Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Genre Fiction

With the recent breakdown of both her ten-year relationship and her parents' marriage, thirty-five-year-old Marnie Barnes no longer believes in love. To give her life the shake-up it so clearly needs, she books a ticket to Canada. Thousands of miles away from her home and her twin sister, she struggles to have the life-changing experience she dreamt of – until she meets Nova, a dinosaur-loving space nerd with a penchant for living in the moment.

She wondered what kind of world she had brought her two daughters into, the tedious cycle of rural Jamaican life. No chance for them to set off upon adventures and see the outside world. But sisters Jenny and Hortense Rodney, do get to see the outside world. Growing up in rural Claremont, working amid the hustle and bustle, lawn parties and houses of joy in Trenchtown, the two sisters take a chance and move to England with their husbands, that far-off land of riches, where they settle down to motherhood among the jazz cafés and bleak streets of Brixton.

Julie and Dicky Otterman arrive at Grundy’s fair with an extraordinary new act: the motorcycle extravaganza The Wall of Death. This seemingly happy couple are the talk of the town, but all is not as it seems, and Dicky’s dark and violent nature means Julie lives in constant fear. There's always plenty happening at Grundy’s fair: Gemma knows Velda's secret. Renata is finally with Donny. New member well-spoken Tom catches the eye of Jenny, the Grundys' lost daughter, returned to the fair very recently....

In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend the summer in their chalet, high in the French Alps. There, for the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one of the 'uglies'—village girls employed as servants and picked, it is believed, to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eye. For Mathilde it is the start of a life-long entanglement with les anglais—strange, exciting people, far removed from the hard grind of farming. Except she soon finds the Valentines are less carefree than they appear....

In the fiery environment of an election season, with tensions stoked by an unrelenting heat wave, Danny Walker goes about the business of being a carefree boy. But when a horrific act of violence is visited on his family, his sense of innocence is shattered and his grip on reality slowly begins to fracture. In lean, lyrical prose - reminiscent of the work of J. M. Coetzee and Cormac McCarthy - Zimbabwean writer Ian Holding delivers a mesmerising coming-of-age tale of guilt and responsibility set within the fault lines of modern Africa.

When Bea Hanlon follows her preacher husband, Max, to a remote island in the Pacific, she soon sees that their mission will bring anything but salvation.... Advent Island is a place beyond the reaches of Bea's most fitful imaginings. It's not just the rats and the hordes of mosquitoes and the weevils in the powdered milk. Past the confines of their stuffy little house, amidst the damp and the dust and the sweltering heat, rumours are spreading of devil chasers who roam the island on the hunt for evil spirits. And then there are the noises from the church at night.

Lala has lived a dazzling life. Born in Poland just after the First World War and brought up to be a perfect example of her class and generation, Lala is an independent woman who has survived some of the most turbulent events of her times. As she senses the first signs of dementia, she battles to keep her memories alive through her stories, telling her grandson tales of a life filled with love, betrayal and extraordinary acts of courage. Sweeping from 19th-century Kiev to modern-day Poland, this enthralling family saga is a celebration of a beautiful life well lived.

Moss has lived with her pa on a remote island for as long as she remembers. The Old World has disappeared beneath the waves - only Pa's magic, harnessing the wondrous stormflowers on the island, can save the sunken continents. But a storm is brewing, promising cataclysmic changes. Soon, two strange boys wash up on the shore. As the clouds swell and the ocean churns, Moss learns to open her eyes to the truth about her isolated world....

It’s the 1950s, and Grundy’s Travelling Fair arrives in town. When night falls, the local town is drawn to the fair. But when the fairgoers head home, the Grundys are left behind. Hours are long and the work backbreaking. But family and friends hold things together.

Who can you trust if you can't trust yourself? Twenty-seven-year-old Lizzie has a great relationship with her teenage stepson, Sam, even though they could pass for brother and sister. When Sam becomes sullen and withdrawn, Lizzie starts to suspect that something sinister is going on at school. But no-one believes her, and then suspicion falls on Lizzie herself....

