Take My Hand


Kerry Fisher - 2020
    They shine a light on what it really feels like when your world shatters and how they found hope in the deepest despair.Best friends since they met at university, Kerry and Pat had no idea that thirty years later, they’d need every ounce of their friendship to survive. In 2017, their worlds came crashing down when their teenage sons were both diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses within weeks of each other.During the following rollercoaster months, Kerry and Pat regularly snatched time to message each other – often with black humour – providing a momentary refuge from their frightening realities. Together these two ordinary mums found a way to survive their extraordinary challenges and to navigate a new normal in an alien and isolating world. With raw honesty, they share the things they’ve learnt and what they wish they’d known – from how to tame raging mother guilt to restoring their natural optimism in the aftershock of tragedy.In this profoundly moving book, Kerry and Pat take readers on a very personal exploration of the universal experiences of grief and loss, love and friendship that connect us all. Like a wise companion offering comfort, Take My Hand is a lifeline both to those overwhelmed by heartbreak and for friends and family who don’t know how to help. Most of all, it’s a powerful reminder that no matter how difficult life gets, you are not alone.

The Way of the Hive: A Honey Bee's Story


Jay Hosler - 2000
    LikeWhen does a bee go through metamorphosis?Why does a queen bee sometimes leave her hive?And where does all this honey come from, anyway?!But Nyuki’s biggest question is, “What is this inner voice I hear, and why does it tell me to go forth to adventure?Follow Nyuki on a lifelong journey as she annoys her sisters, avoids predators, and learns to trust her inner voice as she masters the way of the hive.And if you still have questions at the end, the back of the book uncovers even more mysteries about the lives of these incredible insects!

Our Naked Souls


Justin Wetch - 2020
    It is a journey through intense emotions, a struggle with anxiety and mental health, and a contemplation of some of life’s biggest questions. Each themed section explores a different part of romance, from the exhilaration of total vulnerability to the isolation of irrevocable loss, and everything in between. Anyone who’s found or forfeited love will see themselves in the lines of Our Naked Souls.

What It's Really Like


Jane Morris - 2020
    In this book, you’ll find a bit of everything including the usual helicopter parents and awful administration, horrendous student behavior with no consequences, and crazy-ass parents and their insane requests. But you’ll also find weirdly entertaining stories about a little kid with a foot fetish, a group of teachers chasing a naked kid around the school parking lot, and two pregnant sisters fighting over the same baby daddy on the first day of school. There’s plenty of gross stuff, like all the strange places kids put their poop and dirty maxi pads, a Barbie in a butthole, and kids who masturbate in class and hump desks. Unlike her other books, Morris included a sprinkling of tales that will break your heart and a few that will give you the warm and fuzzies we all need to keep going. This book is hilarious, shocking, heartwarming, sad, gross, and sometimes inspiring because that is what teaching is really like.

The Country Village Summer Fete


Cathy Lake - 2021
    On the cusp of her 50th birthday, she suddenly realises that she doesn't have many meaningful relationships in her life. She's single, successful, living alone and thinks she's loving it, but being so focussed on work and always online means she's lost any real connection to people.When Emma gets a call to say her ageing father is becoming increasingly confused, she decides that she should go back home to the countryside to spend some time with him. But returning to Little Bramble, the village she grew up in, after all these years, is filled with complications of its own and people she'd rather avoid.As Emma starts to settle in to her childhood home, she finds herself loving village life - much to her surprise. When the opportunity to get involved in the running of the summer fete comes her way, before she knows it she's embracing jam making, cake baking and bunting. And with romance brewing, Emma begins to doubt the glamorous life in London that she worked so hard to build . . .

The Very Last Leaf


Stef Wade - 2020
    Can Lance conquer his fear of falling and just let go when the time comes for his final exam, or will he let his worries take over? In this funny and encouraging picture book, best-selling author Stef Wade (A Place for Pluto) tells an engaging story and deftly addresses social and emotional struggles many kids encounter each day...feeling anxious, wanting to be perfect, facing fears, etc. These themes combined with illustrator Jennifer Davison's delightful characters and rich autumnal colors make The Very Last Leaf a perfect book for the start of a new school year, the arrival of autumn, or any period of transition in life.

Lexie's Little Lie


Emma Shevah - 2019
    But after the death of their grandmother, Lexie tells a terrible, instinctive, jealous lie about an heirloom necklace, a lie that splits the family apart. It's up to her to bring the family back together ... but after such a lie, can she find a way to tell the truth?

Buried in My Past


Eva MacKenzie - 2020
    But the truth won't set her free...Jamie Kendal sees life through the bottom of a bottle. After surviving assault and betrayal, she is forced back to her hometown to care for her mother. Not long after her return, she's plagued by terrifying slivers of memories from the night her twin brother disappeared forever...Unearthing new evidence, she's shocked to learn she'd been found wandering in the woods that same night-- covered in blood. More than one person from her past hid a haunting truth that's bubbling to the surface. The deeper she digs into the horrors from her past, the more she fears anyone could be a killer, including Jamie herself.Can Jamie expose what happened that night, or will she join her missing brother?

