The Hour I First Believed

Sample

Avery Corman

In the beginning they were three. Joanna and Ted Kramer, and four-year-old Billy -- his big brown eyes bright with curiosity and wonder. A perfect family. Then on day the mother abandons them. Divorce. And now they are two. Father and son. Caring and cared for, learning what loving and belonging are all about, until there is a bond between them that nothing can break. Nothing and nobody -- except maybe a mother who, almost two years later, changes her mind and wants her little boy back. This book was made into a movie by the same title.

Sample

Tim Pears

Ezra and Sheena Pepin live in Blenheim Orchard in North Oxford with their three children: fourteen-year-old Blaise, entering the storm-world of adolescence. Hector, eleven and precociously clever, and sweet Louie, three years old and the family tyrant. Ezra, a disaffected employee at Isis Water, has abandoned his calling as an anthropologist; Sheena has inadvertently found hers running a travel company. They are like everyone else: over-worked, worried about the children, trying to steer their marriage on an even keel. But change comes knocking at the Pepins' door - and the family will never be quite the same again.

Sample

Sheila O'Flanagan

Romy Kilkenny loves her life in Australia, she has her dream job, lots of mates, and a best friend in Keith, who understands her better than anyone. Best of all, she couldn't be further from her family. But when her brother rings to say she's needed back in Ireland right away, Romy's world is turned upside down. Flying home to see her mother and her half-siblings, Romy doubts she'll fit in better now than she ever did. She also worries that the accidental half-kiss with Keith at the airport may have brought their easy friendship to a sudden end. Whatever lies ahead, it's not what Romy's expecting - even the people we grow up with can surprise us, and if love is to be found, it will find a way.

Sample

Michael Robotham

Marnie Logan often feels like she's being watched. Nothing she can quite put her finger on -- a whisper of breath on the back of her neck, or a shadow in the corner of her eye -- and now her life is frozen. Her husband Daniel has been missing for more than a year.