Showing results by narrator "Fiona" in All Categories

The Serpent's Skin is a gripping, literary crime novel about male power and the secrets that can haunt a family. Most of all, it's about the many ways we prove our love. It's a cold and wintery night in 1968 and 10-year-old JJ's mother isn't home. The cows are milked, the pigs fed and her dad won't answer any questions. The four children survive as best they can in a cloud of their father's lies and clear misery, dealing with their mother's absence in their own ways. But it's always been JJ's job to cause trouble, and her sleuthing wreaks havoc in their tight-knit community.

It’s one thing to have a business idea, or even to start a creative business. It’s quite another to scale it sustainably without increasing your financial and emotional stress. For most small business owners, what starts exciting and energising quickly turns into something overwhelming and energy depleting. You spend so much time in your business, it’s hard to find any time to work on your business. Avoid this pitfall with Passion Purpose Profit, a practical guide that gives you the tools you need to build something successful, minus the stress.

Alexandra Collier was a writer living in a light-filled Brooklyn brownstone in New York with the man she loved. But when she woke up to a ravenous hunger to have a baby that her partner didn't share, she had to make a choice between love or a future family. From defying her family's expectations to searching for sperm and navigating pregnancy alone, Ally deftly takes us through the ecstatic, complicated and demanding path to becoming a solo mother by choice.

How did a once faceless bureaucrat, a man whose own wife said he was born under the sign of the vampire, become the idealized face of Russian manhood and its authoritarian leader? Deputy Mayor Putin examines the man behind the myth. We will explore how Putin’s formative years shaped and drove him and how the supporting cast of characters he gathered along the way helped him get to the Kremlin’s inner sanctum.

After being together for ten years, Sylvie and Dan have a comfortable home, fulfilling jobs, beautiful twin girls, and communicate so seamlessly, they finish each other's sentences. They have a happy marriage and believe they know everything there is to know about each other. Until it's casually mentioned to them that they could be together for another sixty-eight years... and panic sets in.

When the surprise holiday Dee thinks her husband has booked for her sixtieth birthday weekend turns out to be yet another solo golfing break – it’s the last straw. Meanwhile her best friend Babs’s other half has decided to move to Spain and is acting like he doesn’t need to consult anyone. Not even Babs! Well, if their husbands think they can do what they want, so can their wives. So, with that thought, the two best friends leap into Dee’s trusty car and head for the seaside, and an adventure they’ll never forget.

The idea of seeking a wife to salvage our family’s reputation starts as a joke…until it spirals into a desperate reality. Before I know it, I’m lying my way into a marriage of convenience with a woman who is everything I’m not.

On a hot summer's night in the 1950s, the old and the new, diesel and steam, and town and country all collide - and nobody will be left unaffected. As a passenger train leaves Spencer Street Station on its haul to Sydney, a family of three - Vic, Rita, and their son, Michael - are off to a party. George Bedser has invited the whole neighborhood to celebrate the engagement of his daughter. Vic is an engine driver, with dreams of being like his hero Paddy Ryan and becoming the master of the smooth ride.

Seeking refuge and anonymity in the cobbled streets of Montmartre, Yanne and her daughters, Rosette and Annie, live peacefully, if not happily, above their little chocolate shop. Nothing unusual marks them out; no red sachets hang by the door. The wind has stopped, at least for a while. Then into their lives blows Zozie de l'Alba, the lady with the lollipop shoes, and everything begins to change.

Why Women Grow is a much-needed exploration of why women turn to the earth, as gardeners, growers and custodians. This book emerged from a deeply rooted desire to share the stories of women who are silenced and overlooked. In doing so, Alice fosters connections with gardeners that unfurl into a tender exploration of women's lives, their gardens and what the ground has offered them, with conversations spanning creation and loss, celebration and grief, power, protest, identity and renaissance.

Having a narcissistic parent can create long lasting effects on our self-esteem, confidence and subsequent relationships. Raised By Narcissists will teach you to acknowledge and begin to heal from the difficult experience of narcissistic parental abuse, reclaim your experience and move on to build a better future.

With her trademark lyricism, Maggie Stiefvater turns to a new world, where a pair are swept up in a daring, dangerous race across a cliff—with more than just their lives at stake should they lose.

I'm falling for my stalker... It’s crazy, really. No one in their right mind should feel this drawn to Nico Rossi, a notorious mob boss and brutal killer. Clearly, my weekly therapy sessions have done nothing to improve my taste in men. After leaving my abusive ex-husband, I thought I’d finally get my life back but instead, I find myself caught in a lethal game of revenge between New York's most feared mafia leaders.

Reunited with her sister at last, Louisa settles in colonial Virginia, but an unexpected visitor throws life into turmoil once again by offering Valerie and Louisa an opportunity to return to the future. Before the sisters have a chance to make a decision, the unthinkable happens, ripping the family apart and scattering them over continents and time itself.

After her own mother mysteriously disappears, seventeen-year-old Alicia turns up on her godmother's doorstep and asks if she can stay. Carina can't say no to the godchild she hasn't seen in over a decade. And in a way, Alicia is the daughter she always wanted—she's so smart and driven, and definitely scholarship material. Carina is only too happy to help this brilliant young woman achieve her full potential. But husband Don and children Tegan and Arthur aren't so sure. There's something about Alicia… Is she just too good to be true?

If you were one of King Henry VIII's six wives, who would you be? Would you be Anne Boleyn, who literally lost her head? Would you be the subject of rumor and scandal like Catherine Howard? Or would you get away and survive like Anna of Cleves? Meet them and Henry's other queens - each bound for divorce or death - in this epic and thrilling novel that reads like fantasy but really happened.

High on a cliff above the gloomy coastal town of Withering-by-Sea stands the Hotel Majestic. Inside the walls of the damp, dull hotel, eleven-year-old orphan Stella Montgomery leads a miserable life with her three dreadful Aunts. But one night, Stella sees something she shouldn't have ... Something that will set in motion an adventure more terrifying and more wonderful than she could ever have hoped for ...

Lizzie, Megan and Sam became accidental friends over good coffee, banter and wrong-world jokes at school drop off. Lizzie is a part-time midwife with four kids and a secret past. Sam is an ex-chef and stay-at-home dad with an absent, high-flying corporate wife. Megan is an ex-model single mum with a thriving online business and no time for loneliness. None of them have much interest in their school community, but when tragedy deals Baytree Primary’s reputation a potentially crippling blow, this unlikely trio has to step up.

Mighty cyrens have ruled the ancient lair of Saddoriel for centuries; a cavernous fortress and a subterranean labyrinth of tunnels and levels all powered by magic and music. From the moment she was born, Roh, the daughter of an infamous criminal, has been despised by her own kind. Restricted to the Lower Sector and forced to work as a common bone cleaner, she has always believed she belongs above: where lies adventure...and power. Opportunity arises in the form of the Queen’s Tournament....

Working as a quality-assurance grunt in the gaming industry sounds like fun, right? You get to play the coolest new games before anyone else. And all you have to do is to find, reproduce, and report bugs before the last pixel is locked in and the games are launched to an eager public. Sure, there’s the unpaid overtime, the office politics, and the ever-present threat of layoffs. But you get to game!