The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day


Christopher Edge - 2018
    She's hoping for the things she needs to build her own nuclear reactor. But she wakes to an empty house and outside the front door is nothing but a terrifying, all-consuming blackness. Trapped in an ever-shifting reality, Maisie knows that she will have to use the laws of the universe and the love of her family to survive. And even that might not be enough...A mind-bending mystery for anyone who's ever asked questions. From the author of The Many Worlds of Albie Bright and The Jamie Drake Equation.

Starlight Cottage


K.T. Dady - 2021
    A small close-knit community where you’ll find chocolate box cottages, quaint shops, love, drama, and a happily ever after.Snuggle down with this cosy, feel-good, comfort read that whisks you away to a beautiful bay on the Isle of Wight – Perfect for fans of Christie Barlow, Phillipa Ashley, and Holly Martin.The Pepper Bay books are standalone stories that intertwine with recurring characters. Best read in order for maximum enjoyment.Starlight Cottage: Anna Cooper and Jake Reynolds both live at a luxury London building. The only difference is that Jake lives in the penthouse, and Anna lives in a tent on the roof.When Jake finds out, he offers Anna a chance of a new life in his grandmother’s childhood home in Pepper Bay, and she decides to take the opportunity to see if she really can make a fresh start somewhere else.The beauty of Pepper Bay, with its quaint shops, chocolate box cottages, and all of Jake’s closest friends, immediately fills Anna’s heart with nothing but love, and it isn’t just Starlight Cottage that she finds herself falling in love with.

Just for the Summer (Willowbury #3)


Fay Keenan - 2021
    While her three sons spend the summer holiday with their father, Kate has an opportunity to prove to herself that there is a new life, after her divorce.Harry Sinclair is the owner of Vale Volumes book shop on Willowbury High Street. Content, if a little bored with his lot, his shop, as well as his life, could do with freshening up. When Kate offers to spruce up Vale Volumes ready for the visit of a famous author, they find they have a lot more in common than colour schemes.But both have secrets and responsibilities, and when the trials of family life threaten their burgeoning friendship, can they overcome the experiences of their pasts? Will Somerset’s most magical town cast its spell on them? Or will Kate and Harry have to concede that their friendship really is just for the summer?Let Fay Keenan transport you to the perfect British summertime, with beautiful countryside, an unforgettable romance, and just the right dose of escapism. Perfect for all fans of Debbie Macomber, Cathy Bramley and Katie Fforde.

Bar Maid


Daniel Roberts - 2021
    It’s September 1987. Charlie Green is an eighteen-year-old romantic and aspiring alcoholic, whose great wish is to fall in love with a light-eyed girl on his first day of college and never look back. Charlie believes in the magic of bars and girls. He believes he can use these talismans to finally feel at home, an assurance his dim and privileged childhood did not provide. At the Sansom Street Oyster House, he meets Paula Henderson, a beautiful and deceptively soulful waitress who is the most overqualified bar maid in all the city—and perhaps the most alluring. But there are obstacles in the Philly night between Charlie and his full heart. Drunks, louts, boyfriends—heroes too. And in Paula’s eyes, Charlie becomes one. When she takes him home to New Hope, PA, to meet her very Catholic mother, the young couple must contend with the consequences of their pure love.  In this darkly comedic coming-of-age novel, Charlie Green needs to grow up fast. At stake is his soul.

Murder In The Family


Jeremy Josephs - 1995
    On the night of 10 October 1987 Nicholas and Elizabeth Newall went out to dinner with their sons to celebrate her 48th birthday. It was the last time that the parents were seen alive. Sometime during that evening, they were bludgeoned to death at their home, their bodies removed, leaving only bloodstains behind. For six years Roderick Newall denied all responsibility for the murder - even after his dramatic arrest on the high seas by a Royal Navy frigate, followed by extradition from Gibraltar to stand trial on Jersey. But he could no longer live a lie, and took detectives to a beauty spot on the island where he had buried his parents with the help of his younger brother, Mark. What drove Roderick to murder his apparently loving parents? And why should Mark Newall have been prepared to put his loyalty to his brother above that to his parents, thus becoming an accomplice to murder? MURDER IN THE FAMILY is the gripping account of Jersey's most notorious and fascinating murder case: the hunt to track down and convict the Newall brothers is a thriller without parallel. Jeremy Josephs has had extensive co-operation from those close to the case and the Newall family in writing this enthralling book.

Samantha Spinner and the Super Secret Plans


Russell Ginns - 2018
    Her uncle Paul disappeared, and here's what he left: Samantha's sister got a check for $2,400,000,000. Samantha's brother got the New York Yankees. And Samantha...got a rusty red umbrella with a tag hanging off of its worn handle. The tag says "Watch out for the RAIN." Thanks, Uncle Paul. Even harder for Samantha to understand is, after all the strawberry waffles they've shared, how could Uncle Paul leave without saying goodbye? The answer is simple. Sam knows in her heart that uncle Paul is in danger. If only he'd left a clue...Well, if Sam's Uncle Paul taught her anything, it's that not everything is exactly what it seems. Which is why we should pay close attention to that rusty red umbrella, and never trust a monkey at a hula-hoop contest. The RAIN is coming and whether she likes it or not, Samantha Spinner is about to find herself mixed up in some super-puzzling, super-dangerous, super-secret plans. And if she's brave enough, she might just find Uncle Paul.

Rooms of the Mind


Makenzie Campbell - 2021
    Here you’ll find an exploration of pain, heartbreak and wonder at what the world might bring us next.