Showing results by publisher "Simon & Schuster Audio UK" in Contemporary

For fans of The Keeper of Stories, The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes and A Thousand Roads Home, The Beginning of Everything is the story of Jess and Gethin, whose paths cross in the most unexpected way. Jess is running, leaving all she knows and everyone she loves behind her, with just a few treasured belongings in her rucksack. She’s escaping from the pain and trauma of a bad relationship with a bad man, gone very badly wrong. Gethin’s kindness and care takes her breath away. They become friends. But with so much hurt in her past, can Jess learn to love and live again?

Charlie might work at her dad’s company but that doesn’t make her life easy. She’s the kind of person who always goes the extra mile for a client, remembers colleagues’ birthdays and arranges the cake. And yet her dad still favours her sister. So Charlie shouldn’t be surprised when her dad brings someone in to manage her and the team. But what does surprise her is that the new boss is her guy. The man who she went out with years ago and could never stop thinking about.

Simone Larkspur is a perfectionist pastry expert with a dream job at The Discerning Chef, a venerable cookbook publisher in New York City. All she wants to do is create the perfect loaf of sourdough and develop recipes, but when The Discerning Chef decides to bring their brand into the 21st century by pivoting to video, Simone is thrust into the spotlight and finds herself failing at something for the first time in her life. To make matters worse, Simone has to deal with Ray Lyton, the new test kitchen manager, whose obnoxious cheer and outgoing personality are like oil to Simone’s water.

When Hope loses her husband, she fears her happiest days are behind her. With her only connection to London broken, she moves home to York to be near her family and to begin to build a new life. Taking a job at the antique shop she has always admired, she finds herself crossing paths with two very different men. Will, who has recently become the guardian to his niece after the tragic death of her parents. And Ciaran, who she enlists to help solve the mystery of an Egyptian antique. Two men who represent two different happy endings.

Sometimes a book grabs you by the heart and grows to mean everything to you. That’s what Hope Falls is to friends Emily, Rachel and Tori. So, when they get the chance to spend a whole summer at the cottage in Lakeside where the film adaptation was located, they know it is going to be the holiday of a lifetime. Spending six weeks away will give them a chance to re-evaluate their life choices.

Budding landscape architect Luisa MacGregor is stuck in a rut - she hates her boss, she lives with her sister, and she is still morning the loss of her fiancé many years ago. So when she is given the opportunity to take on a parcel of land in a deprived area, she sees the chance to build a garden that can make the area bloom. Arriving in the rundown seaside town of Collaton on the north-west coast of Cumbria, she realises that her work is going to be cut out for her.

Meet the three women whose lives are about to change forever: Abbie has fled London and the humiliation of not being able to make rent after being made redundant. Her sister, Louise, unlucky in love, has thrown herself into her career at the local hospital. And Eszter, who has travelled from Hungary with her daughter Zoe, hoping to fulfil her husband's dying wish...to reunite his family.

Hollywood teen actor Arden James' messy reputation is interfering with her career when a notoriously picky director won't give her a role based on her party-girl image. So she and her publicist make up a lie – not only is she from a small town (true) but her childhood best friend Caroline, is her long-term girlfriend (false) and she can prove it when she goes home for Christmas.​ Caroline Beckett hasn't thought about her ex-best friend Arden James for years, focusing instead on her dreams about becoming a journalist.

Josie Moore has given the opposite sex plenty of chances. Four exactly, if you count all her failed engagements, and five if you include the absentee father who kept her existence a secret until very recently. Matthew Flanagan is the mud, literally. Not only has he been fired from his job, but also the tires of his car are stuck in the muck after taking a wrong turn as he enters Green Oak, North Carolina. So, he grabs a duffel with his essentials and goes in search of a place to crash until he gets his life back on track.

Margot Hart travels to Ireland to write a biography of the famous Deverill family. She knows she must speak to the current Lord Deverill—JP—if she is to uncover the secrets of the past. A notorious recluse, JP won’t be an easy man to crack. But Margot is determined—and she is not a woman who is easily put off.

