Showing results for "Happy" in Genre Fiction

Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple—they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic. Except, now they don't. They broke up six months ago. And they still haven't told anyone. Which is how they end up sharing a bedroom at the cottage that has been their yearly getaway with their best friends for the past decade. Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth. The cottage is for sale so this is the last time they'll all be together here and they can't bear to break their friends' hearts. So, they'll fake it for one more week.

Christmas is all about lists. To do lists. Shopping lists. Lists to bloody Santa. And doesn’t Anna Johnson know it. Waking up on Christmas Eve after the annual Johnson party, she's hungover, exhausted and really sick and tired of Christmas already. All she wants is to tick the last things off her endless list and sit down with the world’s biggest glass of wine. ​A mysterious death in her home really is the last thing she has time for right now, but with police officers and a husband and two kids intent on watching Christmas films, it looks like it’s up to her.

Meet the happy couple. Luke and Celine, are in mutual unrequited love with each other, set to marry in a year's time. The best man, Archie, is meant to want to move up the corporate ladder and on from his love for Luke; yet he stands where he is, admiring the view. The bridesmaid, Phoebe, Celine's sister, has no long-term aspirations beyond smoking her millionth cigarette and getting to the bottom of Luke's frequent unexplained disappearances. Then there's the guest, Vivian, who with the benefit of some emotional distance, methodically observes her friends like ants.

This is a novel about what happens when - just occasionally - we can live happily ever after. Vincent is pretty certain he will win a Nobel Prize for physics. When he meets Holly, he loves her on sight. Guido plans to write poetry, and when Misty - bored and misanthropic - steps into his office, he finds himself desperate to know her. Through courtship, jealousy, estrangement and other perils, we watch as the two couples manage to find love in spite of themselves.

Annie has been sad for so long that she's forgotten how to be any other way. She's trudging miserably through every day, sheer determination keeping her going. Until she meets Polly. Polly is everything that Annie is not. She's colourful, joyful, happy. Because if recent events have taught Polly anything, it's that your time is too short to waste a single day.

Isa Epley is 21 years old and wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. In her diary she chronicles her New York City adventure during the sweltering summer of 2013. By day, Isa and her best friend, Gala, sell clothes in a market stall, pinching pennies for their Bed-Stuy sublet and bodega lunches. By night, they weave from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side among a rotating cast of celebrities, artists, and bad-mannered grifters.

The story of The Happy Prince has three major themes. Firstly it shows that apparent beauty is nothing and the real beauty is to bestow love and sacrifice. Secondly, it discusses that love and sacrifice are two saving forces. Thirdly, it shows that there is a large gap between rich and poor people the rulers and the masses. When the happy prince is alive he lives a happy life without sorrows, he is living a care free life but after his death he sees through a tall Colum that life has another view except happiness and that is helplessness poverty, hypocrisy and corruption of elite and ruling class.

Why Mummy Swears is the much anticipated new novel from Gill Sims, author of the hilarious Why Mummy Drinks and online sensation Peter and Jane. It’s every parents’ nightmare - the start of the school holidays - and instead of sitting in the sun, reading a book over a cold, crisp glass of Pinot Grigio, Mummy has two bored moppets to attend to. After frantically booking sports camps, child minder slots, not to mention time off work, Mummy is exhausted. But this is only the beginning....

Horatio Hornblower sails South American waters and comes face to face with a mad revolutionary in a novel that ripples with risk and gripping adventure. Throughout his escapades, Forester's hero remains resourceful and courageous.

Midwife Jess is so used to helping other mums achieve their dreams that she’s put her own hopes of motherhood firmly on hold. After having her heart broken once before, Jess is determined to focus all she has on her small family and stepson Riley and make sure he feels safe, happy and loved. But when Jess is asked to care for a tiny baby and new mum in need of support, she’s torn. Jess wants to help, but she isn’t sure her battered heart could cope with saying goodbye to another baby she’s fallen in love with.

