Showing results for "Love!" in Contemporary Fiction

The Hypnotist's Love Story is about the mild craziness that lurks behind the facades we present to the world, especially when it comes to love. Ellen O'Farrell is an expert when it comes to human frailties. She's a hypnotherapist who helps her clients deal with everything from addictions to life-long phobias. So when she falls in love with a man who is being stalked by his ex-girlfriend she's more intrigued than frightened.

'When I was 12 years old God spoke to my father for the first time. God didn't say much. He told my father to be a painter and left it at that.... ' So begins Niall Williams' magical tale about love and destiny. Nicholas Coughlan and Isabel Gore were made for each other - but fate doesn't always take the easiest or the most obvious route to true love. For a start, Nicholas and Isabel have never met and nor are they likely to, without some kind of divine intervention. But as God, ghosts, a series of coincidences and seemingly chance events and encounters conspire to bring the couple together.

Essays in Love is a stunningly original love story. Taking in Aristotle, Wittgenstein, history, religion and Groucho Marx, Alain de Botton charts the progress of a love affair from the first kiss to argument and reconciliation, from intimacy and tenderness to the onset of anxiety and heartbreak.

A poignant story about friendship, betrayal, obsession and second chances – this novel is an immensely powerful portrayal of human resilience. Sierra Leone: civil war has left an entire population with terrible secrets to keep. In the capital's hospital Kai, a gifted young surgeon, is plagued by demons. Elsewhere in the hospital lies Elias Cole, a university professor who recalls the love that drove him to acts that are far from heroic. As past and present intersect, Kai and Elias are drawn unwittingly closer and into the path of one woman at the centre of their stories.

Ruth Patchett never thought of herself as particularly devilish. Rather the opposite in fact - simply a tall, not terribly attractive woman living a quiet life as a wife and mother in a respectable suburb. But when she discovers that her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy that she becomes truly diabolic. Within weeks she has burnt down the family home, collected the insurance, made love to the local drunk and embarked on a course of destruction and revenge.

Chris, en eksperimenterende filminstruktør på næsten 40, forelsker sig øjeblikkeligt og uopretteligt i sin 56-årige akademikermands yngre kollega Dick. Chris indvier manden Sylvère i sin voldsomme betagelse, og idéen om en slags kunstprojekt med Dick i centrum opstår. Fra hver sin position går parret sammen i gang med at skrive kærlighedsbreve til objektet Dick. Chris er i sin erotiske besættelse kreativt forløst som aldrig før, men pludselig befinder hun sig i spidsen af et altopslugende trekantsdrama.

For Meridian Wallace - and many other smart, driven women of the 1940s - being ambitious meant being an outlier. Ever since she was a young girl, Meridian had been obsessed with birds, and she was determined to get her PhD, become an ornithologist, and make her mother's sacrifices to send her to college pay off. But she didn't expect to fall in love with her brilliant physics professor, Alden Whetstone. When he's recruited to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to take part in a mysterious wartime project, she reluctantly defers her own plans and joins him.

If only Pat Macgregor had an inkling of the embarrassment - romantic, professional, even aesthetic - that flowed from accepting narcissistic ex-boyfriend Bruce Anderson's invitation for coffee, she would never have said yes. And if only Matthew, her boss at the art gallery, hadn't wandered into his local bookshop and picked up a particular book at a particular time, he would never have knocked over his former English teacher or attracted the attentions of the police.

Anna Cole grew up poor, but her mother's love made her feel rich every day. Then her mother died, and Anna was sent to a care home. As a teenager, Anna vowed that one day she would have children of her own and create the happy, noisy family life she always craved. Then, one day, Anna meets Theo Montgomery in a lift. Theo has kind eyes but a sad past. His family were rich, but his childhood was full of neglect. Theo can't imagine bringing a child into this cruel world, but he does want a soul mate. Someone to love him unconditionally; someone with whom he can share his family's wealth.

On a crystal clear Mediterranean day, Briony McAllister sits playing with her four-year-old daughter, Katie, while she waits for her mother, Valerie, to join them. Valerie has recently moved to a picturesque town in southern Spain to finally leave behind her turbulent past and find a peace that has always eluded her. Briony has no idea that in a few moments time, her relationship with her mother will change irrevocably. As Katie plays, Briony pulls from her bag an old photo album, found in a box in her mother's new home. As she begins to study the faded photos, a letter falls to the ground.

