Showing results by publisher "Oakhill Publishing" in Women's Fiction

Will Nancy and Jack be allowed to embrace the future, or will their histories forever bind them to the past? Drama teacher Nancy O'Brien puts her ambitions on hold to support her family and returns to her idyllic seaside hometown, St Nicholas Bay. Jack, a young widower desperate to come to terms with his loss, hopes that setting up home there with his baby son might enable him to survive the future. As Nancy and Jack become closer, not everyone is thrilled.

Actress Jodi Ludlum returns home to Ireland to raise her young son in the leafy South Dublin village of Bakers Valley - even if coming home means leaving her husband and waking old ghosts. Meanwhile Francine Hennessy, queen of the coffee mornings, was born and raised in Bakers Valley. She takes pride in juggling her children, her beautiful home and her high-powered career.

When beautiful cloth merchant's daughter Elizabeth Williams is widowed at the age of 22, she is determined to succeed in the business she has learned from her father. But many are opposed to a woman making her own way in the world, and Elizabeth could have powerful enemies - enemies who know the truth about her late husband. Then Elizabeth meets kindly, ambitious merchant turned lawyer Thomas Cromwell.

Christmas at Huntersbrook House has always been a family tradition - log fires, long walks through the snowy fields and evenings spent in the local pub. And this year the three grown-up Craig children are looking forward to the holidays more than ever. Pippa to escape her partying lifestyle and mounting debts in Dublin; Joey the demands of his gorgeous girlfriend who seems intent on coming between him and his family; and Lainey to forget about her controlling ex and his recent engagement to another woman.

Three women, connected by one man: Daniel is father to Seren, husband to Nesta and lover to Frankie. When he leaves Nesta and their beautiful home in the middle of the party to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary Seren's world begins to crumble. Only the continuation of the family ideal can make things right. But Nesta isn't so sure. And for Frankie, Daniel offers hope of a safe and secure future. But all three women are carrying secrets that they've kept hidden even from those closest to them.

Hildy Good has reached that dangerous time in a woman’s life – middle-aged and divorced, she is an oddity in her small but privileged town. But Hildy isn’t one for self-pity and instead meets the world with a wry smile, a dark wit and a glass or two of Pinot Noir. When her two earnest grown-up children stage ‘an intervention’ and pack Hildy off to an addiction centre, she thinks all this fuss is ridiculous. After all, why shouldn’t she enjoy a drink now and then? But we start to see another side to Hildy Good.

Helen Cooper has a charmed life. She's beautiful, accomplished, organised - the star parent at the school. Until she disappears. But Helen wasn't abducted or murdered. She's chosen to walk away, abandoning her family, her husband, Sam, and her home. Where has Helen gone, and why? What has driven her from her seemingly perfect life? What is she looking for? Sam is tormented by these questions and gradually begins to lose his grip on work and his family life.

Surviving motherhood? It's all about having the right support network. Lawyer and new mum Cassie has a husband who converses through jokes, a best friend on the other side of the world, and a taskforce of Babycraft mothers who make her feel she has the maternal aptitude of a jellyfish. Husband Jonathan dismisses Cassie's maternal anxieties, but is he really paying attention? Then sexy ex-boyfriend Malkie saunters into Cassie's life again. He'd like to get her into bed again, too...

Jean seems the perfect wife and mother, but she struggles to love her daughters, whose material comforts mask emotional neglect. When the youngest daughter, Susan, brings 'shame' on the family, Jean can think of only one response. She has to make the problem disappear. Finding the strength to stand up to her mother for the first time in her life, Susan does the only thing that she can to save her baby. But what Susan doesn't realise is that her mother's emotional distance hides a dark secret of her own....

When Esther's childhood best friend, Isabella, dies of cancer, she is devastated. Years later she is brought together with Isabella's sister Sally, who cared for Isabella in her last days and who subsequently nursed their mother through years of dementia. English professor Esther sees shy, innocent Sally emerge from a life of isolation and loneliness. But as Esther herself suffers blow after blow and sees her carefully ordered life collapse around her, she is forced to contemplate the notion of friendship and trust.

