Showing titles in City Life

My new husband is everything I shouldn't want: dark soul, wicked smile, and a growl that makes me forget my own name. A walking sin in a tailored suit, he's determined to make me pay for my father's betrayal. But the way he claims me like I'm his only redemption tells a different story. Turns out New York's most feared crime lord has a weakness. And apparently, it's me.

Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, stirs with hope and impending upheaval. Soviet buildings crumble, wind scatters sand from the far south and political protesters flood the streets with song. In this atmosphere of disquiet, an American teacher navigates a life transformed by the discovery and loss of love. As he prepares to leave the place he’s come to call home, he grapples with the intimate encounters that have marked his years abroad, each bearing uncanny reminders of his past.

Max is thirty, a published poet and grossly overpaid legal counsel for a tech company. She’s living her best life! Or is she? The debris of years of dysphoria and failed relationships rattle around in her head. When she tumbles down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party and wakes up in hospital alone, she decides to make some changes. First things first: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity. Enter Vincent, corporate lawyer and hobby baker. His trad friendship group may as well speak a different language to Max, and his Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman.

Malcolm Gephardt, handsome and gregarious long-time bartender at The Half Moon, has always dreamed of owning a bar. When his boss is finally ready to retire, Malcolm stretches to buy the place. He sees its unquantifiable magic and potential and hopes to make it a bigger success, but quickly realizes that his customers don't like change. His wife Jess is smart and confident, and has devoted herself to her law career. But after years of trying to have a baby, she's struggling to accept the idea that motherhood may not be in the cards for her.

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…

Isa Epley is 21 years old and wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. In her diary she chronicles her New York City adventure during the sweltering summer of 2013. By day, Isa and her best friend, Gala, sell clothes in a market stall, pinching pennies for their Bed-Stuy sublet and bodega lunches. By night, they weave from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side among a rotating cast of celebrities, artists, and bad-mannered grifters.

Situated in a rapidly gentrifying district of Seoul, Yeonnam-Dong's Smiley Laundromat is a place where the extraordinary stories of ordinary residents unfold. Furnished with a coffee machine, a full bookshelf, and warm lighting, it is a haven from the world for many locals. And when a notebook is left behind there, it becomes a place that brings people together. One by one, customers start jotting down candid diary entries, opening their hearts and inviting acts of kindness from neighbours who were once just faces in the crowd. But there is a darker story behind the notebook...

Eighteen-year-old Lizzie Vogel finds herself a new job in a dentist's surgery after answering a classified advert in the Leicester Mercury for a 'mature lady with a strong interest in dental issues'. Working for an eccentric dental surgeon who's obsessed with becoming a Freemason, Lizzie's life is uneventful until Andy Nicolello turns up one day to deliver a crown. Lizzie seizes her chance to find love and soon begins calling him her boyfriend even though they have never so much as kissed or even sat next to each other on the sofa.

The trip of a lifetime! Rosie Lewis has her life together. A swanky job as a Michelin-starred sous chef, a loving husband and future children scheduled for exactly January 2021. That’s until she comes home one day to find her husband’s prepacked bag and a confession that he's had an affair. Heartbroken and devastated, Rosie drowns her sorrows in a glass (or three) of wine, only to discover the following morning that she has spontaneously invested in a bright pink campervan to facilitate her grand plans to travel the country.

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.

When high school English teacher Richard Boyle comes face-to-face with an ex-student determined to commit an atrocity, his whole world changes. Thanks to his quick thinking, Richard averts a major tragedy and is hailed as a hero, with his face splashed across the media. But not all the attention coming his way is good…Somewhere out there, a memory is triggered by someone watching the news of the incident. A plan is hatched. When Richard receives the first threat, it’s very clear: it’s time to talk about what you did to me…

The pretty little streets of Montmartre are abuzz with a rumour. Apparently a mystery matchmaker, known only as ‘Paris Cupid’, has somehow helped the city’s most famous bachelor find love. But old-fashioned romantic Lilou is staying very quiet. She’d just wanted to set up her best friend, and to get on with her life selling whimsical old love letters, in Paris’s famous St. Ouen market. She hadn’t imagined her little Paris Cupid project could ever have attracted so many people looking for true, heartfelt romance.

Twenty-five years ago, DCI Harry Rhimes arrested Andrew Streeter for the brutal murders of five young people. Streeter’s ‘kill list’ of victims was found in his home, and he was convicted of all five crimes. Now, Streeter’s convictions are being overturned, as new evidence implies the original investigation was corrupt. No one is more shocked that DI Henley. Because this case is personal; Rhimes was her old boss, and he’s no longer alive to defend himself. But when the killings start up again, Henley must face the truth: Rhimes got it wrong twenty-five years ago.

This is Nadia. She is fiercely independent, with an excellent sense of humour and a love of smoking alone on her balcony late at night. This is Saeed. He is sweet and shy and kind to strangers. He also has a balcony but he uses his for stargazing. This is their story: a love story, but also a story about how we live now and how we might live tomorrow.

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.

Ally Hawkins has never had a Valentine’s Day date—but this is her year. She can feel it in her endlessly optimistic heart. So when she stumbles upon a love potion at a county fair, she figures…why not? It’s silly, it’s smelly, and she’s a grown woman. But then—bam—the very guy she’s been crushing on asks her to lunch. Coincidence? She thinks not.

It's just another Tuesday with Mercury in retrograde. Cue Nikolai Volkov. A devil in Armani with a body built for sin. Protective. Ruthless. Magnetic. Oh, and did I mention he's hot enough to melt Siberia? I should despise him for stealing my freedom. Instead, I'm playing house with the beast and melting every time he growls 'mine’. But as it turns out, this good girl has a knack for taming monsters.

All This Could be Different introduces us to Sneha. A recent college graduate freshly arrived in Milwaukee, she occupies her days with rote, stressful work as a young consultant for a battery production corporation. She is, as her boss reminds her, a 'contractor, no benefits'. Her nights are spent ordering furniture off the internet, trying out the newfangled invention of dating apps and avoiding confrontation with the terrifying property manager who lives below her. But the rewards are bountiful.

When Kalu drops Aima at Lagos Airport, it marks the end of their four-year relationship. Shattered and broken open, he thinks that's the last he will see of his girlfriend. But Aima is drawn back into the city - to the scandalous, decadent nightlife of her best friend. As Kalu grieves, his friend offers him an exclusive invitation to one of his sordid, global parties - a way for Kalu to escape, if only for a night. Kalu knows it will offer every possible indulgence and something even more precious: time with the man he loves, but whose actions will plunge them all into a whirling descent.

It's 1973 and Mona Glass is a 24-year-old amateur tennis star in a long-running affair with Saul Plotz, her former college professor. Her parents like Saul and desperately want the free-spirited Mona to marry. But 34-year-old Saul already has a wife and two children. One day, Saul happens on an idea: stage a fake wedding for the benefit of her old world parents, invite a few friends in on the joke, and go about their lives. The ruse works. Except Saul realizes he actually wants to marry Mona, who vows never to permanently tie herself to a man.