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Living Things is Fiona Robyn's first poetry collection.
Meet Joe. 14 years old, obsessed with birds & the weather, and perplexed by humans. Spend the Summer in Amsterdam with his chaotic artist aunt Nel. Come back fifteen years later, witness a tragedy, and discover a secret which will change everything...
How can he make sense of the world when he can't even make sense of himself? Joe is not like other boys. At 14 he is obsessed with birds and the weather - but to this sensitive and gentle young man, other people are a mystery. When Joe is sent away to stay with his quirky artist aunt in Holland, only his relationships with his aunt and his new friend, Emmie, help him as he struggles to makes sense of the world. Fifteen years later, Joe is a man - but still at odds with other people, and a virgin. Returning to Amsterdam, the place where he was closest to happiness, Joe witnesses a tragedy and discovers a secret that throws his life into turmoil - but this may ultimately lead him to find the one thing he has always craved... The Most Beautiful Thing is a coming-of-age tale with a twist that will appeal to fans of Ann Enright and Penelope Lively. Tender and insightful, it will make you see the world with new eyes. "Robyn is the real thing. A gifted writer who understands the complexities of the human soul." Jacqui Lofthouse "A thoughtful and moving writer who has a great sense of human emotion." Michael Kimball
After forty years of happy marriage, Leonard thought he knew his wife Rose as well as he knew himself. It's only after her sudden death that he finds her old handbag, which contains a mystery he can't ignore. Accompanied by Lily, his wife's childhood friend, Leonard becomes a reluctant detective as his whole life starts to unravel... 'The Blue Handbag' is steeped in a quiet poetry which reminds us to take pleasure from the ordinary details of life - reading stories to our children, sharing silence with our friend over a beer, enjoying the plants Leonard tends for a living - and never to take anything for granted.
Emily needs a change of scenery. She's been pegged as the "arty girl" by the kids in school - even her own friends. There's some truth to that, but there's more to how she sees the world than painting or drawing, and no one seems to understand that.So when Emily gets the chance to go to an art program in Philadelphia for the summer, she jumps at it. A new cast of characters enters her life... and suddenly she has to figure out who she wants to be. She's gone from the suburbs where everyone's trying to be the same to a school where everyone's trying to be unique. The rules may have changed, but the pressures haven't.With wit and empathy, Siobhan Vivian goes straight to the heart of a teen girl's search for identity - including the pain and heartache we have to go through to figure out who we are.
My story tells of a woman who for a reason that will become clear on reading, has to leave everything she has ever known behind her and start a fresh. At first this will seem devastating for her, however she soon finds out that what she had known before was not all there was to life.
Watching too much trashy television, trying to find something decent to eat in a motorway service station, feeling awkward at dinner parties, putting off the hoovering...is this what life is all about? These everyday ordinary things happen to us all. This book helps us to discover what we can learn from them. It encourages us to wonder why we hate our boss, and why we keep spending too much money. It invites us to look at the ball of string between our ears and start to untangle it. It nudges us into slowing down, paying more attention, waking up. As well as the hoovering, life is also about seeing a vase of yellow tulips lit up from behind, making creamy potatoes au gratin for your family, sitting by the sea and watching the waves twinkle. 'A Year of Questions' will help you to fall in love with your life all over again.
When Ellie and six of her friends return home from a camping trip deep in the bush, they find things hideously wrong -- their families gone, houses empty and abandoned, pets and stock dead. Gradually they begin to comprehend that their country has been invaded and everyone in the town has been taken prisoner. As the horrible reality of the situation becomes evident they have to make a life-and-death decision: to run back into the bush and hide, to give themselves up to be with their families, or to stay and try to fight. This reveting, tautly-drawn novel seems at times to be only a step away from today's headlines.
Hey, Kitty Slade here, just checking in again. I was getting pretty used to seeing, you know, dead people - but they can still take a girl by surprise. This one - this one was weird. When Kitty goes to stay on an eerie, windswept moor, she soon hears about a terrifying ghost hound rumoured to prey on humans. A man has disappeared without a trace - and he's not the first. Helped by a strange spirit called Lupa, Kitty must solve the mystery - and fast...
Leonard Mutch has just discovered his wife was lying to him for years - but can he bear to uncover the truth? Leonard and Rose Mutch were happily married for forty years. But after her sudden death, Leonard is shocked to find a train ticket in her handbag to a town Rose had never visited. Then a letter arrives from a childhood friend of Rose's, hinting at a past she never told him about. Reluctantly embarking on an investigation into the life of the woman he thought he knew as well as himself, Leonard is faced with questions that threaten to destroy his happy memories. Why did Rose secretly leave work every Tuesday? Why did she tell lies about her family? And why is their daughter so despera...