Cameron Paradise, a stunningly beautiful 24-year-old personal trainer, flees Hawaii and her champion-surfer husband, Gregg, in the middle of one of his abusive tirades and makes her way to L.A. Tall, blonde, with a body to die for, it doesn't take Cameron long to find a job at an exclusive private fitness club where she encounters LA's most important players.

Wynter’s Trees is the home of Christmas. For the people of Wynmouth it’s where they get their family Christmas tree and where Christmas truly comes to life. But for Liza Wynter, it’s a millstone around her neck. It was her father’s pride and joy, but now that he’s gone, she can’t have anything to do with it. Until her father’s business partner decides to retire and she must go back to handle the transition to his son Ned.

Jess, a 29-year-old Londoner with a Kate Beckett fringe and a tendency for dramatics, gets taken on a surprise trip by her long-term boyfriend, Pete, to attend her best friend’s last-minute wedding in South Africa. Jess imagines sun, sand, wine and safaris. And returning to London with an ethically mined diamond on her left hand... But this holiday isn’t set to be quite the fairy tale Jess has planned. Suddenly she finds her world tilting on its axis, and things are only set to get worse when Jess returns home.... 

Owner of the luxurious and exclusive Keys complex in Las Vegas, Lucky Santangelo comes up against Armet Askarani, a ruthless billionaire middle-easterner potentate with three wives, who has little regard for women except as sexual playthings or breeding mares. Armet wishes to purchase the Keys, and is shocked when he hears that Lucky has no desire to sell - whatever the price. That a mere woman would turn him down is insulting and unthinkable. And so the battle for power begins….

The Crowdies have worked the same landscape on the Scottish coast for generations. When Bern Crowdie passes away, everyone expects the farm to pass to his youngest daughter Nina who, with her young son Barnaby, has been living and working with her father for the past five years. Her older sister Bette left when she was eighteen, vowing never to return. Now a successful lawyer in London, it’s doubtful she’ll even make the funeral – or the reading of their father’s will.

Maya Mirza is so convinced she’s unlucky in love and life that she’s come up with a list of laws to explain it. But before long, Maya’s wondering whether she’s just experienced the ultimate in misfortune – finally meeting the right man a few days before she has to marry someone else. But if she’s willing to bend some rules, this detour could take her somewhere wonderfully unexpected.

Eli Ward hasn't been back to his suffocating hometown of New Port Stephen, Florida, in ages. Post-transition and sober, he's a completely different person from the one who left years ago. But when a scandal threatens his career as a TV writer and comedian, he has no choice but to return home for the holidays. He can only hope he'll survive his boisterous, loving, but often misguided family and hide the fact that his dream of comedy success has become a nightmare. Just when he thinks this trip couldn't get any worse, Eli bumps into his high school ex, Nick Wu, who's somehow hotter than ever.

Dumped by her cheating ex, fired from her dream job, about to lose her flat: Clementine Monroe is not having a good day. So when her sisters get her drunk and suggest reviving a childhood ritual called the breakup spell, she doesn’t see the harm in it. But now Clemmie has accidentally ruined a funeral, had her first one-night stand, and she’s stuck with a new job she definitely doesn’t want - spending six weeks alone with the gorgeous and very-off-limits rock star, Theo Eliott.

1990. Harriet is a journalist. Her job takes her to dangerous places, where she asks questions and tries to make a difference. But when she is sent to Romania, to the state orphanages the world is only just learning about, she is forced to rethink her most important rule. 2018. Ellie is a gardener. Her garden is her sanctuary, her pride and joy. But, though she spends long days outdoors, she hasn’t set foot beyond her gate for far too long. Now someone enters her life who could finally be the reason she needs to overcome her fears.

Out-of-work actor Harriet is recuperating from a crash-and-burn affair with Damian - aka ‘Cockweasel’ - and making ends meet as a barista when she meets two rather lovely men. Tom is a regular at the café, and seems like such a nice guy. Smooth-talking DJ Richard is older, but in great shape - a real silver fox. Deciding to take a chance on both of them, Harriet doesn’t realise at first that she is actually dating father and son.