Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Friendship

Frustrated that she spends all her time as either a mum to a football-obsessed teenager or a wife to a workaholic husband, Hannah wants something for herself. When the chance comes to take over the post office in Little Maudley, a charming Cotswold village, Hannah grabs it with both hands. She’ll have a career at last and also get her son, Ben, away from his trouble-making mates. But village life is not so picture-perfect after all.

Teenage Eulabee and her alluring best friend, Maria Fabiola, own the streets of Sea Cliff, their foggy oceanside San Francisco neighborhood. They know the ins and outs of the homes and beaches, Sea Cliff’s hidden corners and eccentric characters - as well as the swanky all-girls’ school they attend. Their lives move along uneventfully, with afternoon walks by the ocean and weekend sleepovers. Then everything changes. Eulabee and Maria Fabiola have a disagreement about what they did or didn’t witness on the way to school one morning, and this creates a schism in their friendship.

Sophie Mills has worked her Manolo Blahniks off to reach the near-top of her profession. And she's very happy with her priorities in life - her job, her neurotic cat Artemis and her passion for shoes. After all, relationships only get in the way. And as for children? She hasn't even begun to think about them yet.

Winter, 1364. Sir Thomas Blackstone, Edward III's Master of War, has travelled to France to secure Brittany for England. In the throes of battle, he rescues a Castilian boy, Lazaro, who just witnessed the murder of the young queen. It is suspected that the king - along with Velasquita Alcon de Lugo, the beautiful witch who serves him - assassinated his queen. But Lazaro knows that is not the case. With the king in hiding and the French army advancing Castile is on its knees. So Blackstone is ordered to Castile, to defend England's ally from the French.

Cassie Holliday is at the top of her game. A glamorous wife and mother with 1.3 million Instagram followers, she posts images of her gorgeous husband and cute (gender-neutral) twins online every day. To her adoring fanbase, Cassie's life is a string of perfect experiences in Valencia filter. But in real life, you can't airbrush the truth. Cassie's marriage is at breaking point, her finances are precarious and she is terrified of every Insta-star's worst nightmare: becoming irrelevant.

In 1922, Paul Beckermann arrives at the Bauhaus art school and is immediately seduced by both the charismatic teaching and his fellow students. Eccentric and alluring, the more time Paul spends with his new friends the closer they become, and the deeper he falls in love with the mesmerising Charlotte. But Paul is not the only one vying for her affections, and soon an insidious rivalry takes root.

Theo, an aging Parisian cartographer, is desperately searching for the woman he once loved before Alzheimer’s takes his memories of her. Elise, his estranged daughter, moves in to take care of him. She still blames him for the tragic loss of her mother and is struggling with this new forced intimacy. Nebay, an Eritrean refugee, becomes Theo’s carer and friend. Unbeknownst to Elise, Nebay does not have a visa for France and is working illegally in order to support his sister.

For a group of four New York friends, the past 10 years have been defined by marriage and motherhood. Educated to believe that they and their generation would conquer the world, they nonetheless left high-powered jobs to stay at home with their babies. What was intended as a temporary time-out has turned into a decade. Now at 40, with their kids growing up, Amy, Jill, Roberta and Karen wake up to a life and a future that is not what they intended. Illicit affairs, money problems, issues with children and husbands all rear their heads, and the friends wonder if it's time for a change.

Diana and her sister, Antonia, are house-sharing spinsters who have never got over their respective first loves. Naomi lives alone, haunted by the failure of her two marriages. When a body is discovered in the local quarry, all three women’s lives are turned upside down. And when Diana’s old flame Gill turns up unexpectedly, tensions finally spill over and threaten to destroy the outwardly peaceful lives all three women have carefully constructed around themselves.

When Lucy’s childhood sweetheart stands her up on their wedding day, leaving her alone on a plane eloping to the tropical location of his choosing, their dream—now feeling like just her dream—of their bairn filled future disappears in a heartbeat (or the time it takes for her to listen to the rambling drunken voicemail he left calling off the wedding).

Farm vet Emma knows what it’s like to go without and when she has the opportunity to share the cost of her accommodation for Christmas, she’s quick to agree. But when she meets self-assured city vet Oli, who’s trying his hand at rural practice before he takes off on his next adventure, he’s the last person she wants invading her home and their lives couldn’t be more opposite. Oli’s exactly the kind of man likely to leave a trail of broken hearts in his wake, and after a crushing break-up straight out of university, Emma isn’t going let herself fall for his charms like everyone else.

An elegant and haunting dystopian tale about a group of individuals gathered to relearn how to navigate the world after a mysterious illness strips them of their memories. Nestled in an idyllic locale beside the sea, The Centre is a place of rehabilitation and rebuilding. Students arrive nameless, their memories and sense of identity wiped by a strange illness.

Brian, Nik and Darby—three friends practiced in ennui, binge-drinking, hooking up with strangers and fighting supernatural crime (when Brian's not committing it as a werewolf once a month)—have been sent by Abe Van Helsing (yes, one of those Van Helsings) to try to track down a colleague who has gone missing in London. As they putz around the city, following any leads that might help them find their British counterpart, they uncover a clairvoyancy smuggling ring, located right in the heart of the financial district. Who's kidnapping all the fortune tellers in Soho, and why?

Fred Twistleton is about to turn forty. Gathering with his friends to celebrate at a rented stately home, he finally hopes to get together with his college crush, the woman of his dreams, Heather. But Fred is also keen to publish his memoirs, and Heather realizes the revelations they contain could threaten her career as a high-flying foreign correspondent.

Emery is born with a heart condition that means her heart could quite literally stop at any moment. The people around her know what to do—if they act quickly enough there will be no lasting damage, and Emery's heart can be restarted. But when this happens, she is briefly technically dead. Each time Emery's heart stops, she meets Nick. His purpose is to help people adjust to the fact that they are dead, to help them say goodbye, before they move on entirely. He does not usually meet people more than once—but with Emery, he is able to make a connection, and he finds himself drawn to her.

1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away. Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another's sight, always on one another's mind, yet rarely together.

Holly's husband died, and she's lonely. She needs to do something to save herself, quickly. Next thing she knows she's interviewing for a voluntary cooking job, surprised to be ambushed by a scruffy man who looks like he has a past. Angus has messed up. He's lost the respect of his family and has none for himself. If it weren't for his brother and friend who run the café, he'd be sleeping on the streets. Angus is about ready to give up—until he meets Holly, who sparks something in him. Then Lauren arrives from the homeless shelter.

Dot is a lonely pensioner. Max is a young offender. But a chance meeting in their local park changes everything for this unlikely duo. They soon find they share a wicked sense of humor and a penchant for petty crime. When Dot wins the lottery, Max helps her make a bucket list of all the things she's always wanted to do but never had the chance. The pair gradually realize that it's not just expensive gadgets, fast cars and fun fairs that make them happy. And that the secret to living a rich life isn't money.

Shani Akilah's stunning collection brings to life the stories of Black-British Londoners as they explore friendship and romance, community and independence, and navigate their way through the relationships that make them who they are.

Sophie and Andrew are looking for relief from the daily grind—so when a friend puts them in touch with newlyweds looking to swap houses for the summer, they have their solution. The swap works an unexpected magic for Sophie, who begins to find a sense of happiness. But soon the intertwining of these lives and hearts begins to have dramatic consequences none of them could have foreseen.