Stubborn. Terribly lonely.But everyone deserves a second chance… A dazzling debut for 2020 – are you ready to meet Missy Carmichael? Missy Carmichael’s life has become small.Grieving for a family she has lost or lost touch with, she’s haunted by the echoes of her footsteps in her empty home; the sound of the radio in the dark; the tick-tick-tick of the watching clock.Spiky and defensive, Missy knows that her loneliness is all her own fault. She deserves no more than this; not after what she’s done. But a chance encounter in the park with two very different women opens the door to something new.Another life beckons for Missy, if only she can be brave enough to grasp the opportunity. But seventy-nine is too late for a second chance. Isn’t it?

    

    She rejects the outside world and embarks on a contented existence of isolated self-indulgence. But when her nice neighbours Fred and Geraldine introduce her to the roguishly desirable actor Finbar Flynn the walls of the citadel begin to crack . . .

    It's a far cry from his native Ireland, but he believes this is the place he and his wife can make a new life and forget the troubles of the past. And for a time, they do just that. There's a good life, a new house, regular work and, in time, they welcome their new son Marti into the world. But as the years pass, this new life thousands of miles from the Old Country comes under threat. Joey's wife has been struggling with demons of her own, their marriage is on the rocks and suddenly, Joey's wife disappears and takes Marti with her. Joey is beside himself, with no clues about where they are, with both his childhood sweetheart and his son - his pride and joy - now missing. Then, when Joey gets word that his wife and son have returned to Ireland, he knows that he'll now have to do the same if he ever wants to see his son again. And he also knows that he'll finally have to confront the ghosts of his past that he's been running from for years. His Father's Son is a touching and beautiful story of a family struggling to come to terms with their past, their present and an uncertain future.

    A clever canine. A seaside sleuth.After the death of her husband, Liz McLuckie has taken early retirement and moved to Whitby, a picturesque fishing town on the North Yorkshire coast. She thinks the renovation of two ramshackle fishing cottages will take her mind off things, but soon discovers Whitby isn’t quite the peaceful retreat she imagined.When she discovers the body of a local Professor near the medieval Abbey, Liz reluctantly finds herself at the centre of a murder investigation. The post mortem reveals death by drowning. So how did he get onto the clifftop? And why did he have a fish in his pocket?Liz follows the trail of the murderer, and many red herrings - both literal and metaphorical - in the company of her friends, including an almost-reformed burglar, a disgraced archaeology student and Nelson the bull terrier - the ugliest (and bravest!) dog in Yorkshire.Death At The Abbey — Book 1 in the Kipper Cottage Mystery series. Perfect for fans of Stella Cameron and Frances Evesham.

    Is destiny just the past, rewritten?

    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

    A beautiful and brilliant entrepreneur, she’s no stranger to tragedy. But instead of letting grief consume her, she’s dedicated her life to helping others. Now, in addition to running an exclusive health resort, she has a successful career as a life coach, with a reputation for working miracles...And it will take a miracle to get through the gruff, surly shell of her latest client. To all outward appearances, Lyle Cunningham seems to have it all. He’s rich, handsome, and runs one of the biggest consumer businesses in the world. But behind his brooding good looks, this brash billionaire still carries the rage and betrayal of a broken heart, simmering just beneath the surface.When Lyle accepts a challenge to let Fifi streamline his fortune 500 company, the sparks begin to fly. Fifi is determined to prove that Lyle’s inability to trust is hurting his business. And Lyle is convinced that Fifi’s reputation is a sham designed to hustle unsuspecting victims like his mother. As he begins unravelling the mystery that’s Phoenix Jones, each discovery is another adrenalin-pumping twist on his rollercoaster ride. As their work takes them on a breath-taking tour of one of Europe’s most stunning cities, the guarded billionaire finds himself irresistibly drawn to Fifi’s beauty and free spirit...And they both know the dangers of giving in to the inevitable conflagration that’s threatening to consume them. But Fifi is keeping a rather large secret, one that can push Lyle over the edge. The question is … will he survive the fall? Or will it serve to convince him that he was right after all … never to trust?