Lacey Carmichael leads a solitary life. To her neighbours she is the mad old woman who lives at the end of the lane, crazy but harmless. Until she is arrested on suspicion of murder. When Rachel Moore arrives in the village, escaping her own demons, the two women form an unlikely bond. Unravelling in each other's tales of loss and heartache, they become friends.

It was supposed to be a final celebration for six British graduates, the perfect French getaway - until Severine arrived. Her beauty captivates them, and in the summer heat, tension simmers and years of jealousy and longing rise to the surface. Then Severine disappears. A decade later, her body is found - and for Kate Channing, the discovery brings up unwelcome memories. As police suspicion mounts against the friends, Kate becomes desperate to resolve her shifting understanding of that time.

The wedding of Thomas, an idealistic German architect, and Irene, an English artist, brings together the Curtius and Benson families. But their peace is soon shattered by the outbreak of war in Europe. While Irene struggles to survive in a country where she is the enemy, her sister, Sophia, faces the war as a nurse on the Western Front. For their brother, Mark, diplomatic service sees him moving between London, Washington and Copenahagen, all the while struggling to confront his own identity.

Courtney Stone - sassy, smart and suddenly single - has always felt she might have been better suited to life in Jane Austen’s England. Then one evening, having drifted off to sleep after self-medicating with pizza, Absolut, and Elizabeth and Darcy, Courtney wakes up in 19th-century England, in the body and bed of a girl called Jane Mansfield.... A laugh-out-loud romp with a Regency heart, this delightful debut is a truly modern comedy of manners.

Northumberland, winter 1937. In a remote moorland cottage, Steven Coulter, a young history teacher, is filled with grief at the death of his wife. Through a charismatic colleague, Frank Embleton, and Frank's sister, Diana, he is drawn into the beguiling world of a group of musicians and falls under their spell. But as war approaches a decision is made which calls all their lives shockingly into question.

Chrissie loves London, her job as an events manager and her daughters Scarlet (loud, vegan, activist) and Ruby (quiet, musician, boffin). She even loves her husband, Rob, despite him deciding to cycle across Africa. For a year. But Chrissie is stressed and overworked, so when her mum calls her home to Devon to help with the struggling family vineyard, she is almost relieved. Chrissie gives herself a year: if she can make it until then, maybe they can celebrate as a family with their own fizz? But adjusting to West Country life takes more than she bargained for....

Sky is devastated when she finds that her husband is in love with her oldest friend, Nick. She has lost the two most important men in her life and can't trust either of them again. To escape, she goes alone on a dream trip to Marrakech and meets Gail, on a mission to meet the father of her child, a man she loved but thought did not want her. There, Sky and Gail both find unexpected joys - and surprises. For Sky these lead to France, to a beautiful chateau and a family whose relationships seem as complicated as her own.

When Sarah, struggling to get over tragedy, stumbles across her grandparents' ruined farm, it feels as if the house has been waiting for her. She is drawn to their apparently idyllic way of life and starts to look into her family history - only to learn that her grandfather, Jack, was murdered. Why has nobody told her? Sarah becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Gwen and Jack. But are there some family stories that should never be told?

Yesterday was Alice’s wedding day. She is thousands of miles away from home when she wakes to see a wave on the horizon,taller than her guest house on Kanyakumari beach. Her husband is nowhere to be seen. On the other side of the world is Alice’s mother, Violet. Forced to leave the idyllic Wiltshire village, Imber, after it was requisitioned by the army, Violet is haunted by the shadow of the man she loved and the home that lies in ruins.

Philippa Smith is in her forties and has a beautiful newborn baby girl. She also has no husband, and nowhere to turn. So she turns to the only place she knows: the beginning. Retracing her life, she confronts the daily obstacles that shaped her very existence. From the tragic events of her childhood abandonment, to the astonishing accomplishments of those close to her, Philippa learns of the sacrifices others chose to make, and the outcome of buried secrets.