THE EX NEXT DOOR

Thank you, n(ex)t.

After burst pipes destroy Esme’s city-centre flat, she temporarily relocates to a delightful and small cottage in a village on the edge of town. The change is a big one, but Esme soon settles in and, as the art gallery she co-owns with her business partner, David, continues to thrive, life is sweet.

Until Elliot - an ex whom she hasn’t seen or spoken to for years - moves in next door, along with his perfect new girlfriend, Morgan. Suddenly, Esme’s past is right on her doorstep, or at least just over the fence.

When Elliot and Esme decide to keep their former relationship a secret from those around them, their subterfuge sets off a chain of events which not only forces Esme to re-evaluate her past relationship with Elliot, but also puts her friendship with David under the microscope and under pressure.

Working It Out

Her new colleague is about to shake things up...

When her love life crashed down around her, Edie found solace in work. But her job rapidly goes from uplifting to unbearable, with the departure of her work wife, Ruby, and the arrival in the office of new guy, Cameron - a chauvinist, a womaniser, and the very opposite of a team player.

And just as things start to go downhill at work, Edie’s personal life takes a downturn too, when her ex, Jason, decides that right now would be the perfect moment to get back in touch and deliver some devastating news.

Edie's increasingly miserable work life and her complicated personal life are suddenly on a collision course. The big question is, will she be able to salvage anything from the wreckage?

A tender uplit novel of one woman’s accidental rediscovery of the perfect work-life balance. Ideal for fans of Mhairi McFarlane, Sophie Kinsella and Beth O’Leary.

Finding Felix

Dot Riley's grandmother, Nanny Flo, is on her deathbed, surrounded by family and distraught at the the thought of Dot being all alone in the world. Desperate to make Flo's final moments happy ones, Dot invents a boyfriend - plumping in panic for her close childhood friend, Felix Davis, a firm favourite of Flo, but someone whom Dot hasn't actually seen or spoken to in fifteen years.

But when Flo makes an unexpected recovery, just a few weeks before a family wedding, Dot is faced with a dilemma. Should she tell her frail grandmother that she lied, and risk causing heartache and a possible relapse? Or should she find Felix and take him to the wedding?

Dot opts for the latter. But it's not long before she realises that finding Felix is the easy bit: it's liking him that is the real challenge.

Finding Felix is an uplifting romantic comedy about the ups and downs of reconnecting with the past, and the joys of finding something that you didn't even know you were looking for.
 

You Are Loved

Romantic novelist, Grace Waterhouse, is at a personal and professional all time low. Her ex-husband, Aiden, has just welcomed a baby with his new, younger model, partner, while her agent, Neil, has not-so-gently broken it to her that her latest attempt at a novel is, like her current mood, bitter, cynical and ‘about as uplifting as reading obituaries in an abattoir’.

Instructed by Neil to take a break from writing and cheer-up, Grace finds herself at a loss as to how to occupy her time. The answer, when it comes, is in the unlikely form of her elderly cleaner, Rose, who is facing her own dilemma of finding someone to cover her cleaning duties, while she pops off to Spain for a three-month to visit her sister. On impulse, Grace offers to stand-in for Rose.

You Are Loved follows Grace’s subsequent foray into cleaning and her immersion into a new social circle, including an eccentric OAP, a heart-broken twenty-something and, most significantly, James Brooke, an enigmatic lawyer, apparently guilty of two-timing his live-in lover. Add to this mix a long-suffering agent, a blunt but caring hairdresser and an ex-husband who suddenly realises he has loved her all along, and Grace’s cleaning journey proves to be a bumpy, but ultimately uplifting, roller-coaster of a ride, which opens up both her heart and her horizons.
 

It Was You

Alice Waites has been single for almost two years. And when her close friends in The Short Book Group gently question her distinct lack of interest in dating, she decides the time has come to deal with the past and open herself up to new possibilities.

Along the way, she discovers the secret heartache, well-meant scheming and cold, calculating deceit of those around her. But the most devastating truth revealed is the one which she has kept hidden from herself: her feelings for a man so close, that he seems completely out of reach.

It Was You is a story of love, loss, and relationships under wraps. Alternately touching and funny, it charts one woman’s, somewhat haphazard, journey to self-discovery and beyond.
 

Reading Upside Down

"Perfect setting, perfect dress, perfect flowers, one hundred and eight guests - and one, total and utter, rat."

Abandoned without explanation at the altar, 30 year-old Rosalind Shaw descends into the kind of depression which involves her watching too much daytime TV and not bothering to shower as regularly as her mother would like.

After several inebriated, unwashed, months, Ros relocates from the city centre and begins a new life in the suburbs, as part owner of an antiquarian bookshop, "Chapters".

Here she finds herself working alongside the intellectual, and intensely private, Andrew; the kind-hearted, sartorially splendid, Georgina; and Joan, a free-spirited, loose cannon of a pensioner, with a penchant for amateur dramatics and outdoor nudity.

However, just when Ros begins to feel that life might be starting to improve, her rather hairy neighbour, Daniel, knocks on her door with a bunch of flowers, a nervous grin and some rather distressing news...

Reading Upside Down is a funny, feel-good novel of mistaken assumptions and misread intentions; of feelings hurt and forgiveness bestowed.