When I was nine, I was chased by a dog in the woods. It was barking and drooling and seemed intent on attacking me. For all I know, that dog was somebody’s pet, but I was terrified. It took me years to get over a fear of dogs, and even longer to get over a fear of the woods. I suppose that’s why I’ve always gone back to the wilderness as a setting for my novels; I love stories that tap into my strongest emotions. I’m also a physician, and I like exploring what makes us vulnerable—and resilient.
I will admit I came to this book for the author. David Koepp is a renowned screenwriter whose credits includeJurassic Parkand Mission: Impossible, among many others. Screenwriters have to work within the confines of a 120-page format, so it’s no wonder that this novel moves at a lightning pace. I love that it features a deadly fungal organism that could end humanity, but the story is really about the three people desperately trying to contain it.
'Gruesome, terrifying, pulse-pounding' Stephen King
Shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award for Best Thriller of the Year
'Frightening' Mail on Sunday
When Pentagon bioterror operative Roberto Diaz was sent to investigate a suspected biochemical attack, he found something far worse: a highly mutative organism capable of extinction-level destruction.
Now, after decades of festering in a forgotten sub-basement, the specimen has found its way out and is on a lethal feeding frenzy. And only Diaz knows how to stop it.
He races across the country to help two unwitting security guards - one an ex-con, the other a single mother.…
I'm a fourth-generation “Mainer” and the mother of two boy “wolves,” and I have a deep well of respect for boys and their imaginations in the masculinized culture we swim in. I've seen how much rich thinking is going on in the inner lives of boys. The teenage boy rendered in literature can be a stock character, and I was determined to give them more respect on the page and to explore what’s not said between boy moms and their sons that deeply connects them. I teach widely and write non-fiction as well as fiction and am a founder of a creative writing center in Portland, Maine for kids called the Telling Room.
This is the Mother of all boy mom books. It’s required reading for anyone learning to speak boy. Equal parts despair—Lamott is a single mom who sometimes wants to leave her crying boy outside on the stoop—and equal parts gut punches of hilarious wisdom and ardor about boy life and mom devotion.
This is the journal of the birth of Anne Lamott's son Sam, and their first year together. Coping with being a recovering alcoholic and a single mother, Anne had to face the fact that her best friend since childhood was dying of cancer.
I love romance, a true romantic from the day I was born. I also love crime/thriller/twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat and wanting to turn the page. As a writer, it was the most natural choice to combine all of these to bring to you as a reader love, passion, danger, shady criminal underworld, and jaw-dropping cliffhangers mixed in with twists you never saw coming. A love story that has you hopelessly entwined with them. A beautiful backdrop of the highlands of Scotland that creates its own unique story –mystical, mighty, and carrying its own hidden dangers.
Quite simply, Robyn is a masterclass at writing beautiful romances and nothing comes better than her Virgin River series.
Her characters are full of depth and conflicts, and the setting of the stories are in beautiful landscapes I want to travel to. There are many great sub-stories to be drawn happily into and of course, who can resist a HEA?
When recently widowed Melinda Monroe sees an advert for a midwife in the remote town of Virgin River, she decides this is the perfect place to escape her heartache.
However, her hopes are dashed within an hour of arriving: the cabin is uninhabitable, the roads are treacherous and the local doctor wants nothing to do with her. But when a tiny baby is abandoned on a front porch, Mel must decide whether to stay and help or…
As a published author, Debra’s passion for fast-paced, unputdownable novels is unquenchable. She can be ruthless in her criticism, applying the rule, “three strikes and you’re out!” A firm believer that life is too short to read mediocre books, if she isn’t grabbed by chapter 3, she puts the book down and moves on. She wants a book to make her life better, she wants to feel excitement at picking it back up again, and burying herself in the characters and moods, twists and turns, of a great story. Her writing reflects this same trait, if her words won’t keep the reader totally engrossed, then she won’t write them.
Lesley has a beautiful way of engaging the reader, her characters are relatable, many of them will feel like people you already know, your friends, family, maybe even you. The story is captivating and imaginative, yet this book feels real. It could happen in your town; it could happen to you. This book has an intriguing, ‘girl next door’ feel to it.
