Showing results by publisher "QUEST from W. F. Howes Ltd" in Family Life

When octogenarian Olive Turner is persuaded by her son to move into a retirement home, she congratulates herself on finding the secret to an easy life: no washing up, cooking or cleaning. But Olive isn't one for mindless bingo with her fellow residents, and before the first day is over she's already hatching a plan to escape back to her beloved beach hut and indulge in her secret passion for a very good gin & tonic. Before long Olive's secret is out and turning into something wonderful and new.

When Eliza Jarvis discovers her property show presenter husband, Harry, has been expanding his portfolio with tabloid darling Melody Bird, her perfect life crumbles around her ears. Before you can say Pensioner Barbie she’s in a stolen car, heading to the North Yorkshire coastal village of Kearton Bay in search of the father she never knew, with only her three-year-old daughter and a family-size bag of Maltesers for company.

Number Thirty-Two was once a family home. Anna was once a mother and a wife. Now, she is in arrears and alone. With little choice but to sell up, she is forced to confront the memories of the people who once inhabited the empty rooms. With the help of an unlikely ally in her next door neighbour's son, she is finally able to piece together the tragic events of forty years ago that have inextricably linked the fates of their families and ricocheted through both of their households for decades.

So I’ve had a baby. But motherhood isn’t quite how I imagined. I don’t live in a lovely cottage with roses around the door. I don’t know how to get Daisy to sleep. I don’t own a baking tray. And then there’s Daisy’s sh*tbag of a father... When Juliette has a baby, she knows her life isn’t sorted. Not by a long way. And most especially not with Nick, long-term boyfriend and father of her child. Far from living the dream family life, Juliette and Nick rent a city apartment and share a tiny, shiny elevator with executives and their takeaway Thai meals.

When Boston-born Erin arrives in wind-tossed Roone Bay, she's heart-sore, tired and lonely. Her marriage is over: she's come to build a new life for herself on Ireland's rugged southern coast. And to unravel the story behind the mysterious note in her family's ancient Bible that has haunted her since childhood. But hazel-eyed former lifeboat volunteer Finn, the only local historian around, quietly refuses her pleas to help. So Erin settles in to the town, with its whitewashed cottages and ruddy-cheeked fishermen, and begins her quest alone.

Returning to the heart of her beloved Cornwall, Kate Ryder weaves another deliciously irresistible tale of desire, jealousy and the search for understanding, set against the stunning backdrop of the glorious Lizard Peninsula. Globally renowned actor Oliver Foxley has made the most difficult decision of all and set the love of his life free, in order to try and bring his family back together. But there's a magnetic pull back to both Cara and Cornwall that Oliver can neither deny nor resist....

1976. Rushing out of the University Library, undergraduate Alice Kenzie bumps straight into PhD student Tristan Somers. There begins a whirlwind romance, and Alice falls pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl. Then Tristan is killed in a car accident. Unable to cope, Alice takes her baby to Summer House, Tristan's family home in Suffolk, leaves her there and disappears. 2018. Olivia Somers has always been told that her mother died in the same accident as her father. When she finds old letters in Summer House, everything she ever believed about her mother is called into question.

For the last two years Nell Andrews has been struggling to stay afloat. As her life tumbled down around her, the only safety net has been her cosy canal boat, The Nollie. Tucked away inside, Nell has found a place to heal her broken heart. And now she’s ready to move on and follow her dream.... Gorgeous Guy Cornish, with his easy Irish charm, makes him an instant hit with everyone at the marina and the perfect person to help Nell with her project. But Guy has his own reasons for being at the marina and a past that threatens to sink Nell’s dream....

Jennifer’s life isn’t going as she planned. Fired from her job and on the brink of divorce, her only salvation lies at the bottom of a wine bottle. When her mother insists she get away from everything, she reluctantly agrees to explore her Italian roots in Tuscany. Staying in her family’s centuries-old cottage, she becomes embroiled in a mysterious tragedy involving her great-grandmother.

