Showing results by publisher "--Tyson Hanks" in City Life

Melbourne, 1945. Born into a well-to-do family, Maggie Johnson wants freedom from her parents' strict conservative beliefs and their unbending desire for her to marry the right sort of man. Instead, Maggie longs to forge her own path in life. Lil Kelly, who lives in the slums, works tirelessly to care for her mother and sister. Lil looks for contentment wherever she can find it, not daring to dream of more. When their paths cross during the exhilarating celebrations of Victory in the Pacific Day, they form a secret friendship.

For 30-somethings Lindy, Ailbhe and Roe, the move to the new hyper-polished, luxury housing development, Monteray Valley, feels like slow death by Netflix, neighbourhood Whatsapp groups and Saturday nights in. Potential for exciting possibilities seem to be withering faster than you can say 'postnatal dryness' as their lives are consumed by other halves, domestic drudgery and obligations. Compiling a snag list to send to their builder sees the new friends contemplating their own personal snag lists and inspires a business idea that will change the course of all their lives.

Ronke, Simi and Boo are three mixed-race friends living in London. Everyday racism has never held them back, but now in their 30s, they question their future. When Isobel, a lethally glamorous friend from their past, arrives in town, she is determined to fix their futures for them. Cracks in their friendship begin to appear, and it is soon obvious Isobel is not sorting but wrecking. When she is driven to a terrible act, the women are forced to reckon with a crime in their past that may just have repeated itself.

In the late 1960s, Leo Gazzara left his family in Milan and moved to Rome for work. Soon unemployed, he has spent his time in an alcoholic haze, bouncing between hotels, bars, romantic entanglements and the homes of his rich and well-educated friends. Rome is indifferent. Leo drifts, aimless and alone. On the evening of his thirtieth birthday, he meets Arianna, a young woman who is both fragile and seductive. All night they drive the city in Leo’s run-down Alfa Romeo, talking and talking. They eat brioche for breakfast, drink through the dawn, drive to the sea and back.

Funny Ethnics catapults listeners into the sprawling city-within-a-city that is Western Sydney and the world of Sylvia Nguyen: only child of Vietnamese refugee parents, unexceptional student, exceptional self-doubter. It's a place where migrants from across the world converge, and identity is a slippery, ever-shifting beast. Jumping through snapshots of Sylvia's life—from childhood to something resembling adulthood—this novel is about square pegs and round holes, those who belong and those on the fringes.

When Sara Foster runs away from home at 16, she leaves behind not only the losses that have shattered her world but the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern. In her seventh year and fifth major as an undergraduate, she yearns for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but is unable to commit.

Since she was sixteen, Willa's curious touchstone in life and work has been the 1993 film Much Ado About Nothing. She's always looking for The Feeling, the stirring in her heart—and loins—that she gets when watching the opening scenes. Now she's navigating her mid-thirties, her career as a romance publisher in an unusual family business, and her determination to remain child-free, while quietly holding out for a love as big as Beatrice and Benedick's.

Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn’t belong. Not with his mother’s new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father’s wife. Not at school, where he’s an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real connections: to the feral cat he’s tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who’s introduced herself with a curious question: Have you seen Luis Velez?

Ten-year-old Magda Brodie’s world is torn apart when her mother dies in the workhouse two weeks before Christmas. Her wastrel father arranges for her sisters to be sent to their grandparents in Ireland and for her younger brother to be adopted, leaving Magda distraught with worry as her family are scattered far and wide. Magda, as the eldest girl, is sent to live with her Aunt Bridget who, for whatever reason, holds a bitter resentment towards Magda. But adversity makes Magda strong and determined.

What will be will be. Belinda Marshall’s idyllic teenage life in Brittany, France, fell apart when her parents dramatically separated and her mother took her back to England. Fast forward 35 years when Belinda’s world is once again turned upside down. It’s the week before Christmas and her employer 'surprises’ Belinda by asking for her help to rejuvenate their latest investment, a run-down campsite in Brittany.