When single mum Joanna hears a rumour at the school gates, she never intends to pass it on. But one casual comment leads to another and now there's no going back . . .
Rumour has it that a notorious child killer is living under a new identity, in their sleepy little town of Flinstead-on-Sea.
Sally McGowan was just ten years old when she stabbed little Robbie Harris to death forty-eight years ago - no photos of her exist since her release as a young woman.
So who is the supposedly reformed killer who now lives among them? How…
I am a child sexual abuse survivor who struggled for years with the help of therapy to become the person I am today. My sister, my mother, and I suffered years of emotional abuse by my father. When I was a child, my best friend (who also suffered abuse by her brother) and I made up stories that helped us navigate the situations in our families. I read, hiked, backpacked, and traveled alone for years in order to take
risks and develop strength before attempting to write at age sixty-one. I love books that put me solidly in time and place and deeply empathize with characters who struggle and grow to become their genuine selves.
I love this book because the protagonist—gritty, hard-talking heart-of-gold Ruby Fortune—is a lady as tough as the Arizona land she comes from and loves. She cusses and shoots, rides horses, entertains and cooks, and takes no guff from men. But first, she must rid herself of an abusive husband in order to save herself and her young boys.
I am partial to a cast of characters in what I read, and a remarkable cast joins her in this exquisitely written story. Her father Big Burl, her chosen mother who’s a madame, the Shakespeare-quoting drunk she puts up in her barn, the law man, and the black miner with whom she secretly falls in love.
Arizona Territory, 1899. Ruby Fortune faces an untenable choice: murder her abusive husband or continue to live with bruises that never heal. One bullet is all it takes. Once known as “Girl Wonder” on the Wild West circuit, Ruby is now a single mother of four boys in her hometown of Jericho, an end-of-the-world mining town north of Tucson. Here, Ruby opens a roadside inn to make ends meet. Drifters, grifters, con men, and prostitutes plow through the hotel’s doors, and their escapades pepper the local newspaper like buckshot.…
I write in the speculative fiction genre where an overwhelming event, seemingly beyond the control of the main characters, underpins what happens to those characters. Exploring scenarios about how society would change as a result of cyber controlled multiple personality overlays, for example, is a great opportunity for considered thought. I believe that a mind without a question is dead. As a writer, I imbue my characters with this philosophy and then set them free to navigate the vast plane of destiny for themselves.
In my novels, the quiet depth of character development runs parallel to the action. This is the only way to make fighting for one's life mean anything. Shootings, explosions, high body counts, or a countdown to chaos may hold momentary interest but will not create any lasting memory or take-away useful in real life. This story spends quite a lot of time on backstory and the emotional well from which the main characters spring. Some might desire a quicker path through this. Some might not. And quite a few false paths are developed as you’d expect in a who-done-it type novel. The story reaches a driving and satisfying conclusion but some might leave wondering about the author’s opinion of law enforcement as is spoken through her protagonist.
A young mother has done everything possible to put the past behind her, but it might not be enough in a gripping novel of suspense by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of the Jane Doe novels.
Abandoned by her fugitive ex-husband, Lily Brown is rebuilding her life on the edge of a Kansas town that still feels the sting of his crimes. Lily lies low, managing the isolated storage facility where she lives with her twelve-year-old son, Everett, and planning a better future for them both. That requires keeping secrets. Everett has them too.
I read my first romance novel at fourteen. I know, I know, too young to probably read any of these novels. As I grew older, my library expanded beyond Regency Romance and I entered the Contemporary genre. I found my happy place among the modern world. I related more. Who wouldn’t? And yet, my personal life was nothing like the romance novels I read. It was a tragedy. A complete train wreck. Being the single friend among the group was awkward and sometimes lonely. Between my fanciful love of romance novels and the dreaded dating era I experienced, I came up with the concept of The Martini Girl Bar and wrote my first novel.
I know, I know, this book is a paranormal romance, but hear me out. This is a series and if you can guess, I love series. I love knowing if the other characters in the stories also get a HEA. I mean everyone deserves one. Well except for the bad guys. But even then…that’s another genre. In this case, Fated is a Vampire series however Rebecca Zanetti takes a different spin on the Vampire myth which makes this one of my favorite paranormal series. The tug and pull between the MMC and FMC…chef kiss.