So I’m knocked up again. Preggers. Up the duff. Or to put it another way...whoops. And while Alex and I get our heads around unexpected parenthood, I’m having all the usual pregnancy symptoms: throwing up, indigestion, sciatica, constipation, migraines and brain-fuddling tiredness. Mother Nature is a psychopathic old hag. Luckily, modern science offers some lovely distractions, in the form of cruise ships and European air travel. This summer I’m determined to get away. Mum is demanding the usual Duffy family all-inclusive Greek holiday.

The emotional and gripping eighth book in the Heaven's Cove series by Liz Eeles.

It is 1911, and Jean is about to join the mass strike at the Singer factory. For her, nothing will be the same again. Decades later, Connie sews coded moments of her life into a notebook, as her mother did before her. More than 100 years after his grandmother's sewing machine was made, Fred unpicks the secrets of four generations, one stitch at a time.

As a mother, I imagined myself somewhere between Mary Poppins and Jules Oliver. You know - growing my own courgettes, laughing whilst covered in mud, possibly having my own kiddie clothing range...that sort of thing. But unforeseen circumstances have thrown me far from vegetable patches and spoonfuls of sugar. I am currently a single mother, living with my parents. And this New Year, I am in need of a major detox. What am I detoxing? Daisy’s father, Nick.

The sweeping hills and emerald hedgerows seem to dance in the pale Irish sun. Home after far too long, Ginny takes a deep breath and tries to shake off the past. She’s hidden the truth for years. And when Ruari looks at her, his long lashes shading his green eyes, she knows she can’t reveal it now. Her secret would destroy him, as much as it would her… When Ginny Kingston returns to Ireland’s windswept Roone Bay after ten years of self-imposed exile, the last person she wants to run into is black-haired Ruari Savage.

When Maggie King turned 60, she thought her life complete. Now she’s 61, and everything has gone horribly wrong. Husband Greg has abruptly upped and left leaving Maggie bewildered. But there’s no time to question his departure because her ancient parents are all-consuming. Once fondly referred to as the Golden Oldies, they’re now the BOBs–Bad-Tempered Old Buggers. Sister Freya is never available to help, and Maggie is rapidly reaching the end of her tether. She wants her life–and husband–back.

When Grace arrives tired, tearful and rain-soaked in Roone Bay, the little Irish village where her grandmother Caitlin grew up, she is overwhelmed with longing for Caitlin's safe, warm arms. The crumbling wreck of Caitlin's once-beautiful childhood cottage—whose key Grace was given on her wedding day as a secret refuge if she ever needed it—is not the fresh start she'd hoped for. But with her young daughter Olivia to look after and a painful past to hide from, Grace has to stay strong.

Veronica and Gabe met when they were children at ballet class, and by the time they’d reached their teens, they knew they’d be dancing together forever. Only Gabe’s mother had other ideas.... Twenty-something years later, Veronica no longer dances and life hasn’t turned out how she thought it would. She’s divorced with a needy ex-husband, monosyllabic teenage sons, a sister who fancies herself as a long in the tooth ‘it girl’ and a mother who’s recently moved into a care home.

As Ben and Isla walk together on the wild Devon beaches, they discover a heartbreaking generations-old story of a woman who chose her family over true love. But Isla and Caitlin are no closer to solving their grandmother's riddle: and when Caitlin finally shares a shocking secret about her life back in London, selling their grandmother's home seems the only way forward.

Olive Turner might have lived through eighty-four Christmases, but she'll never get bored of her favorite time of year. And this one's set to be extra-special. It's the Gin Shack's first Christmas—and there's a gin-themed weekend and a cocktail competition on the cards! But, beneath the dazzle of fairy lights and the delicious scent of mince-pies, Olive smells a rat. From trespassers in her beloved beach hut to a very unfunny joke played on her friends, it seems that someone is missing a dose of good cheer.

High on the clifftops, Lettie takes a deep breath of salty air and opens the letter. There is no signature, and the old-fashioned handwriting is faint against the yellowed paper. The message, and the tiny gold key inside, will turn her life upside down. Lettie Starcross makes her way along the cobbled streets of Heaven’s Cove, clutching a little key and searching for answers about her kind, great-aunt Iris, whom she misses terribly. With no job back home, and no one in her family understanding how adrift she feels, Lettie wonders if her aunt was lonely just like her.