Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Friendship

Jungmin is down on her luck. She's worked tirelessly as a screenwriter her whole life, and has finally burnt out. But after months of isolation, she realises it's time to make a change, and ventures out into the streets near Seoul. When she stumbles upon a pottery workshop, a new world opens up to her. Leaning into the joys of her craft, Jungmin’s heart is slowly warmed by the kiln’s intense heat. Everyone at the workshop has their own story to tell, and as summer ebbs to autumn, autumn to winter, winter to spring, wounds begin to heal.

Winter, 1364. Sir Thomas Blackstone, Edward III's Master of War, has travelled to France to secure Brittany for England. In the throes of battle, he rescues a Castilian boy, Lazaro, who just witnessed the murder of the young queen. It is suspected that the king - along with Velasquita Alcon de Lugo, the beautiful witch who serves him - assassinated his queen. But Lazaro knows that is not the case. With the king in hiding and the French army advancing Castile is on its knees. So Blackstone is ordered to Castile, to defend England's ally from the French.

Two weeks, four friends and one big bucket list of secrets to unravel. Val Murray and her best friend, Josie, had been planning a ‘Thelma and Louise’ bucket-list-style holiday. Now Josie is gone, and Val needs to make the trip before it’s too late. But Val doesn’t want to do it alone, so she enlists the help of her nieces, Carly and Carole, and their best pal, Jess, who jump at the chance to join Val on a trip of a lifetime. What Val doesn’t realise is that Carly, Carole and Jess are all at turning points in their own lives, nursing crushing secrets, lies and betrayals.

Coronation Close survives the brutal Bristol Blitz but with rationing, call up papers and new rules and regulations everyone’s lives are changed forever. Resident do-gooder PC Percy Routledge's obsession with rules being upheld finds him spying and reporting fellow neighbours on the slightest infraction whilst his poor brow-beaten wife, Margaret can only watch on in shameful silence. It’s whispered that one day he’ll get his comeuppance…

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Brimming with empathy and pathos, TELL ME EVERYTHING is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers.

When Aleisha discovers a crumpled reading list tucked into a tattered library book, it sparks an extraordinary journey. From timeless stories of love and friendship to an epic journey across the Pacific Ocean with a boy and a tiger in a boat, the list opens a gateway to new and wonderful worlds - just when Aleisha needs an escape from her troubles at home. And when widower Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to connect with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha introduces him to the magic of the reading list.

Gerri can't decide what's more devastating: learning her rock-solid marriage has big cracks, or the anger she feels as she tries to repair them. Always the anchor for friends and her children, she realizes it's time to look carefully at herself. The journey is more than revealing—it's transforming. Andy has come to believe that a lasting love is out of reach. When she finds herself attracted to a man without any of the qualities that usually appeal to her, she questions everything she thought she wanted in life.

Grace Fitzgerald, a fiery-haired dreamer, longs to escape the confines of her windswept Dingle fishing village. Across the Atlantic, Richard Lewis, heir to a Savannah banking fortune, suffocates under the weight of societal expectations he can't quite understand. When their worlds collide through a twist of fate, Grace and Richard uncover a bond so profound it shakes the very foundations of their existence. As Europe inches towards chaos, they find themselves caught in a whirlwind of discovery, challenging everything they thought they knew about themselves and each other.

As her summer wedding to Jake approaches, Hollie is excited for their new beginning as a family. But when some unexpected news threatens the future she and Jake had hoped for, Hollie will need to find the strength to overcome heartache once more. Single mum Kerry loves her job, but behind the brave smiles and laughter with customers there is a sadness deep within. So when someone from her past re-appears in her life, Kerry can either hide away or face her demons and try to finally move on from her heartbreak. For Hollie and Kerry it promises to be an emotional rollercoaster of a summer.

As the promise of victory draws closer, this Christmas will surely be one to remember. It should be a magical time for Dorothy, who has just been proposed to by her sweetheart, Toby. But with each day that passes, Dorothy's feelings for someone else are growing stronger. Gloria is thrilled that her sweetheart, Jack, is finally home after more than two years away. But his past is continuing to catch up with them both. Meanwhile Helen must contend with the fall-out of a shocking family secret that has repercussions for all the Shipyard Girls.

