by William Dunlap

5.0 stars – 2 reviews

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Lying and Making a Living, the title from a Barry Hannah quote picks up where Short Mean Fiction leaves off. It contains more of the irreverent, hard-hitting, exhilarating, ironic, and emblematic prose we’ve come to expect from the writer and painter William Dunlap. His stories, some as short as a single page, leave the reader gasping for breath and wanting more. Whereas Short Mean Fiction, his first gathering of stories promised words and pictures, Lying and Making a Living delivers fiction with footnotes in all their subtle explanation and incongruity. Language is something of a birthright for this Southerner whose characters we know by what they do. Dunlap identifies with William Faulkner who said he invented his people and then “ran along behind them writing down what they have to say.” As with Dunlap’s paintings, he feels little pride in authorship and makes no literary claims for Lying and Making a Living. But admits that for what its worth, for better or worse, and to his utter surprise, there are many more where these came from.

by Lisa Daniels

4.8 stars – 28 reviews

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I’m a human in a wolf-focused academy.

The principal assigns a teacher to look after me – Zane Wartooth. Possibly the hottest teacher in the school.

I might need that powerful protection, too. Not all werewolves in the academy like me.

Unfortunate for them, I have Zane Wartooth on my side. Though I doubt he’d ever find someone like me attractive… right?

This box set includes:

A Crush for Wolf Professor
A Second Chance for Wolf Geek
A Teacher for Wolf Billionaire
A Principal for Wolf Rebel

by John Hindmarsh

4.4 stars – 65 reviews

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Darwin – Demon or Friend, the Beginning or the End?

That’s Toby’s enigma. When he inherits his uncle’s corporate empire, he discovers it’s controlled by two superintelligences.

Darwin wants to prove he’s more intelligent than humans. For Bronwyn—the other SI—there’s no mystery: she already knows the answer.

The corporate empire is based on robotics—it’s the world’s largest manufacturers of processors, software, and templates for robots. Bots are taking over mundane jobs. They’re intelligent, perhaps too intelligent. Terrorist groups—led by brownshirts—are furthering social unrest.

What is the mystery of his uncle’s disappearance?

Toby’s friends are assaulted.

A brownshirt group plans to kill him.

His girlfriend is kidnapped.

Will Artificial Intelligence be the end of Humanity?

The fuse is lit for an exciting thriller.

by Kerry Fisher

4.5 stars – 720 reviews

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Why would you walk away from the one person you can’t live without?

As a child, Vicky Hall never had the sort of family she wanted. The least important person in her new step-family, ignored by her mother in favour of her two younger half-siblings, Vicky was always an afterthought. Sitting alone at her graduation ceremony at the age of twenty-one, she vows to create her own family and her own life, one which is full of the love and attention she has always craved.

When Vicky meets William and falls pregnant in Greece that summer, it isn’t planned. But the two of them believe they can make it work, showering their child with the love which they believe should be enough.

But when her son Theo is two, Vicky leaves him in the care of her mother-in-law, walks out of her front door and drives to a hotel where she takes a room for the night. She doesn’t return.

It’s unthinkable.

What kind of mother does that?

The kind who is hiding a story you can never imagine.

The Mother I Could Have Been is a heartbreaking story of impossible decisions and second chances, from the bestselling author of The Silent Wife and The Woman I Was Before. Perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult, Liane Moriarty and Diane Chamberlain.

by Leslie Hachtel

4.8 stars – 5 reviews

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Two women. Years apart. Linked by common experience and a cottage that has survived since the Civil War.

Evelyn Smith has changed her name and is running from an abusive husband. She buys a cottage in Florida that has its own history, only to experience an attraction to the previous owner.

Rebecca Faber has rescued a Yankee soldier and fallen in love, but circumstances have forced her to marry an evil man who killed her father.

When Rebecca reaches out from the past, Evelyn finds it life changing.

And in their own times, each must find discover strength and fight to find and keep true love.

by Sarah Mitchell

4.3 stars – 845 reviews

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A gripping book club novel about forbidden love, friendship and family secrets in World War Two. Perfect for fans of The Letter by Kathryn Hughes, The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

‘I adored this book, devouring it in a couple of days!… A beautiful and moving story that will stay with me for quite a while. Five shiny stars!!’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars

What if keeping your loved ones safe meant never seeing them again?

Norfolk, 1940: Sylvia’s husband Howard has gone off to war, and she is struggling to raise her two children alone. Her only solace is her beach hut in Wells-Next-The-Sea, and her friendship with Connie, a woman she meets on the beach. The two women form a bond that will last a lifetime, and Sylvia tells Connie something that no-one else knows: about a secret lover… and a child.

Canada, present day: When Martha’s beloved father dies, he leaves her two things: a mysterious stash of letters to an English woman called ‘Catkins’ and directions to a beach hut in the English seaside town of Wells. Martha is at a painful crossroads in her own life, and seizes this chance for a trip to England – to discover more about her family’s past, and the identity of her father’s secret correspondent.

The tragedy of war brought heartbreaking choices for Sylvia. And a promise made between her and Connie has echoed down the years. For Martha, if she uncovers the truth, it could change everything…

by Alice McVeigh

4.5 stars – 28 reviews

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Susan is a Jane Austen Prequel (or Pride and Prejudice Variation) brilliantly capturing Austen’s own Lady Susan as a young girl.

As the BookLife review put it for Publishers Weekly: “McVeigh’s prose and plotting are pitch-perfect. Emma mingles with Pride and Prejudice in a delightful confrontation between the two books’ worlds… This Austen-inspired novel echoes the master herself.”

Familiar characters abound – Frank Churchill, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Darcy himself – but Susan – mischievous and manipulative – is the star. This is Austen that even Austen might have loved, with a touch of Georgette Heyer in the romantic sections. Fans of Bridgerton will also relish this classic regency romance, the first in a six-book series.

Sixteen-year-old Susan Smithson – pretty but poor, clever but capricious – has just been expelled from a school for young ladies in London.

At the mansion of the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, she attracts a raffish young nobleman. But, at the first hint of scandal, her guardian dispatches her to her uncle Collins’ rectory in Kent, where her sensible cousin Alicia lives and “where nothing ever happens.”

Here Susan mischievously inspires the local squire to put on a play, with consequences no one could possibly have foreseen. What with the unexpected arrival of Frank Churchill, Alicia’s falling in love and a tumultuous elopement, rural Kent will surely never seem safe again..