Talen is the ultimate ALPHA male, warrior, dominant, “I am man, you are my mate” kinda dude and Cara is so not having it. Due to the imminent threat against herself and her daughter, Janie, Cara is left with no alternative but to trust the strange man who claims to be a Vampire. The dynamic between…
Cara Paulsen does not give up easily. A scientist and a single mother, she's used to fighting for what she wants, keeping a cool head, and doing whatever it takes to protect her daughter Janie. But "whatever it takes" has never before included a shotgun wedding to a dangerous-looking stranger with an attitude problem. . .
Or Else
Sure, the mysterious Talen says that he's there to protect Cara and Janie. He also says that he's a three-hundred-year-old vampire. Of course, the way he touches her, Cara might actually believe he's had that long to practice. . .…
I’m a feel-good romance author from Scotland, published with the HarperCollins imprint One More Chapter.
I trained as a journalist and studied Communication and Media, but I always wanted to write romance novels. When I’m not doing that, I write verses and captions for greeting card companies.
I’m also a huge music fan, which gave me the idea for my first published novel with One More Chapter, A Secret Scottish Escape.
I am a huge fan of JoJo Moyes, and this book was so beautifully crafted, I could see it running through my head like a movie.
Ed Nicholls is the personification of the saying, “Not all superheroes wear capes.” Despite his own troubles, he makes sure he’s there for others when they need him. He has a dry wit, too. He’s adorable!
One single mom. One chaotic family. One quirky stranger. One irresistible love story from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Giver of Stars
Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied, and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can't afford to pay for. That's Jess's life in a nutshell-until an unexpected knight in shining armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess's knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has…
I
love stories about ordinary women fighting the norms of their times, often unwittingly
or out of necessity. What makes this book so compelling is that the entire
story is told in the first person, as Lilli writes in her journals.
Consequently, each page is an account of her daily life and interactions,
complete with observations and assessments about the late 19th-century
world she inhabits. Her mindset is refreshingly modern, and what she shares
with the reader can be applicable to the present day.
Lilli is a likeable
character who elicited so much empathy from me. I couldn’t wait to return to
her every evening; I wanted to hug her, to help her. The story is also set in
Philadelphia, my hometown, making the references that much more interesting.
“A powerful, authentic voice for a generation of women whose struggles were erased from history—a heart-smashing debut that completely satisfies.” —Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
A young woman finds the most powerful love of her life when she gives birth at an institution for unwed mothers in 1883 Philadelphia. She is told she must give up her daughter to avoid lifelong poverty and shame. But she chooses to keep her.
Pregnant, left behind by her lover, and banished from her Quaker home and teaching position, Lilli de Jong enters…
Long before I earned a degree in psychology, I was fascinated by human relationships and motivations. Since reading novels is an excellent way to delve into the minds of a variety of people, the library became my second home. I well remember my first binge-read—Nancy Drew. I devoured the entire series sitting under a catalpa tree in my grandfather’s backyard. So it’s probably not surprising that I’m now the author of 60+ novels in the romantic suspense and contemporary romance genres—none of which include sex, swear words, or gratuitous violence. Because as suspense superstar Mary Higgins Clark once said, you don’t need any of those to tell a compelling story.
This is an engrossing tale of love, loss, trust, and life-changing choices. Springer’s endearing, well-drawn characters sucked me in from page 1 as they faced a myriad of real-life challenges while struggling to both maintain old relationships and develop new ones. But as Springer demonstrates, real love—not just the romantic variety—can see us through the messiest of situations. While none of the situations depicted in this book were ones I had personally experienced, the author’s deep-dive depictions gave me exactly the kinds of character insights I look for in my reads.
This handsome firefighter makes a living coming to the rescue, but Gin doesn't need a man to fight her battles.
After Raine's dad walked out, Ginevieve Lightly never lived in one place too long, a rambling lifestyle that defined her daughter's youth. When their car dies in Banister Falls, Wisconsin, Gin promises Raine they can stay until she finishes her senior year of high school. Gin will do anything to make sure her daughter has a bright future . . . a future that's compromised when Raine reveals she's pregnant.
Dan Moretti has only ever called Banister Falls home. After…
