Out of Sorts

Part autobiography, part self-help, part confession, part celebration of being a common-or-garden woman, part collection of synonyms for nunny, Sarah Millican's debut audiobook delves into her super normal life with daft stories, funny tales and proper advice on how to get past life's blips - like being good at school but not good at friends, the excitement of IBS and how to blossom postdivorce.

Maggie has always put her family's needs in front of her own, until one day - without forethought - she drives away, leaving behind her indifferent husband and two sulking teenagers. As she begins a quest of self-exploration, she meets new people, enjoys new adventures, and rediscovers long-neglected passions. For the first time in years, Maggie contemplates what she wants from life and soon realizes that her deteriorating marriage can no longer continue as it is. Can she and Andrew repair their broken relationship, or is their marriage over?

Born in rural Palestine, just before the dawn of the 20th century, Miriam adores her father and is certain his love will protect her, but she soon finds that tradition overrides love. Uprooted by war, Miriam enters a world where the old constraints slip away with thrilling and disastrous results. Miriam's rebellious daughter, Nadia, is thrilled with the opportunity for a modern life that her elite education provides. But when she falls in love with an outsider, the clan reins her back with a shocking finality.

A one-in-a-million story for anyone who loves to laugh, cry, and think about how extraordinary ordinary life can be. Not to be missed by those who loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Elizabeth Is Missing or The Shock of the Fall. Miss Ona Vitkus has - aside from three months in the summer of 1914 - lived unobtrusively, her secrets fiercely protected. The boy, with his passion for world records, changes all that. He is 11. She is 104 years, 133 days old (they are counting).

Alice Waites has been single for almost two years. So when her close friends in The Short Book Group question her lack of interest in dating, she decides the time has come to open up to new possibilities. Along the way, she discovers the secret heartache, well-meant scheming and 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.

Abandoned at the altar, Rosalind Shaw descends into the kind of depression which involves her watching too much daytime TV. After several inebriated months, Ros relocates to St Albans and begins a new life, as part-owner of a bookshop. However, just when Ros begins to feel that life might be improving, her rather hairy neighbour, Daniel, knocks on her door with a bunch of flowers and some rather distressing news....

Maggie O'Hara knows better than most that life can change in a heartbeat. Eighteen years ago she was given the most precious gift- a second-hand heart, and a second chance at life. Always thankful, Maggie has never forgotten Lucy Harte - the little girl who saved her life. But as Maggie's own life begins to fall apart, and her heart is broken in love, she loses sight of everything she has to live for.... Until an unexpected letter changes Maggie’s life. 

Facing challenges in an increasingly colonial world, Chye Hoon, a rebellious young girl, must learn to embrace her mixed Malayan-Chinese identity as a Nyonya - and her destiny as a cook, rather than following her first dream of attending school like her brother. Amidst the smells of chillies and garlic frying, Chye Hoon begins to appreciate the richness of her traditions, eventually marrying Wong Peng Choon, a Chinese man. Together, they have ten children.

Julie Prentice and her family move across the country to the idyllic Mount Adams district of Cincinnati, hoping to evade the stalker who's been terrorizing them ever since the publication of her bestselling novel, The Murder Game. Since Julie doesn't know anyone in her new town, when she meets her neighbor John Dunbar, their instant connection brings measured hope for a new beginning. But she never imagines that a simple, benign conversation with him could set her life spinning so far off course.

Thirty-year-old Celeste Hamilton's life is at a crossroads: she has just left a disastrous marriage, and her estranged mother has recently died, leaving the family's rose business in jeopardy. Reluctantly, Celeste returns to the family home, a moated manor house in Suffolk, to help her two younger sisters sort out the estate and revive the business.

It's been a long seventeen years since Jess last saw her grandmother or visited the family cottage set on an idyllic lake in Northern Michigan. For all that time, she's been haunted by loss - of her innocence and her ability to trust and, most of all, of a profound summer romance that might have been something more. So when her grandmother leaves the house to her, Jess summons her courage and returns to a place full of memories - and secrets.

Florrie, Daisy and Alison are friends and neighbours, living out their married lives in the quintessential English village of Lower Amblegate, where, it seems, everyone knows everything about everybody. They share laughter and tears and divulge their deepest secrets...but a huge scandal is brewing. As rumours start to circulate, the gossips go into overdrive, rocking marriages and revealing the women have much more in common than just neighbourly bonds....

Freya Braithwaite knows she is lucky. Nineteen years of marriage to a man who still warms her soul and two beautiful teenage daughters to show for it: confident Charlotte and thoughtful Lexi. Her home is filled with love and laughter. But when Lexi's struggles with weight take control of her life, everything Freya once took for granted falls apart, leaving the whole family with a sense of helplessness that can only be confronted with understanding, unity and, above all, love.

Loveday Cardew prefers books to people, and her job in a York bookshop is her refuge. If you look carefully, you might see the first lines of the novels she loves the most tattooed on her skin, but there are secrets Loveday will never share. Into the bookshop come a poet, a lover, a friend and three mysterious deliveries, each of which stirs unsettling memories she wants to forget. Turning the pages of her past will be the hardest thing Loveday has ever done. Can she trust those around her?

Being broke, unemployed, and stranded back in the tiny town of Pick, Texas, was not part of Jancy Wilson's plan. Yet here she is, watching her car literally go up in smoke - along with her last-ditch hope of staying with her cousin in Louisiana. When Jancy spies a Help Wanted sign hanging in the window of the quaint Strawberry Hearts Diner, the memories of the two years she spent there as a teenager - and the lure of the diner's beloved strawberry tarts - are enough to draw her in and plant her feet...but only temporarily.