Showing results by publisher "Boldwood Books" in Family Life

As if my mum breaking her hip and being rushed to hospital isn’t shocking enough for one day, now in her post-operative delirium, she’s just told me I’m not her daughter. That she has never been able to have children. The nurse reassures me that people are often confused after a trauma. But I know this woman so well and I can tell there’s a grain of truth in what she says. Which begs the questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? When I dig into the truth, I suddenly stir up a hornet’s nest of secrets, lies – and possibly a crime so unfathomable – that stretches back decades.

After leaving an unhappy relationship, Hannah Jackson has no confidence in herself or love. The only thing she secretly dreams of is her own bakery. But when her brother Ben, the owner of their family run hotel Maple Tree Lodge, asks her to open a cafe in the renovated boathouse on Dragonfly Lake, Hannah is consumed with self-doubt. Due to an injury, Ben’s best friend and champion triathlete Alex Grant finds himself suddenly at a crossroads in his life and accepts Ben’s offer to recuperate at Maple Tree Lodge...

Emma has four younger sisters, all of whom are married or getting married, and an Italian mother who can’t understand what is ‘wrong’ with her eldest daughter, who seems to be stranded on the shelf. Despairing of her own ability to find a suitable husband, Emma agrees to be part of a compatibility project to get married at first sight.

When Rowan Bellamy’s marriage collapses in spectacular style, she retreats with her two children, Bella and Theo, to the last place she ever wanted to return—her windswept Cornish hometown of Port Agnes. Taking the headteacher role at the local primary school is the easy part. Facing village gossip, curious neighbours, and old flames? Not so much. Especially when one of those flames turns out to be Nathan Lark — the boy who broke her heart and the man who now has a reputation as bruised as her own.

Workaholic Molly is buzzing when her best friend tells her she’s getting married. As maid of honour Molly can’t wait for the perfect bachelorette party in Spain. What could be better than a week in a stunning villa? Sun, sea, cocktails and gossiping – and best of all, no boys allowed. But when the hens arrive they discover that they are not alone. The villa has been accidentally double booked by a group of stags who make it very clear they’re not leaving!

Callie Derbyshire has it all: her dream job as a carer at Bay View, finally she has found the love of her life. Everything is perfect. Well, almost. Ex-partners are insistent on stirring up trouble, and Callie’s favourite resident, Ruby, hasn’t been her usual self. But after discovering the truth about Ruby’s lost love, Callie is determined to give Ruby’s romantic story the happy ending it deserves. After all, it’s never too late to let love in again. Or is it?

Single dad, Joel Grainger, is devoted to his little girl, Imogen, doing all he can to be a key part of her life. But with Imogen’s mum being ever more difficult and Joel’s job suddenly in doubt, he’s worried that everything is about to change. Joel has given everything to Imogen, and he doesn’t regret it, but maybe he’s lost himself along the way… Since her dad’s heart-breaking dementia diagnosis, Poppy Wells has been struggling and desperately needs a break. An opportunity to stay in gorgeous Whisperwood Farmhouse couldn’t be more perfect.

Three sisters...one secret. Ashleigh: a creative, free spirit and loyal. But Ash is tormented by her demons and a past that refuses to be laid to rest. Jessica: perfect wife and loving mother. While Jessica might seem to have it all, she lives a secret life built on lies. Grace: an outsider, has never known the love of her sisters, and her resentment can make her do bad things. When Ashleigh goes missing, Jessica and Grace do all they can to find their eldest sister. But the longer Ashleigh is missing, the more secrets and lies these women are hiding threaten to tear this family apart.

After escaping her parents’ unhappy marriage to sleepy Cranbridge a long time ago, Belle Clarke dreams of staying at The Black Swan Inn forever. But with the rundown inn threatened with closure, Belle may be forced to leave, unless a buyer can be found...quickly. So, when her oldest friend, Pete Kennedy, returns from working abroad with a plan to save the Inn, Belle should be overjoyed. The trouble is, Pete has some rather radical ideas for the renovation which Belle disagrees with.

Bernadette O'Brien walked away from a husband who cheated on her throughout her whole marriage. Marge Drummond knows that now is the time to share a hidden truth with her daughter Estelle. Amber Collins is finally ready to embrace a new romance after a divorce that broke her heart. Three women, three tangled webs of love and betrayal… When all the secrets come out, who will still believe in love at the end of the day?

