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A bright, funny novel about a woman's life on the brink of destruction and how she pulls it back together, by the author of Shooting Butterflies Amelia Lindsey is an exceptional young woman. She shares her days between a grandmother whom she loves, a mother whom she tolerates with patient fortitude, and Gerald. They had fallen in love with Amelia two years earlier, when he was in his artistic phase, and had begged her to move in with him. Now (no longer in his artistic phase) he is showing signs of irritation. And suddenly Selma, the talented and much-beloved grandmother, has become old. As life - and Gerald - begins to collapse all round Amelia, she is determined that the one person who will not fade is Selma. Fighting a one-woman battle against Cherryfield retirement home, Gerald's defection and her mother's obsession with germs, Amelia finds herself capable of plots, diversions, and friendships she has never imagined before.
"A mystery and an elegy for the death of old-fashioned journalism, it's a book that will warm your heart" The Observer "On Hampstead Heath is a deliciously romantic comedy of misunderstandings and misbehaviour - I loved it" Clare Chambers, author of SMALL PLEASURES Thorn Marsh was raised in a house of whispers, of meaningful glances and half- finished sentences. Now she's a journalist with a passion for truth, more devoted to her work at the London Journal than she ever was to her ex-husband. When the newspaper is bought by media giant The Goring Group, who value sales figures over fact-checking, Thorn openly questions their methods, and promptly finds herself moved from the news desk to the...
'No one writes about life quite like Marika Cobbold; no one combines light and dark, humorous and profound, joyous and sorrowful quite so expertly' Guardian, Readers' Books of the Year 'Cobbold handles profound and delicate themes with a ceramicist's lightness of touch' Daily Mail It is winter in London. Eliza Cummings, a ceramics restorer at the V&A Museum, is leaving work when she receives an unexpected phone call. Standing in the haze of the Christmas lights she hears a voice which draws her back twenty-five years - to the tragic death of her best friend. But why does Rose's father want her to visit him? Why now? And why is he killing her with kindness when they both know that he blames her for what happened to his daughter? Grief and guilt cast terrible shadows, but as this beautifully wrought story unfolds and the scene shifts from London to the fairy tale landscape of the Swedish countryside - and back in time to Eliza's school days - we learn that generosity, humour and friendship can smooth over and restore even the most broken lives, and that some secrets just can't be kept hidden...
'This gripping and moving story is an honest chronicle of what happens to relationships over time, and a sharp observation of one woman's emotional life' The Times 'A perceptive and delicately written study of human relations and motivations, painful, funny and fresh, which Cobbold has structured quite ingeniously, building the story layer upon layer, rather like a painting.' Observer By the time Grace is eighteen, she has been orphaned, moved countries and lost touch with her only brother. 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 and pin them down to keep. What she isn't expecting that summer in New Hampshire is to meet the love of her life. Some years later, now divorced and flourishing as a controversial photographer, Grace lives alone - she likes the fact that everything will be exactly where she left it. Until Grace finds that she is, quite literally, being haunted by the past...
Rebecca Finch is a highly successful romantic novelist who has fallen out of love with love. When she heads off for a weekend in Paris and doesn't care that she has absent-mindedly left her boyfriend on the platform in Waterloo, things look bad. But when her god-daughter, struck with pre-wedding jitters, asks Rebecca if marriage is a good idea, and she can't think of a single reason to reply 'yes', she realises it's serious. The 'High Priestess of Romance' is having a crisis of faith. On Mount Olympus, things aren't any easier. Aphrodite is stressed because divorce rates are rocketing and nobody is taking her seriously any more, and Eros, going through a difficult phase, seems to be carelessly shooting arrows without even a thought for the basic compatibility of his victims. So with even her favourite earth-bound acolyte, Rebecca Finch, showing signs of disillusionment, Aphrodite resolves to take drastic action ...
An Englishwoman discovers the destructive side of fear. Never at peace with herself, Clementine worries about rising crime, disease, offending God, she worries to the point where her boyfriend leaves her. Only then does Clementine realize the error of her ways and she takes steps to change her attitude. By the author of Guppies for Tea.
_______________ 'Beautifully describes the landscape of the Sussex coast, echoing with battles, buried bodies and Nora the protagonist's running shoes as she finds her own way of working through the knots of her life and those close to her' - Readers' Books of the Year, Guardian 'Rusbridge's sympathetic and respectful handling of a sensitive issue conveys an emotional impact that resonates long after the closing pages' - Times Literary Supplement 'An emotional tale of family, forgotten history and loyalty' - Psychologies _______________ A mesmerising story of family, legacy and turning back the tides, Rook beautifully evokes the shifting Sussex sands, and the rich seam of history lying just ...
Over the past few thousand years, Fabio has come to hate his job. As Fate, he's in charge of assigning the fortunes and misfortunes that befall most of the human race - the 83 per cent who keep screwing things up. And with the steady rise in population since the first Neanderthal set himself on fire, he can't exactly take a vacation. Frustrated with his endless parade of drug addicts and career politicians, it doesn't help watching Destiny guide her people to Nobel Peace Prizes. To make matters worse, he has a five-hundred-year-old feud with Death, and his best friends are Sloth and Gluttony. And worst of all? He's just fallen in love with a human. Sara Griffen might be on Destiny's path, but Fabio keeps bumping into her - by accident at first, and then on purpose. Getting involved with her breaks Rule No. 1 - and about ten others - setting off some cosmic-sized repercussions that could strip him of his immortality...or lead to a fate worse than death.
In this debut novel the author is tackling an almost taboo subject with compassion perfectly-timed humour and total lack of sentimentality. He brings to the fore the horrors and the hilarity of caring for elderly relatives.
About Women is Dorothy Bohm's first book to focus exclusively on the subject of women. Taken throughout the world, from the late 1940s until the present day, her photographs range from images of ordinary women going about their everyday activities, to explorations of the role that representations of women, in the form of advertisements, posters and mannequins, play in contemporary westernised society.