Showing results for "the-other-family" in Genre Fiction

Chrissie knew that Richie had loved her for all the twenty-three years they’d been together, loved their three daughters and their house in Highgate and their happy, chaotic existence. Richie gave her everything, except the one thing that would have made her life perfect. She even had a sparkling ring - but it was not a wedding ring, and did not bring with it the security of marriage. That belonged to Margaret, back in Newcastle where Richie had started off as a musician, before he became famous.

With a dissolving marriage, strained finances, and her life in flux, Ally Anderson longs for normal. Her greatest concerns, though, are the health problems of her young daughter, Kylie. Symptoms point to a compromised immune system, but every doctor they’ve seen has a different theory. Then comes hope for some clarity. It’s possible that Kylie’s illness is genetic, but Ally is adopted. A DNA test opens up an entirely new path.

Jojo Harvey is a literary agent whose star is on the rise. In love with both her married boss and her burgeoning career, not much distracts her. Until she finds herself representing two women who used to be best friends. Used to be....

Mia has her life in order. She is a grown-up and enjoys a grown-up's relationship with Pete. Not passionate or spontaneous but solid. She knows he is 'the one'. But then she sees a text message on Pete's phone that throws her world into a spin. It is more than friendly, signed off with a kiss, and Mia has never heard of the sender, Liz. With her carefully mapped out life sliding out of control Mia will discover a side to herself she never knew existed, as she formulates a plan to win her happy ending. Because all's fair in love and war - isn't it?

Suzi did a bad thing. She’s paying for it now, pregnant, scared, and living in an isolated cottage with her jealous husband, Nick. When Nora moves into the only house nearby, Suzi is delighted to have a friend. So much so that she’s almost tempted to tell Nora her terrible secret. But there’s more to Nora than meets the eye. It’s impossible - does she already know what Suzi did?

Augusta Hope has never felt like she fits in. At six, she’s memorising the dictionary. At seven, she’s correcting her teachers. At eight, she spins the globe and picks her favourite country on the sound of its name: Burundi. And now that she's an adult, Augusta has no interest in the goings-on of the small town where she lives with her parents and her beloved twin sister, Julia. When an unspeakable tragedy upends everything in Augusta's life, she's propelled headfirst into the unknown.

Arthur and Jake are the sons of a farmer in the mid-1930s, when life is tough and another world war is looming. Arthur is solid and dutiful, set to inherit the farm and his father's character; Jake is younger, attractive, mercurial and dangerous to know.

When disgraced former police officer Harriet Kealty discovers a plea for help in the margins of a second-hand book, she sets out to unravel a mystery that quickly leads her to confront some uncomfortable ties to her own life, including her ex-lover Ben. Following the deaths of his close friends, Ben became an adoptive father to their orphaned son Elliot. But Harriet suspects that Ben knows more about these deaths than he’s willing to say....

Father of two Joe Clarke is about seventy-eight per cent sure he's just had an affair. After all that is the hopelessly attractive office intern in bed next to him, isn't it? But then again if he did have an affair why can't he remember anything at all about the night in question? Mortified by his mistake Joe vows to be a better man, but when his adored wife Penny puts two and two together and leaves him, things start to take a turn for the decidedly strange.

Alsace, 1944. Mathilde finds herself falling deeply in love with Amine Belhaj, a Moroccan soldier, billeted in her town, fighting for the French. After the Liberation, Mathilde leaves France, following Amine to Morocco. But life here is unrecognisable to this brave and passionate young woman. Where she once danced, bickered with her sister, her life is now that of a farmer's wife - with all the sacrifices and vexations that brings. Suffocated by the heat, by her loneliness on the farm, by the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner and by the lack of money, Mathilde grows restless.

'Ma, I feel exhausted with consuming, with taking and grabbing and using. I am so bloated that I feel I cannot breathe any more. I am leaving to find some air, some place where I shall be able to purge myself, push back against the life given me and make my own. I feel I live in a borrowed house. It’s time to find my own… Forgive me…’ Calcutta, 1967. Unnoticed by his family, Supratik has become dangerously involved in extremist political activism.

Diagnosed as severely autistic at the age of three, Tito, nearly nonverbal, was brought up by his loving mother Soma, who taught him to read English and challenged him to write his own stories. The initial result was The Mind Tree, published in 2003, which Tito wrote between the ages of eight and 11. The Gold of the Sunbeams is an equally impressive, beautiful collection of stories, each prefaced by a charming note from Tito explaining how the story came into being.

The agent, the best seller, and the the unknown: When their fortunes become entangled, it seems too much to hope that they'll all find a happy ending. But maybe they'll each discover that there's more than one side to every story.

Seven stories to span the Christmas holidays: 'A Faraway Smell of Lemon': The school term has ended. It is almost Christmas, but Binny, out last-minute shopping, couldn't feel less like wishing glad tidings to all men. Ducking out of the rain, she finds herself in the sort of shop she would never normally visit. 'The Marriage Manual': Christmas Eve. Two parents endeavour to construct their son's Christmas present from a DIY kit and in the process find themselves deconstructing their marriage.

Rachel Saunders knows gossip is the price you pay for a rural lifestyle and outstanding schools. The latest town scandal is her divorce - and the fact that her new girlfriend has moved into the family home. Laura Spence lives in a poky bedsit on the wrong side of town. She and her son, Max, don’t really belong, and his violent tantrums are threatening to expose the very thing she’s trying to hide. When the local school introduces a new inclusive curriculum, Rachel and Laura find themselves on opposite sides of a fearsome debate.

Rachel Smedling is not like the other women in her isolated Pennine village: she is taller, stronger, and weaves cloth like a man. Without her, the household would fall apart, for her mother is ailing and her vicious drunkard father seems to hate her so much, he would happily offer money to any man who would wed her. When her mother dies, Rachel is at the mercy of her increasingly violent father. Her only escape is by marrying a kindly man with whom she finds happiness, if not passion, and her life begins to seem complete.

Marianna Bolton, a 28-year-old adopted, married physical trainer, and actor discovers her biological father when she appears in a documentary film focusing on adults who are seeking to find their birth parents. In the process, she learns some of the secrets her parents have kept from her and discovers that her birth father is the son of a mafia crime boss with a large organized crime family. She sets out on a journey from LA to NY to meet Her Other Family disrupting her tranquil life and forces her to examine the fundamental values upon which she constructed her life.

When Hannah and Cliff's 15-year marriage falls apart, it seems almost impossible to start again. While Hannah tries to reconcile the warring factions of her heart, torn between a preteen son and a romantic love half a world away, Cliff struggles to face up to issues he has suppressed since adolescence in the hope of finding happiness in a confusing world. Amid the turmoil of separation and with their son, Luke, caught in the crossfire, both Hannah and Cliff face the challenge of rebuilding their lives.

Honor Guinness is rich, aristocratic, shy and awkward—nothing like her glamorous cousins Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh. But when she marries the charming and ambitious American Henry 'Chips' Channon, together, they make the perfect couple. Determined to conquer London society, they are soon are at the heart of the best social circles—including a close friendship with the Prince of Wales and Mrs Wallis Simpson. But within the marriage, all is less than perfect.

Two weeks in a boathouse on the edge of peaceful Lake Orta, Italy is exactly what Ginny and Adam Trustlove need. But twenty-four hours later, the silence is broken when the Sale family arrives. It doesn't take long for Ginny and Adam to be drawn in, especially when the teenage Pippi introduces her beguiling new friend Zach. Not one of them suspects that his arrival in their lives might be anything other than accidental...