Lamplight on the Thames

Sample

Joanna Trollope

Ben Boyd is leaving home. At twenty-two, he's the youngest of the family and the last to leave. His father Russell, a theatrical agent, is hoping to get his wife back after decades of family life. But, his mother Edie, an actress, is distraught. Now that her third and last child has left the nest, her life turns suddenly and uncomfortably silent. She begins to yearn for the maternal intimacy that now seems lost to her forever. Be careful what you wish for... Living on your own, it seems, may not be as glamorous as it's cracked up to be. Ben's brother, Matthew, is wrestling with a relationship in which he earns less than his successful girlfriend. Their sister Rosa is wrestling with debt, and the end of a turbulent love affair. Rosa is the first of the Boyd children to think she may have to move back in with her parents—just until she can make ends meet again. Before long, a mother-and-child reunion is in full swing: life away from the nest has proven to be unexpectedly daunting to the children, who one-by-one return home, bringing their troubles. With an unannounced new phase of parenthood suddenly stretching ahead of her, Edie finds her home more crowded than ever.

Sample

Ruth Hamilton

From one of Liverpool's most famous and evocative writers, comes A Liverpool Song. Containing Hamilton's trademark warmth, humour and drama, this in an unputdownable novel from a writer at the top of her game.

Sample

Rumer Godden

The dark horse of this touching and exciting novel is Dark Invader, a magnificent thoroughbred sold cheaply and exiled from England to race in Calcutta in the early 1930s. Almost all of the people around him—Levantine, his new millionaire owner; his trainer, John Quillan, an ex-cavalry officer with a beautiful but ostracized Eurasian wife; their children, known as the Bandar Log after Kipling's monkey tribe; and above all Ted Mullins, the doting middle-aged stable lad who brought him out of England—are, like himself, "outsiders" in one way or another. Overlooking the racecourse is a convent of courageous nuns led by Mother Morag, who works day and night to help the city's poorest of the poor, but who also has a sharp eye for both racehorses and miracles. The dark horse becomes a favorite to win the prestigious Viceroy's Cup, but then, three days before the race, disaster strikes in the form of a whip-heavy and mean-spirited jockey. A mystery ensues, and it is Mother Morag who holds the key and knows how to turn it. With its remarkable cast of characters, its vivid evocation of India in the last days of the Raj, and its simple but powerful story, *The Dark Horse* is a wonderful short novel—and more: the story is true. It happened in Calcutta some fifty years ago.

Sample

Barbara Taylor Bradford

"As the Inghams' and the Swanns' journey from a family weekend in the summer of 1926 through to the devastation of the Wall Street crash of 1929, the Cavendon women band together and bring their family into a new decade and a new way of life"--