/dog-sitter – albeit in a minus one-star leaky cottage in windswept Shelly Beach – seems the perfect opportunity to relax and regroup. But Gina hasn't counted on the locals, and soon finds herself reluctantly convening the writers' group, babysitting, baking, seal-watching, bicycling . . . and perhaps even falling in love.With a cast of unforgettable characters, The Shelly Beach Writers' Group is an irresistible story of reinvention.