Showing results for "lifes a" in Contemporary Fiction

Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. 'I nearly missed you, Doctor August,' she says.

Alice Hamilton loved being a mature-age student, but now she's finished her university degree she needs to find herself a career. But the job market is tough, and it doesn't help that her partner, David, keeps reminding her about their sizable mortgage. When she's offered a role in a major real estate agency, she jumps at the opportunity. David is excited by her prospects in the thriving Melbourne housing market, and Alice is pleased that she'll be utilising her exceptional people skills. But Alice quickly realises all is not as it seems.

Once more we catch up with the delightful goings-on in the fictitious 44 Scotland Street from Alexander McCall Smith. With customary charm and deftness, McCall Smith gives us another instalment in this popular series, now running in its ninth season in The Scotsman. Anything could happen to Bertie and the gang.

Richard is a modern day everyman; a middle-aged divorcee trading stocks out of his home. He has done such a good job getting his life under control that he needs no one. His life has slowed almost to a standstill until two incidents conspire to hurl him back into the world. One day he wakes up with a knotty cramp in his back, which rapidly develops into an all-consuming pain. At the same time a wide hole appears outside his living room window, threatening the foundations of his house.

Ruth Patchett never thought of herself as particularly devilish. Rather the opposite in fact - simply a tall, not terribly attractive woman living a quiet life as a wife and mother in a respectable suburb. But when she discovers that her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy that she becomes truly diabolic. Within weeks she has burnt down the family home, collected the insurance, made love to the local drunk and embarked on a course of destruction and revenge.

In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K goes to the centre of human experience - the need for an interior, spiritual life, for some connections to the world in which we live, and for purity of vision.

What does a bunch of 20-somethings have in common? 1. A plan for how their lives will shape up in regards their careers, passions, dreams, love or sex. 2. A plan for completing the above plan. Not if you are Vik or belong to his friend circle. Life here is anything but a plan. Here ideas for life are scoffed at, dreams never appear in their long slumber and having fun and being laidback is considered to be an 'in' thing.

As bushfires rage outside the city, three women watch a performance of a Beckett play. Margot is a successful professor, preoccupied by her fraught relationship with her ailing husband. Ivy is a philanthropist with a troubled past, distracted by the snoring man beside her. Summer is a young theatre usher, anxious about the safety of her girlfriend in the fire zone.

Lexie Gallagher is starting to think she’s better off alone. Her family fell apart years ago. Her relationships all end in disaster. Is she the common denominator who causes everyone to leave - everyone but her best friend, Gabe, who whisks her away from the scene of the latest breakup? As a human resources VP, Gabe North understands people, and how to meet their needs. What Lexie’s always needed is a true-blue friend, doubly so when she’s left at the altar. Of course, he’ll be her shoulder to cry on - even though he’s wanted to be more than friends for years.

Fiddle player Eliza Bancroft had to improvise after an unplanned pregnancy four years ago. Instead of pursuing her dream of performing live music, she changed keys and has focused on being a good mom and a sought-after studio musician in Nashville. Her rhythm is set until she spots her son’s father in a local magazine and realizes the man she was unable to track down lives right under her nose in Music City.

The Life of Houses explores, with a poet's eye for detail, the hidden tensions in one of Australia's establishment families. These tensions come to the surface during a week in summer when Kit's recently divorced mother sends her away to stay with her estranged grandparents, and her unmarried aunt who cares for them, in their old and decaying house by the sea.

Carefree personal trainer Drake North is long on charm and short on connections that do more than skim the surface. His main ties are to his family and his best friend, so when his friend’s little sister moves to town, Drake promises to look out for her. But when he offers her his spare bedroom for a few nights, he might be getting in over his head.

Camille se acerca a la cuarentena cuando, de repente, se ve envuelta en un mar de dudas. No es que sea desgraciada, pero tampoco se siente realmente feliz. Tiene la impresión de que la felicidad se le escurre entre los dedos. Es cierto que ha conseguido un trabajo que le permite estabilidad financiera, pero en realidad no le apasiona. En casa, la rutina se ha instalado en su matrimonio: ya ninguno de los dos se esfuerza. Y la relación con su hijo... es más tensa que la cuerda de un equilibrista.

Loner Cole North has always been the odd guy out. His IQ is sky-high, but he’s not so bright when it comes to people or relationships. Years ago, he spurned expectations, shunned his family’s business, and embraced a career in construction, instead. Now, he values his job above everything, in part because of his secret feelings for his boss Sierra.

小説家の槙村朗がパーソナリティーを務めるラジオ番組「A DAY IN YOUR LIFE」は、読者から募集した「何でもない一日、奇跡を感じた一瞬、幸せだった日々、不思議なことがあった日」などの〈あなたの一日〉を読みやすい物語に仕立てて、送っている。じつは、彼は不思議な能力を持っていて、人が書いた文字を見ると、事実か事実でないかがわかるのだ。

I walk slowly to the kitchen counter, staring out the window as Ceci rocks back and forth on the swing. My beautiful darling girl has been through so much already. How can I tell her that her life is about to change forever? When the woman from the hospital tells me that my husband Drew is in a coma my world comes crashing down. In an instant, I see our whole married life flashing before my eyes: the way our children ran into his arms when he came home from work, the way his face lit up when he read to them.

This book is much more than twelve stories that are independent of one another, each having a different meaning from the others. Rather, it is a novel of one person chronicled through the many roles he plays in his life and those who shared those experiences with him.

En roman i to parallelle spor. Amandas barndom og voksenliv. I barndommen bliver hun fjernet fra hjemmet og kommer på børnehjem og i familiepleje. En ensom og kuldslået opvækst, der gør hende til en følsom overlever. Som voksen bliver hun gift med Thomas, der har en helt anden baggrund i det københavnske jetset. Deres forgudede lille datter, Laura, skal have al den varme og kærlighed, Amanda ikke selv fik. Men der er hårde modspillere, bl.a. Thomas' ekskone, en skandaleomsust skuespiller, og hendes datter med Thomas, Louise, som skal bo hos sin far og hader og bekæmper Amanda med alle midler.

An epic story about the power of words and actions, and the legacy of violence and abuse passed down through generations - and the redeeming strength of one singular woman to overcome the effects of a horrific secret. Ruth, a clear-eyed young artist with a promising future, is stymied at every turn by men who seek to maintain power over her. Gripping and inspiring, Tree of Lives spans the 20th century, and in following Ruth's development, demonstrates how feisty and independent women paved the way in the fight for social equality as the decades unraveled.

Billy's mother is dead. He knows-because he reads about it in magazines-that people die every day in ways that are more random and tragic and stupid than hers, but for nineteen-year-old Billy and his little brother, Oscar, their mother's death in a bungled street robbery is the most random and tragic and stupid thing that could possibly have happened to them.