The character development is very strong and realistic, and the dialogue of the novel is very powerful.

    From the bestselling author A Glimpse of Stocking and Confession comes the intriguing story of three extraordinary people whose secrets, sins, and shameless hungers lead them to the farthest outposts of lust.Jill Fleming, the beautiful seducer of men and women; Leslie Chamberlain, a successful advertising executive; and Jordan Lazarus, the head of a vast business empire, come together in the ultimate sexual plot

    Time to Say Good-Bye is Judith Gould at her absolute best. This contemporary story of life and love in the face of death has quickly become a favorite among readers-and Gould's highest-grossing hardcover to date...

    Anna's world is rocked when she receives an invitation to her ex Toby's nuptials - Toby was the one, the love of her life. Will attending his big day finally give her the sense of closure she so desperately craves? Or will it only re-open old wounds?

    the plot skips around like gunfire on the ricochet." - LOS ANGELES TIMES "Superior stuff - taut, well observed, original and civilized." - THE TIMES "The women are not mere decoration; they are at the heart of the action." - THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR "Suspense builds from start to finish... the author will rank alongside le Carre, Deighton, and Follett." - WEST COAST REVIEW OF BOOKS VIENNA late 1980s - violence is breaking out in strife-torn Poland. A spark that could set the Soviet prison of Eastern Europe ablaze. There are dangerous Western plans to ensure that the inevitable rising will not be a repeat of Hungary in 1956. In Moscow, faceless men and women know that Bill Cable, after years banished to diplomatic backwaters, is into something big - so big they will destroy him to get it. If they fail, this could mean the end for the Soviet Union. They've had a stranglehold on Cable ever since the tragedy, deep in the past, that led to him being kicked out of the Intelligence Service. Now he is back, as British Ambassador in Vienna. Still compromised but, just to make sure, they kidnap his daughter, Sarah, and threaten her life. Will he betray her - or his country and the freedom of millions?

    Frannie’s close friends rally around her, and next thing she knows, she is living in a mansion and wearing designer clothes. The only thing missing is a husband. Confirmed bachelor, Clay Coleman, has ulterior motives when he agrees to play the role of loving husband, but Fannie, who nursed a crush on him for years, fears she is flirting with danger in their role of let’s pretend. But Fannie and Clay aren’t the only ones keeping secrets. Sooner or later, the truth comes out, exposing everyone involved. Can Frannie ever get past her hurt when she discovers the truth about Clay?

    But when she stows away on a merchant ship, her powers of endurance are stretched to their limit. Then they reach Japan and all her suffering seems worthwhile – until she is abducted by Taro Kumashiro’s warriors. In the far north of the country, samurai warlord Kumashiro is intrigued to learn more about the girl who he has been warned about by a seer. There’s a clash of cultures and wills, but they’re also fighting an instant attraction to each other. With her brother desperate to find her and the jealous Lady Reiko equally desperate to kill her, Hannah faces the greatest adventure of her life. And Kumashiro has to choose between love and compromising his honour …

    Things are wonderful, and she's ready to start a family. Everything changes when Brad is involved in a car crash and dies for thirteen minutes. Previously an agnostic, Brad comes back to life on a mission. Unbeknownst to his wife, he buys a lighthouse on the Hudson River and plans to turn it into a bed and breakfast. Bailey reluctantly joins him, but she's overwhelmed by business stresses, eclectic guests, and strange rumours. And as Brad's behaviour grows increasingly erratic, she must find a way to get him to come back down to earth if their marriage is to survive...

    But now Sister Eugenia Smith wasn't so sure. She was fond of Humphrey, but did she love him? When surgeon Gerard Grenfell offered her the chance to work in Europe, she gladly accepted. Perhaps a break would help her think things through. But Eugenia hadn't expected to fall in love with Gerard. It all seemed pretty hopeless, though, since he was already engaged to the glamorous Miriam. Fortunately, wedding plans could be changed!

