Book picks similar to
Island Songs by Alex Wheatle
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The Best Seller
Dina Rae - 2016
Her book practically writes itself. She marries her gorgeous agent. Her name is on all of the best seller lists. Billionaire author Jay McCallister takes an interest in her meteoric rise to fame and invites her into his world of alien-believing celebrities. Her life changes forever when he tells her that they were both created inside of a laboratory. These authors are embedding an alien genetic code within the pages of their novels that originated from Nazi Germany because... The time has come. They are here.
The Girl with the Hazel Eyes
Callie Browning - 2019
‘The Girl with the Hazel Eyes’ is well-written and compelling. I give this novel 5/5 stars.” - Bekah’s Bookshelves.A beautifully written coming-of-age tale that examines the bonds of womanhood, feminism and pre-independence life on a small island. Almost fifty years after Susan Taylor was exiled from Barbados for her famous whistle-blowing novel, ‘The Unspeakable Truth’, she contacts a young writer to pen her biography. Susan is crotchety and unpleasant but Lia Davis is broke so she has no choice but to stay and write Susan's biography. As Lia starts to unravel the reclusive author's life, she realizes that some things just don't add up. Susan has been hiding a massive secret for decades and Lia is determined to find out what it is. The Girl with the Hazel Eyes is an endearing novel that tugs at your heart with its examination of love, lies, and loyalty.
Looking For Love
Rosie Harris - 2003
The youngest of three, she longs to be loved by her mother, but Ellen spends all her time with her eldest son, while Abbie and her brother, Sam, take refuge with their neighbours, Sandra Lewis and Peter Ryan.
Although vibrant and attractive, Abbie pushes people away with her constant need for reassurance. Infatuated with Peter, she longs for the day when he tells her that he loves her. And Sam is courting Sandra. But Peter and Sandra have a secret - one that could destroy the friends' relationship should it become known.
Will Abbie finally find the security and affection she has been searching for all her life, or will she always be looking for love...?
The List
Buck Storm - 2019
And for centuries the people watched, waited and hoped. He was to be the redeemer of Israel. The all-powerful King of Kings who would finally and decisively deliver the nation from the iron fist of Rome. Joseph of Arimathea is a wealthy man, but wealth can't buy peace. Nor the affection of the wife he loves. Nicodemus is a leader of Israel who will stop at nothing to find truth. Sadducee and Pharisee--two men, worlds apart, thrown together at the most critical moment in the history of the world. Set against the spectacle and grandeur of ancient Israel and the brutal violence of the Roman Empire, here is a tale not to be missed. Step into THE LIST and experience the Christ story as you never have before.
The Highlander Who Saved Me (Heart of a Highlander Collection Book 2)
Allie Palomino - 2015
Revenge is ripe on his tongue, and he means to have it. His younger sister was raped by an English bastard, and he was going to make him pay even if it meant he had to execute his vengeance on the miscreant's younger, innocent sister. An eye for an eye was the way he saw it.Madeleine Wynton lived her life simply. She had her father and three older brothers, whom she loved dearly. Her life was calm, and while it may seem boring to others, it satisfied her and gave her purpose. She aspired to enter the abbey where she would further serve others. A life of service would surely save her and her mother’s souls from purgatory, wouldn’t it? That was the plan, that is, until she was kidnapped for ransom. Luck wasn't always on her side, but fortunately for her that day, it was. A rather large, intimidating, and surly Highlander came to her rescue. He took her back to the Highlands, promising to send word to her father that she was safe and ready to return home. The more time she spent with Connor and his family, though, the more she began to question everything she always held as truth. Connor was going to make the English reprobates pay, and not even those wide innocent eyes resting above that sharp tongue of Maddie's, was going to make him abandon his intentions. He was not only sending word to Maddie’s father in the form of a ransom, but he also intended to seduce the Englishwoman into his bed. The revenge would taste sweeter if she willingly gave herself to him. Regrettably, Connor didn’t anticipate falling for Maddie’s stubbornness, wit, or charm. It was a dilemma further complicated by his need to keep her safe from one man who wanted to kidnap Maddie for ransom, and another who bought her from her father. Connor needed to keep his secret if he wanted to spend his life with Maddie. Secrets have a way of coming to light no matter how hard you try to keep them in the dark, and his will have everyone questioning the life they thought they knew. Can the love Connor and Maddie nurtured on a net of lies survive the fall when the deceit unravels, or will their love be a casualty of vengeance?The Highlander Who Saved Me is a stand-alone historical romance novel that will have you holding on through twists and turns. The Heart of a Highlander…where the only thing fiercer than a warrior’s battle cry, is the way that he loves…
Forging the Shilling Girl (The Hudson Sagas Book 1)
Emma Hardwick - 2020
Young, widowed Clare Byrne, is escaping the famine in Ireland. On the coffin ship from Dublin, in the final hours of the journey to England, Clare goes into labour. Weakened and alone, the young, beleaguered mother gives birth near the quayside. Unable to look after the newborn, the child is bought for a single shilling by a curious gentleman, the industrialist Samuel Hudson. What will happen to the young girl? What plans does Mr Hudson have for her? Will the child thrive, or merely survive? Also by Emma Hardwick ----------------------------------- The Urchin of Walton Hall
Love, Love Me Do
Mark Haysom - 2014
The year the Beatles first top the charts. The year Martin Luther King has a dream. The year Truman Bird moves his family from their home in Brighton to a dilapidated caravan in the Ashdown Forest - then disappears. Truman's a charmer, a chancer. He is, inevitably, a liar. He's always got away with it, too. But now he's gone a dangerous step too far and only has one day to put things right - before he loses everything. For Truman's wife, Christie, life has not turned out the way she'd imagined. How has she, that young girl of not that many years ago, ended up like this? In a caravan. With three children. And an absent husband. In this most unique, wise and addictive of British debuts, we discover that life has a habit of getting in the way of dreams - but that people find their own extraordinary ways of bouncing back.