The year is 1967. Thirteen-year-old Maisie is at her decaying family home, once a medieval abbey. Lucas, an artist and friend, is painting a portrait of Maisie and her sisters. Maisie embarks on a portrait of her own: telling the story of herself, her sisters and their lovers, and of her friend, Daniel Nunn. Twenty-three years later, Lucas's now-famous portrait features in a retrospective of his work. Daniel, obsessed by the sisters and determined to understand what happened that summer at the abbey, pursues answers.

Kitty Montrose is packing up her house and the memories that go with it. Under this roof, she's seen her children grow up, her grandchildren arrive, and her marriage come and go. Kitty knows better than most that the twists and turns of life can bring joy, despair and everything in between. But when she was a little girl, she had hoped for more. She dreamed of finding her true soul mate. Someone to laugh with, cry with and share her twilight years.

During the long hot summer of 1976, a brilliant young Cambridge mathematician arrives in a remote village in the Lake District and takes on a job as a farm labourer. Painfully awkward and shy, Spencer Little is viewed with suspicion by the community and his only real friendship is with scruffy, clever 10-year-old Alice. When he saves Alice from a wild-fire, the locals at last begin to accept him, but as he is drawn deeper into their lives, he also becomes aware of their secrets - and of the difficulty of keeping his own.

When Lisa Jones and her boyfriend George take on the run-down Rocks Hotel, they aim to do for Mariscombe what Rick Stein did for Padstow and set up a chic maritime retreat. But renovating a hotel is about more than stripped wooden floors and Egyptian cotton sheets, particularly when the locals are shifty and unhelpful. Especially Bruno Thorne, the tall, dark and surly owner of the nearby Mariscombe Hotel, where life is one long holiday; for the staff, anyway.

Young flippert zwischen Bude, Hörsaal und den Betten seiner letzten Tinder-Matches hin und her. Er studiert in Seoul, zusammen mit Jaehee, seiner BFF und Mitbewohnerin, zieht er durch die glitzernden Bars und queeren Clubs der Stadt. Mit noch einem Glas Soju in der Hand und eisgekühlten Marlboro Reds zwischen den Lippen beschwören sie die Euphorie, jede Nacht. Gegen die Ängste, gegen die Liebe, gegen die Ansprüche der Familie und die Not mit dem Geld. Doch als auch Jaehee endlich ankommen will, bleibt Young allein zurück im Partymodus.

Nattie is now happily married to Hugo, and they have two beautiful children, but her heart has never truly been hers to give.... The love of her life was lost to her years ago, but now Ahmed is back, and although he knows Nattie is married, he just can't stop himself from making contact. Desperate to find out what happened but torn between Ahmed and her family, Nattie ends up meeting him in secret. But will her lies cause more trouble than the truth?

As war rages across Europe, one young woman faces an impossible choice. Will she save her country...or the man she loves? It is the late 1930s. In London, socialite Rosamund Hanbury is determined to give up the parties and social sets of which she is a prominent member to join the war effort, along with scores of other young women.

In 1937, courageous and independent Martha Gellhorn travels to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War and finds herself drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in devastating conflict. She also finds herself unexpectedly - and uncontrollably - falling in love with Ernest Hemingway, a man already on his way to being a legend. In the shadow of the impending Second World War, and set against the tumultuous backdrops of Madrid, Finland, China, and especially Cuba, where Martha and Hemingway made their home, their relationship and professional careers ignite.

In a bizarre case of murder, strange strands of history begin to emerge slowly. Manav, Sarita, and Sandhya are drawn into a universe of intrigue, suspense, and delusion as they navigate a new world. This new system, in which they exist, is an upturned world where womankind is supreme. History has been challenged, subverted, and rewritten. But for those born in this epoch, what is the relationship with the past? Why has history been hidden from this generation, and what are the ancestors whispering into their ears? Rahul reveals these subtle secrets to Manu, nudging him to slant his paradigm.

Lexi Sturgis is a woman in a man's world, a war correspondent whose life has taken her to some of the world's most troubled regions. Lexi is never happier than when she's dodging bullets, chasing down the leads that other reporters only dream of getting, or swapping stories with her rivals at the bar. She thrives on risk, danger and the thrill of the chase, while keeping everyone else at arm's length - colleagues, friends, and lovers.