Mabel Beaumont’s husband Arthur loved lists. He’d leave them for her everywhere. ‘Remember: eggs, butter, sugar’. ‘I love you: today, tomorrow, always’. But now Arthur is gone. He died: softly, gently, not making a fuss. But he’s still left her a list. This one has just one item on it though: ‘Find D’. Mabel feels sure she knows what it means. She must track down her best friend Dot, who she hasn’t seen since the fateful day she left more than sixty years ago.

As the sun rises over the little Provence village where single mother Adeline has escaped with her little girl Lily, she breathes deeply. This is their new beginning. Here, she can forget the lies her family told her. Here, she can start her story again. Later she opens the door to the town’s tiny bookstore, where she is to work, ready to meet the mysterious owner Monique for the first time. She expected an ordinary bookshop. But this bookstore feels somehow different… magical. Breathing in the smell of books, she feels a jolt of something. It feels like a new chapter beginning.

Debbie Jones thinks life is an adventure. Even having lost her husband a year ago, she’s ready for whatever the world might throw her way. Being in her sixties doesn’t mean it’s all over for her yet, and she loves her new job doing neighbourhood support for a charity. Then she knocks on a stranger’s front door. Ruth Waverley doesn’t like surprises. Her life isn’t perhaps all she once dreamed off, but what other options are there for a woman in her sixties? She’s proud of her home and children. And she likes her life well enough. Then she hears someone knocking at the door.

Emma is having a fresh start. After a successful teaching career, an exciting new chapter awaits Emma – helping her fiancé Grayson run one of Beatrix Potter's farms. While imagining days spent supporting Grayson with his dream, working the land and helping with the animals, Emma harvests a dream of her own – to set up an alpaca-walking business around the farm. But working together isn’t as easy as Emma expected. Soon her dreams are in tatters and, broken-hearted, she must start over yet again.

Bristol 1938. A shadowy presence overshadows Coronation Close, watching and waiting. Jenny Crawford is the first to notice the stranger and wonders why his attention is fixed on Thelma Dawson’s house. When challenged he makes a hasty retreat. Meanwhile Thelma is having trouble with her precocious daughter Mary who is about to leave school and start work. Mary considers herself an adult but to Thelma she’s still a little girl; an attitude resented by her daughter.

For the last seven years Mel has been hiding; from life, from her friends and from those who love her the most—her family. But being at home in her beloved Lake District has been far too painful for Mel to contemplate. Because seven years ago, Mel lost everything and she’s never been able to banish the dark clouds that follow her. When Mel returns to Willowdale for a family event, she has no intention of staying. But surrounded by her family she begins to realise just how much she's been missing and also, how much healing she still needs to do.

Life has been a bit of a rollercoaster for Ella. Growing up as the 'less successful' identical twin to her 'perfectly successful' sister, Emma, has left her feeling isolated, inadequate and let's face it...a little bitter. When Emma unexpectedly reaches out to Ella in a time of need, Ella suddenly finds herself with the opportunity to fill in for her sister and experience how the other half live.

At the ripe (and fabulous) age of 64, Joanna Dawson finds herself feeling ever so slightly... meh. Her husband, Greg, has run off with a TBT (thin, blonde, trollop, obviously), her kids have flown the nest, and her social calendar is emptier than her wine rack. As Jo's 65th birthday looms, she's left wondering: Is this it? Enter Susie, her best friend, with an offer Jo can’t quite refuse: an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy to honour their late friend Ellen. Jo's not sure she wants to go all the way to Italy, but with nothing else to do and if only to make Susie happy, she agrees.

Eleanor Sharpley has been living a lie. Needing to escape her London life quickly, Eleanor throws her things into the back of her car, and heads to her erstwhile best friend Charlie’s family farm. But Charlie isn’t there. Instead she finds Charlie’s grieving brother, Daniel, her eight-month-old daughter, Hope (a daughter Eleanor had known nothing about) and a crumbling and unloved Damson Farm.

Twenty years ago, Carly Cooper went on an epic quest to track down all the men she’d ever loved and lost in the hope that one of them was her Mr Right. Now, two decades and two teenage sons later, she thinks she might have got it all wrong. As the years have passed, lots of things have changed, leaving Carly asking, ‘What now?’ With a divorce and an empty nest on the horizon, Carly sets off once more to Los Angeles with her band of trusty girlfriends, to find the carefree, wild and adventurous Carly Cooper that she used to be.