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Want what she's got? Think again…A high-concept and heartfelt romantic comedy for everyone who’s ever fancied swapping lives.A more unlikely pairing you'd struggle to find, but Roxy Galloway and Ginny Wallis have been there for each other ever since they were five years old and Roxy beat up Kevin Smith for putting gum in Ginny's hair. Even though Roxy is now living the high life in London and Ginny is still at home in sleepy Farnham Hills, the bond is as deep as it ever was.But after her latest romantic disaster, Roxy decides she needs a city de-tox – no more London, no more reception work at high-class brothel The Seismic Lounge (guaranteed to make the earth move) and definitely no more men.Ginny's so far in a rut she needs a pair of Roxy's thigh-high boots to clamber out. Dating Andrew for 12 long years and stamping books at the local library, she's craving a walk on the wild side.So they swap lives.For Ginny, it's a whirl of champagne and parties in the lap of luxury. For Roxy, it's a case of terminal boredom in the local pub. But the strangest things can happen in the most unlikely of places…The perfect summer read to take with you on holiday or out into the sunshine. For fans of Debbie Johnson, Katie Fforde and The Note.

The charming, funny and whimsical tale of Mr Thundermug, the baboon who miraculously speaks a very proper English. Along with a collection of lithographs, this outlandish tale will take readers by surprise.In a faraway city, a baboon has been found on the side of the street – perhaps not such a remarkable thing in those parts. But the oddity lies not in his being on the pavement, but in his powers of human speech. His English is impeccable, his grammar beyond reproach. As he becomes more and more involved in human affairs, Mr Thundermug, as he comes to be known, finds himself at a loss. What is he to make of his wife and children, who remain firmly rooted in the monkey world, unable to read or write? And what is he to make of humans, who have accused him of cruelty to animals (his wife sleeps in the bath of an old abandoned house) and who reproach him for wandering around naked?In this surreal and touching tale – reminiscent of Edward Gorey – Cornelius Medvei brings us one of the most outlandish and unusual novellas of recent years. His lithographs delightfully illustrate this quirky little oddity.

The novel from the bestselling author of The Future Homemakers of America and The Unfortunates.The Boff brothers live at home with their Mam. They have a lav down the yard and a jerry under the bed and they play bookings at the Birmingham Welsh and the Rover Sports and Social. Cled tinkles on the piano and Sel is the crooner. 'Sel's the one who can lift people out of themselves and send them home feeling grand and you can't argue against that' says Cled.When Sel decides he must try his chances with the brights lights of New York City, he packs up his sequinned suits and enlists his brother as travel companion and accompanist. Things begin to roll and what follows is a tale of high jinx; of mirrored ceilings and heart-shaped tubs; of screaming girls, romancing and No Business Like Show Business. As jealousy starts encroaching on the brothers' relationship, Cled finds that there are more secrets in his family than he had bargained for.With her characteristic wit and wisdom, Laurie Graham brings us a touching celebration of the sparkle and the dust in family life.

From the beloved and bestselling author of the Ransom Canyon and Harmony, Texas series comes a powerful, heartwarming story about generations of family and the ironclad bonds they forgeJillian James has never had a place she could call home. So when she lands in the sleepy Texas town of Laurel Springs, she's definitely not planning to stay—except to find a few clues about the father who abandoned her and destroyed her faith in family.Connor Larady is desperate: he's a single dad, and his grandmother, Eugenia, has Alzheimer's. He's the only one around to care for her, and he has no idea how. And now he has to close the quilt shop Eugenia has owned all her life. When Connor meets down-on-her-luck Jillian, he's out of options. Can he trust the newcomer to do right by his grandmother's legacy?Jillian is done with attachments. But the closer she grows to Connor and Eugenia, the higher the stakes of her leaving get. She has to ask herself what love and family mean to her, and whether she can give up the only life she's ever known for a future with those who need her.‘Compelling and beautifully written.’Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author on Ransom Canyon

Feast your eyes on a treasury of words and illustrations from one of the most exciting young talents around, recently voted by The Times as one of the top ten literary talents of 2008.Enter the weird and wonderful world of Laura Dockrill …I draw like a left-handed baby, I can hardly spell my own name and watching me use a glue-stick is a bit like watching a large bear trying to ram his own head into a pocket-sized cat-flap …no, really.But once the book is finished, when I can see the pages coming together, getting thicker and thicker, detailed and covered with stories and my imagination recorded on pages …everything at last makes sense (to me at least).I did this because I have got things to say. I've got pictures I want you to see and characters I want you to meet – the crying ice-skating boy, the Rolf Harris obsessive, the rude girl in McDonalds with the chocolate milkshake and the try-hard Mighty Boosh watching mum.I don't keep a diary. I think they’re crap.But this is much more than a diary. This is my map.