Where My Heart Used to Beat
Sebastian Faulks - 2015
But his subject seems more interested in finding out about Robert's past than he does in revealing his own. For years, Robert has refused to discuss his past. After the war ended, he refused to go to reunions, believing in some way that denying the killing and the deaths of his friends and fellow soldiers would mean he wouldn't be defined by the experience. Suddenly, he can't keep the memories from overtaking him. But can he trust his memories and can we believe what other people tell us about theirs?Moving between the present and past, between France and Italy, New York and London, this is a powerful story about love and war, memory and desire, the relationship between the body and the mind. Compelling and full of suspense, Where My Heart Used to Beat is a tender, brutal and thoughtful portrait of a man and a century, which asks whether, given the carnage we've witnessed and inflicted over the past one hundred years, people can ever be the same.
A Girl Is a Body of Water
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi - 2020
Complicating these feelings of abandonment, as Kirabo comes of age she feels the emergence of a mysterious second self, a headstrong and confusing force inside her at odds with her sweet and obedient nature.Seeking answers, Kirabo begins spending afternoons with Nsuuta, a local witch, trading stories and learning not only about this force inside her, but about the woman who birthed her, who she learns is alive but not ready to meet. Nsuuta also explains that Kirabo has a streak of the “first woman”—an independent, original state that has been all but lost to women.Kirabo’s journey to reconcile her rebellious origins, alongside her desire to reconnect with her mother and to honor her family’s expectations, is rich in the folklore of Uganda and an arresting exploration of what it means to be a modern girl in a world that seems determined to silence women. Makumbi’s unforgettable novel is a sweeping testament to the true and lasting connections between history, tradition, family, friends, and the promise of a different future.
Abel's Daughter
Meg Hutchinson - 1996
She has a guardian angel in the form of Sir William Dartmouth, but even when he engineers her release, Phoebe must struggle to make a living for herself. And Annie has not given up her own perverse quest for revenge . . .
The Last Book Party
Karen Dukess - 2019
With her professional ambitions floundering, Eve jumps at the chance to attend an early summer gathering at the Cape Cod home of famed New Yorker writer Henry Grey and his poet wife, Tillie. Dazzled by the guests and her burgeoning crush on the hosts’ artistic son, Eve lands a new job as Henry Grey’s research assistant and an invitation to Henry and Tillie’s exclusive and famed "Book Party"— where attendees dress as literary characters. But by the night of the party, Eve discovers uncomfortable truths about her summer entanglements and understands that the literary world she so desperately wanted to be a part of is not at all what it seems.A page-turning, coming-of-age story, written with a lyrical sense of place and a profound appreciation for the sustaining power of books, The Last Book Party shows what happens when youth and experience collide and what it takes to find your own voice.
Mrs. Everything
Jennifer Weiner - 2019
Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life.But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?
The People We Keep
Allison Larkin - 2021
Failing out of school, picking up shifts at Margo’s diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows” her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be. This lyrical, unflinching tale is for anyone who has ever yearned for the fierce power of found family or to grasp the profound beauty of choosing to belong.
Keeping Lucy
T. Greenwood - 2019
Dover, Massachusetts, 1969. Ginny Richardson's heart was torn open when her baby girl, Lucy, born with Down Syndrome, was taken from her. Under pressure from his powerful family, her husband, Ab, sent Lucy away to Willowridge, a special school for the “feeble-minded." Ab tried to convince Ginny it was for the best. That they should grieve for their daughter as though she were dead. That they should try to move on. But two years later, when Ginny's best friend, Marsha, shows her a series of articles exposing Willowridge as a hell-on-earth--its squalid hallways filled with neglected children--she knows she can't leave her daughter there. With Ginny's six-year-old son in tow, Ginny and Marsha drive to the school to see Lucy for themselves. What they find sets their course on a heart-racing journey across state lines—turning Ginny into a fugitive.For the first time, Ginny must test her own strength and face the world head-on as she fights Ab and his domineering father for the right to keep Lucy. Racing from Massachusetts to the beaches of Atlantic City, through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to a roadside mermaid show in Florida, Keeping Lucy is a searing portrait of just how far a mother’s love can take her.
Falling Forward: A Woman's Journey West
Pat Benedict Jurgens - 2021
Louisa, the spirited eldest daughter of Herzig and Clara Steinbacher, has her whole life ahead of her. She is seventeen, and dreams of the "outside world" beyond her doorstep. But when Clara dies in childbirth, Louisa is suddenly thrust into adulthood-with the burden of her mother's responsibilities...and the care of her younger siblings. The only world she has ever known closes around her.Then Herzig, an elder in their strict Mennonite community, hires young, handsome Thomas to help on the farm. Thomas is hardworking, honest...and not of the Faith. But Louisa can't hide her growing feelings for him. Her choices set in motion a transformation she never expected. But at what cost?