Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Family Life

Some of the stormy weather of the past few seasons seems to have finally lifted for the Quinns. Kevin is about to tie the knot with Isabelle, and there's hopeful news about Bart, who has been captured by enemy forces in Afghanistan. That doesn't mean there aren't a few dark clouds on the horizon as the family juggle health scares and love triangles. But if there's one holiday that brings the Quinn family together, it's Christmas. And this year promises to be a celebration unlike any other.

Inspired by a box of mementos found abandoned in a skip following a house clearance, The Museum of Ordinary People is a poignant, thought-provoking but ultimately uplifting story of memory and love, grief, loss and the things we leave behind. It is another brilliant novel from an author who seems to have the absolute knack of writing topical, engaging, heartwarming stories which really connect with listeners.

Henry and Violet first met in the garden of The Orange House on the beautiful island of Majorca. They promised their lives to each other, poured their love into restoring the house and built the foundations of their marriage within its walls. First it was their private idyll, then a place to escape with their son, Luke - but now it has become a battleground. For, as the years have passed, cracks have appeared and secrets have built barriers between them. Finally, on the brink of divorce, they have come back to Majorca to sell up. Will this final summer together be the end - or a new beginning?

Diana O'Toole's life is going perfectly to plan. At 29, she's up for promotion to her dream job as an art specialist at Sotheby's, and she's about to fly to the Galápagos, where she's convinced her surgeon boyfriend, Finn, is going to propose. But then the virus hits New York City and Finn breaks the news: the hospital needs him, he has to stay. But you should still go, he insists. And reluctantly, she agrees.

Adam Gabriel has always been a child of nature. Raised on his parents' remote Yorkshire farm, where life is measured by the rhythms of the flock, the turn of the seasons and the yearly arrival of an itinerant local monk, he seems destined for a quietly contented life. As Adam grows, Luke and Bethany see flickers of something extraordinary in their son - a healing touch that goes beyond his love for the land. But Adam's gentleness has always made him an outsider, and a powerful gift can also be a heavy burden.

When chef Charlie Goodwin gets hit on the head on the LA set of her reality baking show, she loses a lot more than consciousness; she also loses her ability to taste and smell - both critical to her success as show judge. Meanwhile, Charlie's identical twin, Cass, is frantically trying to hold her own life together back in their quaint mountain hometown while running the family's bustling bakery and dealing with her ex. With only days until Christmas, a desperate Charlie asks Cass to do something they haven't done since they were kids: switch places.

In best seller Elin Hilderbrand's first Christmas novel, a family gathers on Nantucket for a holiday filled with surprises. Kelley Quinn is the owner of Nantucket's Winter Street Inn and the proud father of four - Patrick, Kevin, Ava and Bart, all of them grown and living in varying states of disarray. As Christmas approaches, Kelley is looking forward to getting the family together for some quality time at the inn.

Pearl Winter hasn't been outside in 43 years. Since she arrived in Dartmoor as a teenager, her isolated cottage has been her whole world. A place of safety. But now Pearl is utterly alone—except for the postman, the local crows, and her memories of the summer when her life turned upside down. Connor Matthews feels like a stranger in his own home. Since his mother's death, he's been adrift from his remaining family and the life that's always been mapped out for him. But when Connor takes a summer job as Pearl's gardener, their unexpected friendship opens the door to a fresh start.

Milly isn't okay, but she looks it online. But everyone lies about their lives on Instagram, don't they? One day, sick of all the pretence, Milly creates Mizzenial, a new channel inspired by the straight-talking magazines of her childhood. But even here, she still can't quite admit how lonely she really is. Can she take her own advice, finally open up and start to move on?

Reeling from a bad break-up, Lizbet Keaton is desperately seeking a fresh start. When she's named the new general manager of the Hotel Nantucket, a Gilded Age gem whose glamour has been left to tarnish, she hopes that her local expertise and charismatic staff can transform the hotel's fortunes—and her own. All she needs to do is win over their new billionaire owner from London, Xavier Darling—and the wildly popular Instagram influencer Shelly Carpenter, who can help put them back on the map.