When it first gets announced, the Leteo Institute's memory-alteration procedure seems too good to be true to Aaron Soto; miracle cure-alls don't tend to pop up in the Bronx projects. Aaron can't forget how he's grown up poor, how his friends all seem to shrug him off, and how his father committed suicide in their one-bedroom apartment. Then Thomas shows up. The love Aaron discovers may cost him what's left of his life. But since Aaron can't suddenly stop being gay, Leteo may be the only way out.

Soline Roussel is well schooled in the business of happy endings. For generations her family has kept an exclusive bridal salon in Paris, where magic is worked with needle and thread. It’s said that the bride who wears a Roussel gown is guaranteed a lifetime of joy. But devastating losses during World War II leave Soline’s world and heart in ruins and her faith in love shaken. She boxes up her memories, stowing them away, along with her broken dreams, determined to forget.

In a small farming village in Punjab, India, a boy crouches over his brother's phone in a rapeseed field watching clips of Godard's Bande à part on YouTube. His name is Happy Singh Soni and when he's not sleeping among the cabbages and eating sugary rotis, Happy dreams of becoming an actor, one who plays the melancholy roles; the sad, pretty boys, rare in Indian cinema. He plans a clandestine journey to Europe, where he'll finally land a breakout role.

John Moffatt and Rosemary Leach star in this BBC Radio 4 production of Noël Coward’s patriotic play about the ups and downs of a working-class family between 1919 and 1939. This Happy Breed opens in 1919, when the Gibbons family have just moved to their smart new home in the suburbs of South London. Against a background of social change and national upheaval spanning twenty years, the family celebrate their own triumphs and deal with their personal traumas.

When Beth was 10, her beautiful, wild mother, Alice, disappeared. Beth’s life since hasn’t always been easy, but now she's settled, with a successful career, a loving family and a beautiful home. Then one day, there’s a knock at the door. Alice has returned. Desperate to rebuild their relationship, Beth invites her mother to move in. At first, everything is wonderful. But then Beth’s friends start to drift away, strange things happen at home and rumours about Beth begin to circle. Someone is out to destroy Beth’s newfound happiness. But who? And how far will they go?

As old friends the Wiksells and the Anderssons raise their glasses, their teenage children host their own party across town, finally free to let loose. But the next morning, seventeen-year-old Jennifer Wiksell is missing. The hours tick by. The police get involved. And no one knows who to trust. These two families have a lot to hide. Could the answer to Jennifer's disappearance lie close to home?

Music sensation Aurora Storm finally has her career back on track, but then she’s caught up in a media storm. Desperate to distract from the story, she enlists the one man she trusts to pretend to be her boyfriend. Meanwhile, in the small seaside village of Mermaids Point, Nick Morgan never expected to see Aurora again. When she calls out of the blue needing his help, he agrees at once. It feels like she’s back in his life for a reason, and he’s determined to make the most of it.

Flowers have always made Fearne smile. She treasures the memories of her beloved grandmother's floristry and helping her to arrange beautiful blooms that brought such joy to their recipients. But ever since a family tragedy a year ago, Fearne has been searching for her own contentment. When a chance discovery inspires her to start a happiness list, it seems that Fearne might just have found her answer.

After difficult times, Holly is finally adjusting to her new normal. Her daughter Hope is happy, she’s created a beautiful home, and an unexpected offer may mean fantastic opportunities for her sweet shop, Just One More. But her sense of calm is shattered when best friend Giles drops a bombshell – a proposal to Sienna, a woman Holly barely knows and who isn’t right for Giles at all.

Jess is happy working in Greenwich market selling trinkets to well-heeled locals and excitable tourists. Then one Sunday, Jess is thrown together with handsome, funny Ash, as they chase a pickpocket through the market, and before long they are making a habit of running into each other at the same time each week. Jess starts to realize that their hour together is the brightest part of her life. But Ash isn’t telling her everything.