She also acquires a new family: mother-in-law Audrey, disapproving and suspicious of Skyla’s nomadic past; father-in-law Walt, gruff but kind; and Thomas’s brothers, sofa-bound Jeffrey, and Dennis, who moved across the country seemingly to avoid the family. Skyla settles into marriage and motherhood, but quiet life in small-town Wisconsin can’t quell feelings of restlessness. Then into her life comes Madame Picard, the local psychic from the disreputable bookstore, Mystic Books, and new neighbor, Roxanne, whose goal in life is to have twelve kids even though she can’t manage the five she has. Despite her family’s objections, Skyla befriends Roxanne and gets a job at the bookstore, and life gets fuller and more complicated than she ever imagined. Exceptionally heartwarming and inevitably bittersweet, A Scattered Life is a story that will stay with the reader long after the last page is read.

    Ajax Penumbra seeks a book--the single surviving copy of the Techne Tycheon, a mysterious volume that has brought and lost great fortune for anyone who has owned it. Late one night, after another day of dispiriting dead ends, he stumbles across a 24-hour bookstore, and the possibilities before him expand exponentially.

    What’s worse is that every time she leaves the house, she winds up in some kind of altercation. She can’t help but wonder if she’s an idiot magnet, or if she’s the smart-mouth stirring things up. Hoping for a little peace of mind, Ace gives in to the advice of her best friend and goes to see a therapist. But she quickly discovers that the road to nirvana isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. And as Ace goes from one therapeutic misadventure to another, the plus-sized spitfire becomes more determined than ever to find enlightenment—even if it means bending herself into a pretzel to do it.

    She owns a nice house in Silverlake, LA's trendiest neighborhood. She has glamorous and loyal friends who accompany her to the hottest clubs in town. And she works as the personal assistant to Drew Stanton, Hollywood's sexiest movie star. But she's also turning 30, chronically single, and faced with serving as maid of honor at her younger sister's wedding. Charlie finds herself struggling to juggle the chaos of wedding planning (while wondering if she'll ever wear the white dress herself), her all-consuming job for lunatic boss Stanton, and a serious crush on Jordan, a photographer on the set of Drew's latest feature--a man who might actually return her feelings. A page-turner from start to finish, A Total Waste of Makeup puts a fresh face on women's fiction.

    With both Sarah and her cartoon heroine undergoing fertility treatments, her fiction often reflects her reality. However, she hadn't scripted her husband's infidelity. In the wake of her shattered marriage, Sarah flees to the coastal town in Northern California where she grew up. There, she revisits her troubling past: an emotionally distant father, the loss of her mother and an unexpected connection with Will Bonner, the high school heartthrob skewered mercilessly in her comics. But he's been through some changes himself. And just as her heart is about to reawaken, Sarah makes a most startling discovery. She's pregnant. The winds of change have led Sarah to this surprising new beginning. All she can do is just close her eyes...and breathe.

    And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it's even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lover's face.How does one talk about love? Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves? Taking a unique approach to this problem, the nameless narrator of David Levithan's The Lover's Dictionary has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary. Through these short entries, he provides an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of being within a couple, giving us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time.

    It's the sort of thing that would turn almost anyone into a man-crazy freak with romance tunnel-vision, and that's exactly what happens to her. All the while, a lack of inspiration in her corporate job leads Romi to her love of writing, in what quickly becomes a man-quest play-by-play.From whiskey-breath scum bags to uni-brow creeps and everything in between, Romi and her wingmen come up empty time after time. And that's when she meets a fellow writer.On the Internet.So will it be arranged marriage doom, or an Internet affair that's not as creepy as "To Catch a Predator"?Time will tell in the "year of the chick," a twelve-month quest to find love.Tick-tock.

    Escaping to Mexico, he sets off on a globetrotting tour in an attempt to finally distance himself from the demons in his head. A chance meeting with a mysterious woman named Angela introduces Fisher to a far more passionate -- and far more dangerous -- life. After a series of life-threatening encounters, Fisher begins to wonder just who Angela really is -- or even if she's real at all. With his grip on reality slipping, Fisher's demons return in full force, awakening a flood of suppressed memories. As he attempts to sort through his complicated and half-remembered past, Fisher discovers that the truth is harder to accept than the lies. The first of four books by a popular Dutch writing duo, this tense, psychologically acute thriller marks their American debut.

    After falling for a telephone scam, she loses everything and is forced to abandon her trailer. With only two-thirds of a tank in her old van, she heads toward the Pacific Ocean with her cat—on a mission to reclaim what’s rightfully hers, even if it means making others pay for what she lost.When fifteen-year-old Allie’s parents are jailed for tax fraud, she’s sent to a group home. But when her life is threatened by another resident, she knows she has to get out. She escapes only to find she has nowhere to go—until fate throws Allie in Bea’s path.Reluctant to trust each other, much less become friends, the two warily make their way up the Pacific Coast. Yet as their hearts open to friendship and love from the strangers they meet on their journey, they find the courage to forge their own unique family—and begin to see an imperfect world with new eyes.

