Book picks similar to
The Mummy Lessons: The second novel from award winning blogger Just A Normal Mummy by Helen Wallen
chick-lit
topic-parenting
age-adult
not-library
But I Love You Anyway
Sara Lewis - 1997
Two sisters confront love, marriage, and a failing business in this “charming and deceptively breezy second novel” (Publishers Weekly) that “deftly explores big issues like loyalty, trust, sorrow, and disappointment in sure, bright, effervescent prose” (New York Times Book Review).
Birdcall Morning
Mark J. Asher - 2016
The last time he was conscious, at thirty-one, O.J. Simpson had just led police on a long car chase and nobody knew the name Monica Lewinsky. When he turns on the strange-looking flat screen in his room at the nursing home, he hears reporters on one channel after another talking about Charlie Sheen’s infamous meltdown. After his mother arrives at his bedside, he learns that his father has died, his wife has divorced him, and the music store that he owned for most of his adult life has been sold. As Joel grapples with the loss of his independence, he realizes that his mother, who has driven him crazy since birth, will be his caretaker for the foreseeable future. Luckily, angels disguised as therapists and the support of old friends help him through a grueling rehabilitation. With one foot in the past and a heavy heart, Joel is about to slowly reenter a very different world than the one he left. Birdcall Morning is an emotional and life-affirming tale about the struggle to start over, the value of friendship, the true nature of love, and the changing times that we live in. It’s the sort of book that takes you on an unexpected journey that’s captivating until the very last word.
Just Desserts
Sue Welfare - 1995
Every time she chops up her delicious home-grown tomatoes she dreams of murdering her husband. Why can’t Harry just have an affair with a younger woman, and leave?Trouble is Harry has no intention of giving up his home comforts. Not when he’s been having his cake and eating it for years. Glamorous banker Carol accompanies him on business trips and the odd weekend away, but she too is beginning to think maybe life with Harry is growing stale.So who’s fooling who? Harry, happy in his illusion that he’s a sex god and all his women love him? Katherine and Carol, unlikely partners in Harry’s parallel lives? Against a background of gleeful coincidences, cute Cambridge cafes and the unexpected joys of unexplored freedom, the women decide that revenge is a dish best eaten cold.First published in 1999, Just Desserts takes us back to an era of shoulder pads and fax machines, and proves that when it comes to love and betrayal some stories are timeless.Pro
The Flower Hunter's Cottage
De-ann Black - 2015
Story:Mairead is a botanical artist, gardener and quilter. She leases the flower hunter's cottage in the Scottish Highlands. She plans to get away from the city and finish the floral artwork for her new book along with her quilt designs.As part of the lease agreement she has to take care of the traditional cottage garden while the owner, the flower hunter, is away working abroad, searching for a new species of flower.Mairead arrives at the cottage in January. After settling in, she meets handsome flower grower, Tavion, and Ethel a knitter who spins and dyes her own yarn. While making new friends, Mairead is keen to get on with her artwork and quilting - and get the garden ready for the spring and summer. Romance isn't on her to-do list, but when it comes to love, nothing goes according to plan.The Flower Hunter's Cottage is filled with flowers, artwork, knitting, quilting, baking cakes, gardening and romance.Note:Franklin and Daisy, characters from one of De-ann's other romance books - The Cure For Love, are mentioned in The Flower Hunter's Cottage. The Cure For Love is set in Cornwall and London.
Cut to the Twisp: The Lost Parts of Youth in Revolt and Other Stories
C.D. Payne - 2001
editions of "Youth in Revolt." Each passage is keyed to the page from which it was deleted for ease in reading. Now you can discover what happening to Lefty in Book II. Did Millie Filbert try to seduce Nick? Who ratted on Nick to the police to collect the reward? And more--a must read for Nick Twisp fans! Also collected here are a dozen short humor pieces by C.D. Payne.
Kalvan Kingmaker
John F. Carr - 2000
Beam Piper's groundbreaking parallel world's SF novel, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, and the sequel, Great Kings' War by John F. Carr and Roland Green. The Paratime Police patrol an infinity of alternate earths. Their prime directive is to protect the Paratime Secret thereby keeping this infinity of worlds from mixing and destroying each other, or from learning the parasitical Home Time Line is secretly looting their resources.When Penn. State Policeman Calvin Morrison is accidentally dropped off from a cross-time conveyer onto Styphon's House Subsector, he threatens both the Paratime Secret and leadership of the gunpowder theocracy, who owe their power to their secret knowledge of the "fireseed" formula. In just a few weeks, by the use of his knowledge of military strategy, Kalvan saves the small princedom of Hostigos from an invasion orchestrated by Styphon's House.Kalvan Kingmaker opens right after Kalvan's decisive victory over the Holy Host of Styphon. With Great King Kaiphranos of Hos-Harphax in mourning over his eldest son's death, the time is ripe for the Army of Hostigos to invade Harphax and topple the Iron Throne. At the holy city of Balph, the Inner Circle is reeling. Archpriest Roxthar, a rare true believer in Styphon, is conducting a full-blown inquisition of Styphon's corrupt upper priesthood. Once his reformation is complete, Roxthar's next job will to rebuild the Holy Host and defeat and destroy the Usurper Kalvan.Meanwhile, there is a great migration of nomads across the Sea of Grass; they are the wild card. As the nomads pour across the Great Middle River, pushing the clans and tribes that live there into the Great Kingdoms, the big question soon becomes: Will Styphon's House be buried by the human wave, or will they use the nomads in their war to the death with Kalvan and Hos-Hostigos?
