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

It is two years before the outbreak of World War 1, and the Oakley family are typical of their time. Andrew has been clerk at a City solicitors for twenty years. Alice, his wife, keeps the home fires burning. Their sons plan on becoming skilled apprentices. And Mabel, their daughter, says she would rather die than go into domestic service like her cousin. She is going to go to train as a secretary. Andrew Oakley little imagines, as he sets off for work one February morning, that their lives are about to change in the most dramatic and tragic fashion.

In the Blood is Andrew Motion's beautifully written memoir of growing up in post-war England—an unforgettable evocation of family life, school life and country life. It also tells the story of how these worlds are shattered, when his mother suffers a terrible riding accident. The tragedy shadows the book, feeding its mood of elegy as well as its celebratory vigilance. Written from a teenage child's point of view, without the benefit of adult hindsight, Motion captures the pathos and puzzlement of childhood with great clarity of expression and freshness of memory. 

Alice, Nina and Jules have been best friends for 20 years. They met in Paris and return there once a year, to relive their youth, leave the cares and troubles of home behind and indulge in each other's friendship and warmth. But this year, aged 35, the cracks in their relationships are starting to show. After their weekend together in Paris, the three women never speak again. Each of them claims the other two ghosted them. But what really happened that weekend?

When Jennifer goes up to Cambridge University with her head full of the Romantic Poets, she never dreams that she will find her very own Byron. But then she meets gorgeous actor Laurie Lewis, and finds herself living a real-life love poem. Fifteen years and two children later, Jennifer and Laurie's relationship is starting to feel more like an epic tragedy. After a series of revelations turn her world upside down, Jennifer will do anything to keep her family together—even if it means moving hundreds of miles away to Laurie's childhood home in Westenbury, Yorkshire.

They would rather die than become mothers. A serial killer is on the loose in Tel Aviv. Each victim is found tied to a chair with a baby doll glued to their hands, the word 'mother' carved into their forehead like a mark of Cain. Stowed away between the wax figurines of the Bible museum where she works, Sheila Heller knows both victims. She suspects the killings have something to do with a pact their group all made at university - to never have children. What Sheila doesn't know is who is committing these gruesome acts of ritualistic violence, and whether she herself might be next.

This book is for anyone, whether they are sober-curious, already sober or considering becoming sober. Broken into four parts, you will discover how to: understand your relationship with alcohol, including grey-area drinking; use the full sober toolkit to help you build and sustain your sober life; stay sober, particularly on high days and holidays, and rediscover who you are without alcohol; and fine-tune your toolkit to make it perfect for you and your new life.

At Treetops Foundling Home in Victorian Nuneaton, one special little girl brings sunshine and joy wherever she goes. A favourite of her foster mother, Kitty grows into a beguiling young woman but soon attracts the attention of more than one suitor with questionable intentions. She quickly discovers that her beauty is no protection against the peril she finds herself in, as this innocent young girl makes her way in the music halls and theatres of the big city....

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 this no-holds-barred collection of essays, prominent women authors, journalists and TV personalities explore the truth about becoming mothers. Covering topics from labour to the breastapo, twins to IVF, weaning to post-birth sex, and with writers including Cathy Kelly, Adele Parks, Kathy Lette and Lucy Porter and many more, Things I Wish I’d Known is a reassuring, moving and often hilarious collection that will speak to mothers - and mothers-to-be - everywhere.

It’s been a journey, but I finally have a normal life. A nice life. A wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter. My sixteen-year-old soccer-loving girl is everything. But now he wants to take it all away. I won’t let him. It’s been twenty years, but this morning, I saw him again. Watching me. Taunting me. I was the girl who escaped. I was sixteen when he dragged me into the woods. I remember his harsh breathing and heavy footsteps, his weight falling on me. The broken branch I jammed into his throat. Twenty years ago he tried to kill me. I got away, but now he’s come back for my daughter.

I thought my husband killed my daughter. He's innocent. I thought my father died of a stroke. He was murdered. I thought my sister was alive and living in Florida. She's been dead for ten years. I thought my foster daughter was safe in my home. She's not. Everything I thought I knew is a lie. But I have to focus on the future, on the young girl I'm fostering. I find her in my backyard in the middle of the night—she's tiny, lost and terrified. Someone left her here.