Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in Contemporary

Meet the Reading Group: forever friends you can count on in good times and bad. No topic is off-limits: books, family, love and loss...and don't forget the glass of red! Grace, Anne-Marie, Kate, Jojo and Serena couldn't be more different, but each month they meet in Serena's clifftop cottage to discuss a good book - oh, and their lives, which are stranger than fiction. Or are they? Between new loves and old flames, cheating husbands and wayward children, there's always a surprise around the corner....

Behind the most famous movie ever made is a tale of love, magic and one incredible woman. Hollywood, 1938: As soon as she learns that M-G-M is adapting her late husband's masterpiece, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, for the screen, Maud Gage Baum sets about trying to visit the set. Nineteen years after Frank's passing, Maud is the only person who can help the producers stay true to the spirit of the book - because she's the only one left who knows its secrets....

Lily and Freddy have a wonderful relationship: passionate and fun. Freddy taught her to love again after the death of her father. But then Freddy becomes tense, snappy and distracted. Is he having an affair? The truth turns out to be much worse.... Freddy is addicted to gambling. He owes hundreds of thousands of pounds to loan companies; he's been helping himself to money from his own company, which has now gone bust; and, worst of all, his wife's money - given to him to invest - is gone. Devastated, Lily leaves him and moves to stay with her sister.

Marnie FitzPatrick is a reclusive sixth former from Hertfordshire with a dysfunctional family, a penchant for Pythagoras' theorem and an addiction to doughnuts and gin. Julie Crewe is a disillusioned maths teacher who lives vicariously through the girls she teaches, yet who once danced barefoot through Central Park with a man called Jo she has never been able to forget.

Dorset, 1965: twenty-five-year-old aspiring artist Marilyn longs to escape to London, but her family relies on her wages from the hotel on the cliff. Then one day Marilyn meets Bruno, an intriguing Italian, and the two fall madly in love, painfully aware of Bruno having very little time left in the country. When he leaves for Italy, he promises to write and to come back as soon as he can. Over fifty years later, Marilyn's daughter Lily returns to her old hometown when she hears that her mother is ill. Mother and daughter have never been close, but now, Lily determines to stay by her side.

You can control want, but desire controls you. When literary writer Anna falls on hard times, she tries her hand at erotic fiction to make money, and faces an uncomfortable truth. Though she's a wife and mother of two, her stories fail to fly because she's never experienced true sexual desire. Even her Sicilian grandmother - wearer of diamante sunglasses and knock-off Louis Vuitton - knows more than she does about real passion. Anna turns to her friends for inspiration. As secrets and desires are revealed, she discovers more about the people close to her than she ever knew.

Thelma is the busy single mum of 12-year-old Louis. When he is hit by a lorry one morning, their lives are changed for ever. Louis falls into a coma, and if he doesn't regain consciousness in the next four weeks, he may never wake up again. At home in Louis' bedroom, a devastated Thelma finds a list of all the things he wants to accomplish in his life and suddenly sees a way to survive: she will fulfil her son's dreams, in the hope that it will bring him back.

What happens if you fall in love with the wrong person? Rose knows only too well the exhilaration and devastation of loving a married man. So she watches with a keen eye as Eve - her closest companion, the granddaughter she never had - meets Myles, the new tenant in her downstairs flat. Quietly and softly and against the backdrop of their own unsatisfactory marriages, Myles and Eve fall in love and, as they try to have the perfect affair like Rose did before them, they come to learn about the pain of lost opportunities.

Last week, Nina was a professor about to move into a gorgeous new apartment with her long-term boyfriend. Now, she's single, unemployed, and living with her parents. Even more shocking is the fact that Quentin, her childhood neighbour (and okay, fine, crush), is also back in town - and wants to resume the treasure hunt that ended their friendship almost two decades ago.

Paddington station, nine a.m., rush hour. As the crowds ebb and flow, time suddenly stands still for two people: Fern and Elliott, ex-lovers who parted twenty-five years before and never expected to see each other again. But here they are, face to face, and the connection is as powerful as it was the day they first met. Their lives have moved on - to marriage, children and divorce - yet neither has stopped regretting the day that drove them apart. Fern gives Elliott her number and they tentatively arrange to meet.

First year of residency is hell, and Grace Rose, a brilliant new OB-GYN resident, starts off in the deepest circle. Her social anxiety is on high alert after she discovers she's battling a rumour that she slept her way into the program. Um. False. Grace sets the record straight by putting on her devil-red lipstick and putting her rude - and frustratingly handsome - co-resident, Julian Santini, in his place. But rumours take on a life of their own, and no amount of studiousness, or support from her co-residents, can course-correct her reputation.

Scream queen Quinn has had it with scary movies. After years as Hollywood's horror It Girl, she's sick of the tabloids and the off-screen drama. So she's decided: one last film, before quitting for good. All that stands in her way is leading man Teddy James. Reality TV star and renowned playboy Teddy has looks to kill for, but absolutely no talent. AKA, Quinn's worst nightmare. That's until they stumble - literally - across a dead body on set.

Leni and her sister Alice were best friends as well as siblings. But did they know each other as well as Alice thought? In the hope of coming to terms with her grief, she tries to piece together Leni's last weeks - but her discoveries only lead to more questions. And that's before the surprise reappearance of someone from the past. Life is certainly getting very complicated. Meanwhile, the rest of the family seem to be falling apart.

Jess Bright, single mum and journalist, feels her life has stalled. So when she's offered a writing job in Paris for the summer, she leaps at the chance to go back to a city full of old memories and the promise of new opportunities. Her subject is the iconic artist Adelaide Fox, whose personal life has always been steeped in scandal and intrigue. Now approaching eighty, she's ready to tell her side of the story - and serve up some scalding-hot revenge in the process. Amidst a stormy working relationship, Jess and Adelaide must face up to their pasts.