Would you want to know what your colleagues say behind your back? Jolene certainly doesn’t. She’s riddled with anxiety, depressed, and hates her coworkers. The less she knows about them, the better. So when a catastrophic IT f--k up grants her access to all of their emails and private messages, she’s initially horrified. The last thing she wants is to be privy to their sad discussions about dying desk plants and marital troubles. That’s until with job cuts looming, she realises the power this new-found knowledge gives her.

When Serena is kicked out of her flat, an offer from her friend, Taylor, to house sit for her while she and her husband go travelling could not be better timing. But unfortunately for Serena she’s not the only one to have received this offer. Enter Ziggy: arrogant, messy musician, and friend of Taylor’s husband. Living with him is far from ideal, especially when he claims the best room, has loud parties - and the least said about his kitchen manner the better. There's just one solution for Serena – drive him out of the house by being twice as difficult to live with than he is!

Andy's story wasn't meant to turn out this way. Living out of a suitcase in his best friends' spare room, waiting for his career as a stand-up comedian to finally take off, he struggles to process the life-ruining end of his relationship with the only woman he's ever truly loved. As he tries to solve the seemingly unsolvable mystery of his broken relationship, he contends with career catastrophe, social media paranoia, a rapidly dwindling friendship group and the growing suspicion that, at 35, he really should have figured this all out by now.

Following a ghastly row about a missing suite of diamonds, Tata Hawkins has flounced out of Monkton Bottom Manor with her daughter, Minty, and Executive Butler Ian Palmer in tow, decamping to the Old Coach House to teach her husband, Bryan, a lesson. But things don’t go to plan: Bryan disappears to Venice with a bikini designer; Selby Fairfax, the glamorous American divorcée who has inherited the beautiful estate next door, refuses Tata’s neighborly overtures; and Tata’s very best friends, Fernanda Ovington-Williams and Sophie Thompson, are distracted by their own heartaches.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their rustic beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, its quirky furniture and mismatched pots and pans greeted like old friends. Now, sandwiched between her children who are adult enough to be fun but still young enough to need her, and her parents who are alive and healthy, Rocky wants to preserve this golden moment forever. This one precious week when everything is in balance; everything is in flux.

Sometimes when he didn't know he was being watched, Meggie would look at him and try desperately to imprint his face upon her brain's core. And he would turn to find her watching him, a look in his eyes of haunted grief, a doomed look. She understood the implicit message, or thought she did; he must go, back to the Church and his duties. Never again with the same spirit, perhaps, but more able to serve. For only those who have slipped and fallen know the vicissitudes of the way.

When Lou Winterpicks up a dog-eared magazine in the dentist's waiting room and spots an article about clearing clutter, she little realises how it will change her life. What begins as an earnest spring clean soon spirals out of control. Lou's loved ones grow disgruntled. Why is clearing out cupboards suddenly more important than making his breakfast, her husband, Phil, wonders? The truth is, the more rubbish Lou lets go of, the more light and air can get to those painful, closed-up places at the centre of her heart.

Charlie, a prime-time radio producer in her early thirties, has always had a big group of friends - until she left her husband, and they all sided with him. Now she finds herself floundering in a sea of awkward run-ins and silent group chats. When her best friend Genevieve starts moving on with her life, too, Charlie realises how few significant people she has around her, and what a lonely place that can be.

Lou is reeling from a triple whammy of shocks that have left her loveless, jobless and almost homeless. Staying for a night with an old friend in the Cotswold village of Foxwell, she lends a helping hand to a spectacularly ungrateful older man with a reputation in the village for being a 'character'. When Edgar makes a suggestion that would solve two out of three of Lou's problems in one fell swoop, it's hard to resist. Especially as the return to the village of the very attractive Remy—not that he's even noticed Lou!—makes it an unusually appealing place to live.

Jerra and his best mate Sean set off in a beaten-up old VW to go camping on the coast. Jerra's friends and family want to know when he will finish university, when he will find a girl. But they don't understand about Sean's mother, Jewel, or the bush or the fish with the pearl. They think he needs a job, but what Jerra is searching for is more elusive. Only the sea, and perhaps the old man who lives in a shack beside it, can help.