Pull up a chair at Big Earl's diner and meet the 'Supremes': three women from Plainview, Indiana, who've been best friends since their high-school days in the Sixties. Clarice is a pious wife and mother struggling with her husband's infidelity; Barbara Jean must confront the tragic reverberations of a youthful love affair; and Odette, whose fearlessness has saved her friends many times, now faces a terrifying situation of her own.

Freya Scott is getting married. Her wedding to Matthew, her long-term boyfriend, is the first of eight in her calendar this year, and as someone who prides herself on being meticulously organised, Freya is intent on making it the perfect day to remember. But when Matthew calls things off hours before they walk down the aisle, Freya's entire life plan goes up in smoke. Humiliated and heartbroken, the last thing she wants is to attend a summer of other peoples' nuptials on her own.

Every year the Levin children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic island home, but this year it's not to be. Blair, the oldest sister, is marooned in Boston, pregnant with twins and unable to travel. Middle sister Kirby is caught up in the thrilling vortex of civil rights protests with her friend Mary Jo Kopechne. And Tiger, the only son, has just been deployed to Vietnam.

Celebrity chef Deacon Rowe is struggling with addiction, depression and not one but two scandals. As summer nears he travels to the idyllic eastern bluff of Nantucket, where he takes his own life. In the wake of Deacon's shocking suicide, his first wife and childhood sweetheart, Laurel Rowe, sets out to gather Deacon's far-flung family - including Deacon and Laurel's son and Deacon's other ex-wives and children - on the island.

The first novel in the heartwarming, countryside-set Hope Meadows series. Newly qualified vet Mandy Hope is leaving Leeds - and her boyfriend, Simon - to return to the Yorkshire village she grew up in, where she'll help out with animals of all shapes and sizes in her parents' surgery. But it's not all plain sailing: Mandy clashes with gruff local Jimmy Marsh, and some of the villagers won't accept a new vet. Meanwhile, Simon is determined that Mandy will rejoin him back in the city.

A gorgeous and evocative novel about three sisters and a life-changing summer in Corfu. What if your life worked out perfectly...for someone else? It's been 18 years since Ava spent the summer on the Greek island of Corfu, but she has never forgotten what happened during those months—or who she left behind. Now single, estranged from her family, and preparing to wave her daughter off to university, Ava's life seems a million miles away from the one she dreamed about as a teenager—a life now being lived by her sister instead.

Left profoundly deaf after an accident, Émile is no stranger to isolation—or heartbreak. Now, as Nazi planes loom over Guernsey, he senses life is about to change forever. Trapped in a tense, fearful marriage, Isabelle doesn't know what has become of Émile and the future she hoped for. But when she glimpses him from the window of the French House, their lives collide once more. Lieutenant Schreiber is more comfortable wielding a paintbrush than a pistol. But he has little choice in the role he is forced to play in the occupying forces—or in his own forbidden desires.

Argyll, 1998. Stories run deep in the MacArthur family, passed from generation to generation. Tales not just of selkies and changelings, but of the lives and deaths of the family themselves. Anna MacArthur has heard how her beautiful grandmother Netta boarded a ship for Canada after the war, leaving behind her young son Donnie, and was never seen again. Now, fifty years after her disappearance, Anna accidentally pulls a loose thread in the story of Netta's fate, causing the tale of her vanishing to unravel completely.

It's Friday the 13th, and Diana is an ambitious young appraiser at Sotheby's in New York. She's about to go on a long-awaited holiday, where she knows Finn, her surgeon boyfriend, will propose and the next stage of her carefully planned life will begin. But it is Friday the 13th of March 2020. The new virus hits. Finn can't leave the city and suggests she goes without him. In the Galapagos, unable to get back to her real life, Diana learns about the devastation hitting the world as she hears intermittently from her boyfriend.

Two couples. One reckless night. In the time they've known each other, Sally, Al and Mike have shared - well, almost everything. Sally and Al have been married for seven years, though now their relationship is hanging by a thread. Sally and Mike have been best friends since university. And on many occasions something more. Mike and Al have been friends and colleagues for many years. Yet with Al poised to become Mike's boss, their friendship comes under threat. And now there's Mike and Faye. They haven't been together long, but Mike's pretty sure that this time it's the real deal.