    The hoard is endless, stacked into every room in the house, teetering in piles along the landing and forming a scree up the stairs. It is all part of Clifford’s waste-not way of thinking in which everything, no matter how broken or obscure, can be re-cycled or re-purposed into something useful or, if kept long enough, will one day be valuable. He had believed in his vision as ardently as any mystic in his holy revelation but now, without the clear projection of his vision to light it up for her as what it would be, it appears to Maisie more grimly than ever as what it is: junk. As Maisie disassembles his stash she is forced to confront the issues which drove her husband to squirrel away other people’s rubbish; after all, she knows virtually nothing about his life before they met. Finally, in the last bastion of his accumulation, she discovers the key to his hoarding and understands – much too late – the man she married. Then, with empty rooms in a house which is too big for her, she must ask herself: what next?

    An inventive, thought-provoking and characteristically bold collection of short fiction and essays from Hanif Kureishi, centered around the vexed relationship between love and hate.In the story of a Pakistani woman who has begun a new life in Paris, an essay about the writing of Kureishi's acclaimed film Le Week-End, and an account of Kafka's relationship with his father, readers will find Kureishi also exploring the topics that he continues to make new, and make his own: growing up and growing old; betrayal and loyalty; imagination and repression; marriage and fatherhood.The collection ends with a bravura piece of very personal reportage about the conman who stole Kureishi's life savings - a man who provoked both admiration and disgust, obsession and revulsion, love and hate.

    Childless Maeve, though rich and successful, is dying of cancer. She wants to leave her business empire to one of the offspring of her two estranged brothers, Des and Leo. But which young relative should she choose? Des has four children. His second wife Judith has just left him and he is overstretched financially. Leo unambitious owner of a hardware store in a remote Australian town has two children. His daughter, suffering from ME defies him to accept her Aunt’s invitation to be treated in England.Judith has met another man. But Cal has fund out that he’s not the biological father of his beloved daughter and his ex-wife wants to take Lily away from him. As the younger generation begin to gather around Maeve, old secrets are revealed, new allegiances made, and there are surprises for every member of the family - because the Corrigan legacy isn’t what it first seems.

    It is an acute and compassionate look at male mid-life crises, female sexual desire, death and the fear of it, children and the trouble with them - all the things we battle with every day.

    It only needed a discarded chip on a South London street to lay him literally flat. So, bedbound and bored, Philip naturally starts to write the story of his life. But the mundane catalogue of seaside holidays and bodged DIY, broken relationships and unspoken truths, reveals more surprises, both comic and touching, than Philip or his family ever bargained for. Even, perhaps, a happy ending ...

    Now finally available in America, Junk Mail is an original selection of pieces from Self's nonfiction and journalism that will introduce American readers to Self as a literary journalist par excellence.Animated by the scathing brilliance and unflinching determination to walk the road less traveled, Junk Mail is an often irreverent trawl through a landscape of drugs, culture, art, literature, and current events — topics Self illuminates with a keen and entirely original eye. We follow Self into the operation of an upstanding crack dealer, behind the myth of the "pragmatist" approach to drug legalization on the streets of Amsterdam, and to lunch with Indian author Salman Rushdie. Whether he is writing about bad boy British artist Damien Hirst, how literary renegade William Burroughs has changed our outlook on art and intoxication, or what the current state of transsexuality has to say about gender for all of us, this is a lively and necessary anthology from one of the defining voices of our times.

    Amidst the chaos of the Bristol blitz, Carrie finds herself falling in love with a young doctor, Dev. Carrie's willing to defy convention and leave her stifling marriage for Dev, but one summer evening, horrific events change Carrie's life for ever. Since that night, for forty years, Carrie's beloved daughter, Gillian, has refused to see or speak to her. Now, someone is digging into the past. Will Carrie break her long silence and, if she does, will Gillian finally be able to forgive?Don't miss any of Amelia's romantic epics, Dance With Wings, A Song At Sunset, A Woman of Secrets and The Secret She Kept.