We all have that moment in our lives where we didn't make the best decisions.
This is about that moment for Billy (real name Josephine) and Francis who love their spouses but still embark on a passionate affair. She is young and boyish and serious; he is older and this is not his first affair.
So we shouldn't be rooting for this funny, wry, witty and guilty couple, but we do because Laurie Colwin's wonderful writing makes us.
'Warm, wise, witty, and just plain fun' Maggie Shipstead
At a perfectly ordinary cocktail party, Francis is introduced to Billy and - although it slips right by him at the time - he falls in love with her at once.
Billy is a serious, often glum person. An economic historian, she is indifferent to a great many things (clothes, food, home decor), frowns easily and is frequently irritated.
Francis is older. He likes routine and a well-run household; he likes to pay for dinner, open car doors and call Billy at night to make sure she is safe.
This is the story of how a hare changed a woman's life.
It has the most beautiful writing about the landscape of this purposefully vaguely-located corner of England (to prevent those parasocial fans of a hare turning up and crowding her!)
Hares are not rabbits and this books weaves together the history of this rarely seen, little thought of mammal with the specifics of this one leveret who was saved when the author found it abandoned in a country lane during lockdown and how both their lives changed forever.
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 A TIMES and SPECTATOR BEST BOOK OF 2024 A WATERSTONES BEST NATURE WRITING BOOK OF 2024 A BOOKSHOP.ORG NATURAL HISTORY GIFT BOOK 2024
'A beautiful book' - ANGELINA JOLIE 'A glorious book - for its warmth, its precision, its joy' - KATHERINE RUNDELL 'I will be recommending this to everyone' - MATT HAIG
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Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your…
Janice Hallett is the queen of telling a story using anything other than straightforward narratives.
This time she uses a WhatsApp chat group, archived police reports and, best of all, TripAdvisor reviews and responses to uncover the mystery of an influx of super-successful pub quiz team who infiltrate the local league to take the top spot every time. Is it a coincidence that a dead body appears behind the pub just as they arrive on the scene?
* THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE SMASH-HIT THE APPEAL *
'Murderously good' - DAILY EXPRESS 'An addictive whodunnit' - iPAPER 'So clever, you'll want to read it again' - WOMAN AND HOME
The answer is murder. The question is whodunnit?
A quiet country pub stands empty, its windows boarded up. And its kindly landlords, Mal and Sue Eastwood, are missing.
What could have happened? A lot of strange events occurred in the days before the Eastwoods disappeared. A murdered man pulled from the nearby river. An eccentric couple on a houseboat who claimed to be…
Funny, sweet and relatable, this is a real gem of a read’ Heat
Asta Fung is sixteen and sulky. Her parents have moved the whole family to take over the Yau Sum takeaway in another town so Grandpa Charlie can be closer to the big hospital. She’s had to give up her dog, her friends, her familiar teenage life. All too soon, she has to give up Grandpa Charlie too. What was the point?
When the builder’s son, Josh, hands her a bundle of love letters he found under the floorboards, Asta realises they were hidden there by Grandpa Charlie as a young man. Desperate to keep the memory of her grandfather alive, she determines to track down the mysterious Ela Hennessy who wrote them, but as the new girl in town, Asta will have to do it on her own.