Something has happened to Peach. Blood runs down her legs, and the scent of charred meat lingers on her flesh. It hurts to walk, but she staggers home to parents that don't seem to notice. Peach must patch herself up alone so she can go to college and see her boyfriend, Green. But sleeping is hard, working is hard, and eating is impossible when her stomach is swollen tight as a drum.

Telegraph operator Lucy Drake is a master of Morse code, but the presence of Sir Colin Beckwith at a rival news agency puts her livelihood at risk. Despite their rivalry, Lucy realises Colin's connections could be just what her family needs to turn the tide of their long legal battle over their stolen fortune. When she negotiates an unlikely alliance with him, neither of them realises how far the web of treachery they're wading into will take them.

Five years ago Susannah Harper's son, Joel, went missing without trace. Bereft of her son and then of her husband, Susannah has rebuilt her life around helping others. But then, on the last night of Hull Fair, a fortune-teller makes an eerie prediction. She tells her that this Christmas Eve, Joel will finally come back to her. As her carefully constructed life begins to unravel, Susannah is forced to confront the buried truths of her family's past.

It is 1950, and Willa's mother has a new beau. The arrival of his blue-eyed, sun-kissed sons at Willa's summer home signals the end of her safe childhood. Willa is drawn to the strange and solitary younger brother, Patrick. As they grow up, their encounters become increasingly charged with sexuality and degradation. But when Willa finally tries to reverse the trajectory of their relationship, an act of desperation has devastating results.

Rupert Lavery is a well-known conservationist. When he dies, his son, Kit, returns from 10 years in Australia to inherit a nature reserve in the heart of the British countryside. Kit finds the nature reserve and the two determined women who staff it are more trouble than they are worth. Elizabeth Punch is single, middle-aged, and on a mission to save wildlife from inconsiderate mankind. Jess Wetherby has dyed orange hair, a nose stud, and aspirations to be a hunt saboteur.

When Maggie Taylor, a cake decorator, and Chad Robertson, a lawyer from Nashville, Tennessee, meet at a wedding in Cornwall, it's not under the best circumstances. They have both been assigned to 'the reject table' alongside a toxic collection of grumpy great-aunts and bitter divorcees. Maggie has grown used to being the reject, but when Chad helps her out of a wedding cake disaster, she begins to wonder whether the future could hold more for her....

The day after her wedding, Donella Ferguson Watson wakes up shackled to a man haunted by the past. The lonely days become weeks, months. Her husband, Hugh, a prison doctor, will offer no explanation for their sexless marriage. She comes to suspect the answer lies with a hunger-striking suffragette who was force fed and held in solitary confinement. But what really happened between Hugh and his prisoner patient?

Father and son Landyn and Vale Midwinter are men of the land: Suffolk farmers. Times are hard as they struggle to sustain their property, livelihood and heritage in the face of competition from big business. But an even bigger, more brutal fight is brewing: a fight between each other about the horrible death of Cecelia, beloved wife and mother, in Zambia 10 years earlier. A past they have both refused to confront - until now.

Albert Kemp is a lonely widower whose only son was killed in the war. Now, in 1953, he is working in a pub with a famous boxing gym upstairs. It is here that Albert brings Danny, a fatherless boy he rescues from gang life. But as Danny begins to grow into a champion, the predators start to circle, luring him back into a life of crime in the corrupt world of match fixing. Will Danny listen to his wise old mentor?

When Jen goes to her grandmother's house for the last time, she's determined not to dwell on the past. As a child Jen adored Lily and suspected she might be a witch, but the spell was broken long ago, and now her death means there won't be any reconciliation. In Lily's house Jen and her daughter, Marianne, reluctantly confront the secrets of the past and present - and discover how dangerous we become when we're trying to protect the ones we love.