Not quite knocked up… Like everyone in New York media, editor Liz Buckley runs on cupcakes, caffeine and cocktails. But at thirty-one, she's plateaued at glossy baby magazine Paddy Cakes.Liz has spent years working a gazillion hours a week picking up the slack for colleagues with children, and she's tired of it. So one day when her stress-related nausea is mistaken for morning sickness by her bosses—boom! Liz is promoted to the mummy track. She decides to run with it and plans to use her paid time off to figure out her life: work, love and otherwise. It'll be her ‘meternity’ leave.By day, Liz rocks a foam-rubber belly under fab maternity outfits. By night, she dumps the bump for karaoke and boozy dinners out. But how long can she keep up her charade…and hide it from the guy who might just be The One?As her ‘due date’ approaches, Liz is exhausted—and exhilarated—by the ruse, the guilt and the feelings brought on by a totally fictional belly-tenant…about happiness, success, family and the nature of love.

'McAuslan in the Rough', the second volume of George MacDonald Fraser’s stories featuring “Old Private Piltdown” (as the court-material defence called him).Includes such episodes as the desert mystery of Fort Yarhuna, the Great Regimental Quiz, the search for a deserter in a native town threatened by epidemic, McAuslan in love, and his finest and funniest hour – as a caddy to that rugged Caledonian eminence, the Regimental Sergeant -Major, in a golf game whose importance, makes the Open Championship look like a seaside putting competition. As his chronicler reminds us: “McAuslan is always with us. He was probably at Cannae and Pharsalia, and hasn’t washed since. And you can bet that he’ll be there, more or less at attention, with his rusty rifle and his buttons undone, when the ranks fall in for Armageddon.”

The author of ‘The House of the Spirits’ returns with a gritty yet transcendent tale of teenage addiction.The narrator and protagonist of MAYA'S NOTEBOOK is a 19 year old girl who grows up in Berkeley, California, and falls into a life of drug addiction and crime. To rescue Maya, and save her from the criminal types pursuing her, Maya's Chilean grandmother sends her to a remote island off the southern coast of Chile. Here she lives among a traditional rural people, the Chilote, who speak an older form of Spanish and have remained largely isolated from the materialism, crime, and fast-paced contemporary life which is our own. The book alternates between the narrative in the US and that on Chiloe, the island, so the two strands of the story unfold for the reader at more or less the same time.This new book is very different from Isabel's previous historical novels: a contemporary setting; an American (of Latino descent) teenage drug addict as the protagonist and narrating voice; a realistic style of writing rather than a magical realistic one (Chiloe exists, and one can visit it). Maya's voice is modeled on that of Isabel's teenage granddaughter, a native of the Bay area (San Francisco, Berkeley).

A stunning piece of psychological suspense from the author of Araby.Two very different women brought together by a secret from the past.Joan has a tentative grip on the world – she’s too trusting, soft-centred, cheery and straightforward, the sort of woman who still keeps teddy bears on her bed. By nature and by profession, Joan is a carer, employed to look after Nina Rawle, a crisp and sophisticated woman, stricken by a long-term illness. There is a very good reason why Joan has been taken on by Nina (nursing skills aside) and Nina’s tangled past in Northern Ireland, in which a single and fatal act of political passion played a destructive role, has a great deal to do with it. How and why Nina will reveal herself to Joan, whose part in Nina’s past is truly significant, makes for a tense and twisting tale.This is a quite different novel from Araby. We have here a pure piece of storytelling, a psychological tale with more than a touch of Barbara Vine. The fantastic storytelling skills and exploration of character which made Araby such a gem are in abundance in this new novel.

In September 2000, a young programmer comes home from a festival in the Nevada desert and learns that his grandfather has died, and that he has to return to Thebes, a town which is so isolated that its inhabitants have their own language, in order to clean out the house where his family lived for five generations. While he’s there, he runs into Yesim, a Turkish American woman whom he loved as a child, and begins a romance in which past and present are dangerously confused. At the same time, he remembers San Francisco in the wild years of the Internet boom, and mourns the loss of Swan, a madman who may have been the only person to understand what was happening to the city, and to the world.Nearly ten years in the making, La Farge’s ambitious new work considers large worlds and small ones, love, memory, family, flying machines, dance music, and the end of the world.