Kailyn Flowers was always calm, rational, and controlled—until she ended up sprawled all over Daxton Hughes, the former actor she totally crushed on as a teenager. Then she did the unthinkable: She became a mortifying fangirl in five seconds flat, which may or may not have included professing her undying love. And oddly, he didn't run away. In fact, their meet cute led to a friendship she never saw coming. Of course, she never saw his betrayal coming, either....

Grace has what one might call a 'full and interesting life', which is code for not married and has no kids. Her life is the envy of her straight friends, but all this time she has been waiting in secret for love to hit her so hard that she would run out of breath, like the way a wave in a rough sea bowls you over, slams you into the sand and nearly drowns you.

Sophia is determined to grow old disgracefully and refuses to be invisible. She craves fiery passion and steamy romance, not targeted ads for funeral plans. After a heart-shattering breakup, she ditches love to date a new man each week for a year. As she flirts, fumbles and sips fizz through an array of encounters, from an opera buff in a cape to an orgasm whisperer, she discovers it's never too late to rewrite your own love story, even if it's not the one you expected…

Becca and Charlie have known each other since university. Becca and Charlies have also hated each other since university. Until now. Until Ally’s bucket list. The death of their loved one should mean they can go their separate ways and not look back. But completing the list is something neither of them can walk away from. And sometimes, those who bring out the worst in you, also bring out the very best. Over the course of ten years, Becca and Charlie’s paths collide as they deal with grief, love and life after Ally.

Despite living in an actual castle, happily ever after is evading Margaret ‘Maggie’ Moore. From her bedroom in the Tower of London, twenty-six-year-old Maggie has always dreamed of her own fairy-tale ending. Yet this is twenty-first century London, so instead of knights on white horses, she has catfish on Tinder. And with her last relationship ending in spectacular fashion, she swears off men for good. And then a chance encounter with Royal Guard Freddie forces Maggie to admit that she isn’t ready to give up on love just yet.

Bailey Flanigan is finally leaving her small-town home of Bloomington, Indiana, for the adventure of a lifetime: she has gotten a part in a Broadway musical in New York City. She's determined to take advantage of this unbelievable opportunity, but is she really ready to leave family and friends for the loneliness of the big city? And what about Cody, her former boyfriend? His disappearance has her worried about their future and praying that their love can survive.

Detective Lola is heading back over the river from a rare night out when she spots a crowd of people looking over the parapet. Someone’s gone in. A young man called Cammy witnessed everything. He swears it’s the work of the Clyde Pusher, but is terrified of the police. The Clyde Pusher is the stuff of urban legend. A hooded figure who throws men into the river to drown. Eight victims in five years. But according to the police, the Pusher doesn’t exist. There are no reliable witnesses, nothing to link the victims.

Charles lives in the testosterone-driven, high-powered, brutal world of investment banking. It is a world dominated by deals, bonuses, bravado, and savagery. Charles is a master of this world. Each day, he shrugs on a metaphorical suit of armour and goes out into a dog-eat-dog world to accumulate power and make money. He's a man who is familiar with casual brutality - his childhood saw to that.

Twenty-six-year-old Nicole Najim is struggling to find herself after a painful breakup, just when she thought she was going to settle down. Working a dead-end job in the family car dealership and at a loose end, she picks up her camera and returns to the melting pot of Sydney’s West to rediscover her roots. When she catches up with childhood friend, Danny, who makes his living in a shadowy underworld, their relationship intensifies just as the law starts to close in.

Maria, a trans woman in her 30s, is going nowhere. She spends her aimless days working in a New York bookstore, trying to remain true to a punk ethos while drinking herself into a stupor and having a variety of listless and confusing sexual encounters. After her girlfriend cheats on her, Maria steals her car and heads for the Pacific, embarking on her version of the Great American Road Trip.