Showing titles in Women's Fiction

As spring comes to Scotland and the hills burst into life, a dance is planned for September. The invitations summon home the group of people Violet Aird has cared for most in her long life. The oldest, strongest and wisest of them all, she sees Alexa, her vulnerable granddaughter, find love for the first time while the decision to send her little grandson away to school is driving parents Edmund and Virginia even further apart.

On a hot summer’s day in a poor suburb of Tokyo we meet three women: 30-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s teenage daughter, Midoriko. Makiko, an ageing hostess despairing the loss of her looks, has travelled to Tokyo in search of breast-enhancement surgery. She's accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently stopped speaking, finding herself unable to deal with her own changing body and her mother’s self-obsession. Her silence dominates Natsu’s rundown apartment, providing a catalyst for each woman to grapple with their own anxieties.

Day one: The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the Earth like a neutron bomb. News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%. Week Two: Civilization has crumbled. Year Twenty: A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms, and it threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild.

Journey through the colonies of 19th-century Australia with three stand-alone novels of love, loss, survival, and redemption. In 1806, a fateful decision sends Eleanor Marling from the salons of London to a prison ship bound for New South Wales. She is put to work at the female factory of Parramatta. English settler Grace Ashwell flees an abusive lover in Hobart Town, with six-year-old Violet in tow. Deep in the wilderness, they find a crude hut inhabited by an escaped convict long presumed dead.

A rural Welsh community is beset by a series of cruel murders... Putting his wedding plans on hold, Detective Winter Meadows resolves to unmask the serial killer on his patch. The only connection between the victims is the stick dolls left by their bodies. That and the fact they don’t seem to have been particularly popular. People are ruffled. Scared. Meadows must isolate the killer fast but the evidence is brittle. The key to unravelling the mystery is in the stone church, in the creaking homes, and in the slowly thawing fields.

From the bestselling author of The Truth About Her comes Lonely Mouth, a delicious, clever, tender and vivid novel about the conflicted way women think about their bodies, their appetites, and themselves in the world.

Carol is a divorced teacher living in a small town in Ireland, her only son now grown. A second chance at love brings her unexpected connection and belonging. The new relationship sparks local speculation: what does a woman like her see in a man like that? What happened to his wife who abandoned them all those years ago? But the gossip only serves to bring the couple closer.

Georgiana Bridgerton isn’t against the idea of marriage. She’d just thought she’d have some say in the matter. But with her reputation hanging by a thread after she’s abducted for her dowry, Georgie is given two options: live out her life as a spinster or marry the rogue who has ruined her life. Enter option number three.... As the fourth son of an earl, Nicholas Rokesby is prepared to chart his own course. But when he discovers that Georgie Bridgerton - his literal girl next door - is facing ruin, he knows what he must do.

Gideon Cross came into my life like lightning in the darkness... He was beautiful and brilliant, jagged and white-hot. I was drawn to him as I’d never been to anything or anyone in my life. I craved his touch like a drug, even knowing it would weaken me.

Vanessa Wye was 15 years old when she first had sex with her English teacher. She is now 32 and the teacher, Jacob Strane, has just been accused of sexual abuse by another former student of his. Vanessa is horrified by this news, because she is quite certain that the relationship she had with Strane wasn’t abuse. It was love. She’s sure of that. But now, in 2017, in the midst of allegations against powerful men, she is being asked to redefine the great love story of her life - her great sexual awakening - as rape.

Meet Liz: all she wants is some peace and quiet so she can read a book with her cat Henry, love of her life, by her side. But trampling all over this dream is a group of wild things also known as Liz's family. Namely Richard - a man, a husband, no serious rival to Henry; Thomas - their sensitive seven-year-old son, for whom life is a bed of pain already; and Evie - five-year-old acrobat, gangster, anarchist, daughter. And as if her family's demands weren't enough, Liz must also contend with the madness of parents, friends, bosses and at least one hovering nemesis.

In 1886, a mysterious travelling circus becomes an international sensation. Open only at night, constructed entirely in black and white, Le Cirque des Rêves delights all who wander its circular paths and warm themselves at its bonfire. Although there are acrobats, fortune-tellers and contortionists, the Circus of Dreams is no conventional spectacle. Some tents contain clouds, some ice.

Growing up in 1990s China, in a village where failure to observe the rigidly enforced one-child policy is deemed tantamount to a crime, Chen Di must fight to get the education she craves in a world in which boys are prioritized. Following her mother's untimely death, 16-year-old Chen Di's thirst for vengeance against those she holds responsible brings about her transformation from a gutsy, marginalized child into an aikido-practicing young woman who braves Shanghai.

Horsewoman Brenna Lancaster has no time for relationships. Unless a man looks good on a horse and lets her call the shots, she isn't interested. She'd rather wear a dress and heels than give someone else power over her life. Finance guru Wyatt Killian is a self-made man who has left the train wreck of his childhood behind. There is zero room in his workaholic world for downtime and distractions, let alone emotions or country girls. When Wyatt's corporate horse-riding retreat is led by a woman determined to unplug him from his urban life, it isn't just his laser focus that becomes compromised.

Love or hate her, Harriet Osman is impossible to refuse. But someone in her life has finally snapped, leaving her face-down in a pool of her own blood. Harriet isn't one to die quietly though, and she is determined to reveal her killer before she does. Was it her devoted husband, Malek, with a violent past? Her best friend and lover, Victoria, with a deadly secret only Harriet knows? Or the new woman in her life, fellow school mum Karen? The one with an impeccable reputation ... or so she says.

Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart. The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair.

As a world-class dancer at the height of her career, Emily enjoys all the perks of fame - the parties, the glamour, the tours - but they've also attracted the attention of a dangerous ex-boyfriend hell-bent on getting her back. Enter Carter Kincaid, a bodyguard so crushingly sexy he takes her breath away. Carter's the best in the business, and Emily is - professionally speaking - off-limits. But when it comes to stirring his desires, she's making all the right moves.

When a series of circumstances beyond her control leave Rosalyn Bernay alone and penniless in London, she chances upon a job backstage at a theatre that is presenting the most popular show in London. A talented musician and singer, she feels immediately at home and soon becomes enthralled with the idea of pursuing a career on the stage. A hand injury during a skirmish in India has forced Nate Moran out of the army until he recovers. Filling his time at a stable of horses for hire in London, he has also spent the past two months working nights as a stagehand....

When Carol Ann “CJ” Jansen lost her beloved older brother, Kick, in a boating accident, she came adrift. Kick had taken on the role of caring for his little sister after their parents were killed in a car crash. Inheriting half his fortune has left CJ financially secure - yet needing a purpose. As administrative assistant to powerful congressman Snapper Lewis, she’s immersed herself in the exciting and often tumultuous world of politics. But suddenly, the career that anchors her life is threatened.

Bree Johnston has given up trying to be the perfect lawyer. It's time to focus on her own dreams, so she decides to leave the city and set up an alpaca farm and wool shop. Her grandmother Rose might be her only supporter, but that's fine. Bree's done trying to win her parents' approval. She finds the perfect property in the charming small town of Wagtail Ridge but gets more than she bargained for when sparks start flying with the handsome real estate agent.