Make-Believe Marriage
Marilyn Shank - 2000
Otherwise, she'll lose her inheritance. Trevor Mathison, Headmaster of Brookshire School, needs both a sixth-grade teacher and a wife.When a comedy of errors leads Claire's grandfather, the Chairman of the Board, to believe Claire and Trevor are married, they play along - both too afraid to tell the older man the truth.A powerful magnetism sparks between the couple but her free-spirited lifestyle clashes with his highly structured one. The conflicts they face both at school and at home turn Trevor's organized life into instant chaos.Can Claire and Trevor make their love last? Will they turn this pretend marriage into happily ever after?
Degrees of Love
Rachel Basch - 1998
For Lily and Jack, that moment comes when their baby daughter, home alone with Lily, pulls a pot of boiling water off the stove and suffers terrible burns. It is an accident, but the state suspects abuse and takes temporary custody of the child.To win her back, Lily and Jack must prove to strangers that they are good parents and that their daughter belongs with them and their two sons. They must convince others even as they struggle to once again believe it themselves...even as they begin to fall away from each other just when they most need to be together.Rachel Basch's remarkable debut is an eloquent and touching story about family and individuality, guilt and blame, and how love can fail us or save us, often to our great surprise. It is a book to be cherished, a rich novel that will linger in every reader's mind and heart.
Dorothy's War
Ruth Hamilton - 2005
Her escape is achieved just before the disastrous advent of Hitler, and there is further tragedy to come.Follow her through childhood and adolescence, then on into her twenties when, finally made whole, she wins her own battle for freedom, for love and for her own place in the world.
A Rosie Life In Italy: Why Are We Here?
Rosie Meleady - 2020
Everyone dismisses her long-term dream to live in Italy as another ‘mad hippy whim.’ While she’s busy planning other people’s happy endings, grief, eviction and debt nip at her heels. Trying to stabilise her life as an entrepreneur in the middle of an economic crash is almost impossible.When her landlord suddenly doubles the rent, Rosie is left with no choice but to pack up her family, two dogs and possessions into a 20-year-old camper van and head off in search of her own happy ending in sunny Italy.She soon discovers integrating into life in a new country isn’t as easy as it looks on TV, especially when the language is a minefield of accidental sexual innuendo. And trying to buy an abandoned villa in Umbria from eight crazy cousins with a longstanding family battle bubbling under the surface doesn’t make it any easier. While Rosie is determined to create the perfect life for her family in Italy, despite a hurricane, a raucous family dispute and a little thing called a global pandemic to top it all off, she begins to realise that the Italian dream may be too big for her. Will she ever get to live her rosy life in Italy? Or has she bitten off more than she can chew?
Par for the Course
Ray Blackston - 2008
Golf, politics, and romance collide in Par for the Course as golf range owner Chris Hackett meets an attractive political correspondent who turns his world upside down.In Par for the Course, Chris Hackett owns and operates Hack's Golf Learning Center, an eccentric golf range in Charleston, SC. Chris jumps at the chance to step up his game when an attractive new student and political correspondent, Molly, suggests that Chris capitalize on the current, highly polarized, presidential election. This pitting of right versus left means even more income, plus a sharp new girlfriend, and soon Chris, his sidekick, Cack, and their unique golf range are the talk of the town . . . until someone takes the political insults too seriously. Will Molly stick around as Chris learns the true meaning of "playing politics"? And will Chris realize how much he wants her to?
Another Life
Sara MacDonald - 2005
He traces her ship, The Lady Isabella, back to a small port in Cornwall where he meets Gabrielle Ellis, the woman who is going to restore her to her former glory. Together they begin to trace jigsaw pieces of the lives of the carver, Tom Welland and the real Lady Isabella.Gabrielle becomes increasingly haunted by Isabella's lost life. As Gabrielle's own life becomes inextricably involved with Mark's, her story runs parallel with the lives of Isabella, her husband Richard and Tom Welland, the carver.Two women, living more than a hundreds years apart yet against the same wild backdrop of sea and landscape, make a rash bid for freedom to live another life. But for both of them, that choice means a loss which will greatly affect the next generation.
Learning to Fly
Roxanne Henke - 2008
Each time Susan thinks she just might have a handle on this "mothering thing," Lily discovers a new stage of growth and testing and Susan tries her best to keep up.A chance meeting of a high school acquaintance, JoJo, also a new mom, in the grocery store gives both Susan and her daughter friends to learn and grow with. Parenting their girls from toddler-through-teen years is a constant challenge for the two mothers...and their daughters. As high school graduation approaches, all four of these women face new territory. Are the young women ready for life on their own? Are the mothers ready to let their girls go?"Learning to Fly" is a story of life, love, and letting go."Fiction that finds blessing in the broken"..".a CBA novelist to watch." --"Publishers Weekly"
Red Letter Day
Colette Caddle - 2004
Why then just five years later, is she at odds with her father and sister-in-law and accepting a job in a second hand clothes shop?
Shooting Butterflies
Marika Cobbold - 2003
Talented, awkward and a little fierce, she can't help thinking that she's managed to lose anything she's ever loved. So she decides to revisit her past in America, and she's brought her camera - she's going to catch these memories.