    In the AFC Championship game against Denver, to the surprise and dismay of virtually everyone, Rick actually got into the game. With a 17-point lead and just minutes to go, Rick provided what was arguably the worst single performance in the history of the NFL. Overnight, he became a national laughingstock and, of course, was immediately cut by the Browns and shunned by all other teams.But all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent, Arnie, find a team that needs him. Against enormous odds Arnie finally locates just such a team and informs Rick that, miraculously, he can in fact now be a starting quarterback–for the mighty Panthers of Parma, Italy.Yes, Italians do play American football, to one degree or another, and the Parma Panthers desperately want a former NFL player–any former NFL player–at their helm. So Rick reluctantly agrees to play for the Panthers–at least until a better offer comes along–and heads off to Italy. He knows nothing about Parma, has never been to Europe, and doesn’t speak or understand a word of Italian. To say that Italy holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement.

    All she wants is a little privacy and a quiet place to raise her autistic daughter, Hailey. Redwood Ridge, Oregon, seems to offer all the right ingredients.Except for the problem of the local sexy veterinarian. The last thing she needs in her life is to fall for his irresistible allure, even if he is a nice guy who keeps doing her favors. But the well-meaning patrons of her new hometown have other ideas, and it appears playing Cupid is one of them.Cade O'Grady has never met a woman he couldn't handle, but when Avery Stowe walks into his office late one night cradling an injured puppy, he's struck stupid. Which might explain her total lack of interest in him. But now that she's working for his family's clinic, he doesn't have to lust from a distance.He might just have a chance at convincing Avery--and her too-guarded heart--that falling for the right man isn't a mistake . . .

    Though they were born within three minutes of each other and spent their childhoods dressed in matching outfits, they’ve grown up to have less in common than Kim Kardashian and the Duchess of Cambridge. So both women are horrified when a luggage mix-up means that sensible Clare must attend a company conference in the United States with Rosie’s suitcase full of pink, frills and stripper heels, while flamboyant Rosie heads for a friend’s destination wedding in Italy's Tuscany with Clare’s case full of suiting and sensible courts. Both believe wearing the other’s clothes is going to ruin their chances: Clare’s of getting a promotion and Rosie’s of getting a snog. But as three days of literally having to walk in each other’s shoes unfold, will the sisters discover they should try to be more like each other after all? This exclusive new novella (short novel at around 100 pages) by Chrissie Manby explores sisterhood, identity and love in a thoroughly summery way.

    Upon meeting Ukridge for the first time in years, Garnet finds himself enmeshed Ukridge's new and struggling chicken farm. Garnet soon falls in love with a girl living near the estate as he struggles with the farm and with Ukridge's bizarre business methods.Written when he was 25, Love Among the Chickens launched P.G. Wodehouse's career as a novelist and introduced the world to Ukridge, one of his most extraordinary inventions. Robert McCrum's introduction shows how this fascinating early book holds within it so many of the themes which Wodehouse was to make his own. This edition uses Wodehouse's 1920 revised edition of the 1906 original.

    Whenever they're together, laughter, drama, and mayhem seem to follow. But apart, each is very much her own woman, dealing with her own share of ups and downs. Lyn has organized her life into one big checklist, juggling the many balls of work, marriage, and motherhood with expert precision, but is she as together as her datebook would have her seem? Cat has just learned a startling secret about her marriage -- can she bring another life into her very precarious world? And can free-spirited Gemma, who bolts every time a relationship hits the six-month mark, ever hope to find lasting love? In this wise, witty, hilarious new novel, we follow the Kettle sisters through their thirty-third-year, as they struggle to survive their divorced parents' dating each other, their technologically savvy grandmother, a cheating husband, champagne hangovers, and the fabulous, frustrating .

    The perfect place to fall in love this summer… Willow McKay needs a fresh start. Her recent break-up may not have left her heartbroken, but it’s certainly wounded her pride. Desperate for a change, an advert offering free homes in a picturesque village on the Cornish coast sounds like just what she needs. Without thinking twice Willow packs up her life and heads to the village of Happiness.But when Willow arrives, she finds ramshackle cottages, shops lying empty and villagers that seem in need of cheer themselves. It's nothing like the pretty picture the advert had boasted. It seems Happiness was too good to be true. That is until she meets the handsome estate manager Andrew Harrington.His passion for restoring the village to its former glory is contagious and soon they are working together, forming a secret society to bring happiness back to Happiness. And as sparks fly between them Willow can feel herself falling. But Andrew is holding something back.Will they succeed in transforming the old village to its original beauty before it’s too late? Can the gift of happiness really save a village, and can it save Willow herself? Get swept away to the sun-kissed Cornish coast with this gorgeous love story, perfect for fans of Jill Mansell, Sophie Kinsella and Katie Fforde. What readers are saying about Holly Martin: 'LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this book!... This book was so engaging with characters I absolutely loved… An absolutely magical book.’ Best Crime Books and More, 5 stars‘A fabulous book… Highly recommended without any hesitation!! 5++++++ stars!’ Stardust Book Reviews, 5 stars‘Simply brilliant and just couldn't put it down at all… Every page brought a new twist and turn and you wanted to keep reading to see what happened… It's full of heartbreak and romance and laughter… worth far more than five stars and can't recommend it enough.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars‘5 stars. Such a gorgeous story… will have you smiling, laughing and crying, so prepare for an emotional ride.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars‘A glorious and uplifting read that leaves you feeling as if you've been wrapped up in a big warm hug. I smiled from start to finish.’ Stacy is Reading‘This is the book that I have been waiting for… I found myself welling up with tears towards the end… I was enchanted by this book from the moment I started reading it… one fabulous story… A beautifully told story that I really wish didn't end…’ Rachel’s Random Reads, 5 stars‘Wow another fantastic read from Holly Martin.