    As a ragged impoverished boy, he had been one with the villagers. Now, as the new Earl, he's met with hostility and resentment, especially from his childhood sweetheart, Marged Evans. To make things right with his people (and to win back Marged), he masquerades as a "Rebecca," one of the bewigged, white-cloaked leaders of the 1842 riots against Welsh toll roads. Disguised as a man, Marged rides as one of Rebecca's "daughters," and, as to be expected, falls in love with the man behind the mask.

    He knew he wasn’t looking for anything pure or righteous.He’d never known tenderness, nor did he want to know.It didn’t fit with being Bratva.But when he met her, this tiny bundle of woman he almost wished he were different.There was something about her that appealed to something deep inside him.Something he never realized was even there.She had reached down deep into his soul and taken a piece of himself he didn’t know was even there.For her, he almost wished he was different.Because now that he had tasted her he wouldn’t let her go.RavenShe knew who he was and what he was but she never expected to be drawn to him.She had nothing to offer a man like him.He was one man she never should have met, let alone been allowed to taste.He was everything she’d ever dreamed of and so much more.She knew she should have walked away from him for her own sake.But if she did she’d be nothing more than a shattered soul....

    Why should she continue to write about the myth of romantic love, when she's seen no evidence of it in her own life? Still, she finds herself captivated by the tales of historic Jefferson and the beautiful woman murdered over a century ago for her diamonds. And is it true that anyone who sleeps in Garit's room at the fabled Behringer Inn will wake up in love? No sooner does she check into the bed and breakfast than she finds herself swept away to old Jefferson during its 1876 heyday. And then ... she meets Garit himself. And soon she's caught up in a web of deceit, sabotage, and greed. How can she find her way back to her own time - and does she even want to live in a world without Garit?

    Katharine Lorimer, by hard work, flair and courage, has worked her way to the top of a trade that traditionally belongs to men. Yet, having acquired the Holbein despite fierce competition, she feels not triumph but a terrible anxiety and desolation. The antique business is going through the doldrums, and she herself is reaching the limit of her resources. Worse still, she feels appallingly alone in the world. Reserved and fastidious, she keeps a certain distance from even her dearest friends, and the person she loves most, her niece Nancy, is bound up in her own ambitions to become a famous actress. Katharine has bought the miniature as a gigantic gamble, hoping to sell it to a wealthy American collector, and she sets off for New York with Nancy and her niece’s fiancé. What happens to them all there, and how their lives are altered, makes an engrossing tale, a delightful love story, showing at its best Dr Cronin’s gifts as a novelist. Every Cronin ‘fan’, every reader who enjoys a novel with the old-fashioned virtues of a well-worked-out plot, sympathetic characters, and humanity, will find it absorbing. In the magnificent narrative tradition of The Citadel, The Stars Look Down and Cronin’s other classic novels, Lady With Carnations is a great book by a much-loved author.

    Full of biting social commentary and overwhelming emotion, One for My Baby is a warm and witty novel of love, family, sex, and Tai Chi. Returning to London from Hong Kong after a brief, idyllic marriage ends in tragedy, Alfie Budd finds his world collapsing. Believing his chance for love has passed, he takes comfort in fleeting affairs with his students at Churchill's Language School while watching his parents' marriage, his grandmother's health, and his career ambitions rapidly deteriorate. But then Alfie meets two people who help him to start healing: the old Chinese man he sees practicing Tai Chi in the park every morning and a single mother who needs Alfie's help in completing her education. Soon, our bereft widower is learning much more than Tai Chi and falling for one student above all others. But can Alfie give up meaningless sex for a meaningful relationship? And how much room in our hearts do we really have for love?

    Noah was Alex’s match in every way, while the onetime lion tamer turned world-class interior designer possessed just the air of wildness that Noah preferred in a woman. Inexorably, they found themselves drawn together. So why was each haunted by dreams of the other that seemed to hint at secret lives in bygone times and places–and a relationship fated to end in separation? For Alex, the solution may lie in a Gypsy fortune-teller’s prophecy. To repeat the past is the one thing neither of them wants–but how do you overcome the pull of a destiny that is stronger than time itself?