Showing results by narrator "Mir" in All Categories

Paige always knew something was off about her mom. Now she knows the truth. Her mom wasn’t who she said she was. A truth Paige never wanted to admit, but knew deep in her heart. She knew because she covered her mom’s tracks to stay one step ahead of the authorities. As her truth unravels around her, Paige discovers her mom isn’t the only one who is hiding her true identity. When people from her mother’s past start showing up, Paige must discern who she can trust before it’s too late. Will Paige unveil the secrets before she suffers the same fate as her mother?

On the beautiful beaches of Crete, an old woman is handing out scraps of paper. Sofia, eighty-five years old, unable to speak, is desperate to find a daughter she has never known. After a tragic childhood in Athens and a soaring career as a singer, the brutal treatment of the man she loved by a tyrannical regime forced her to give up her daughter mere days after her birth. Now she longs to be reunited with her child before it's too late. Meanwhile in London, Zoe is searching too. In the months since the disappearance of her teenage daughter, Zoe's life has crumbled apart.

Grace Foreman never expected to find herself widowed before she turned sixty – but when she packs her bags for a summer on a gorgeous Greek island, the last thing on her mind is a holiday romance. Grace would rather take a chance on a tan … or maybe a new summer wardrobe... But then Grace meets ex Special Forces soldier Will Lancing – and although Grace isn’t looking for love, she soon finds out she’s still got it when it comes to playing the dating game…

A Pebble in the Throat is two stories told in unison. Aasmah Mir growing up in Glasgow - the place of her birth - and the upbringing of her mother in Pakistan a generation before. It is an emotional and thought-provoking narrative on what it is like to live in two very different cultures whilst all the time aware of racism, prejudice and stereotyping of gender from the 1960s onwards.

When Molly Adams finds out she’s inherited an apartment in Kassiopi, Corfu, she’s left thinking there must be some mistake. She doesn’t know anyone in Greece at all. But when she arrives there’s a shock. Molly hasn’t inherited a whole apartment, it’s only 50%. But there’s more - she’s also inherited 50% of a boat, 50% of an olive tree and… 25% of a cat.

Newly single on the day she turns thirty, Freya Johnson boards a last-minute flight to Corfu. Little does she know this holiday will change her life forever. Enter Hollywood film star, Nicholas Kaden, whose entourage is stirring up the village of Kassiopi while he films his new movie. He’s hot, he’s unexpectedly down-to-earth, but is he for real?

Xanthe Fox has it all: a famous, drop-dead gorgeous boyfriend, a dream career and bright future – until heartbreak sends her life into a tailspin. So when Xanthe’s Greek godmother unexpectedly leaves her a villa on the sumptuous island of Kefalonia, Xanthe jumps at the chance to put her life in London on hold and escape to the island hideaway to rethink her future. The break allows Xanthe the time to explore her passions, sift through her feelings and discover more about her estranged Greek family while renovating her godmother’s enchanting Villa Aster.

Do you have any idea what the people you know are capable of? Best-selling author of All My Lies Are True, Dorothy Koomson, asks how well you can really know your neighbours.

Lake Como, New Jersey: Jess Capodimonte Baratta is not living the life she dreamed of. Divorced and residing in her parents' basement, the most joy she finds in life is helping her Uncle Louie with his marble business. But when things take a turn in Louie's life, and family secrets come to light, Jess learns that her family made choices over the years--choices that stifled her dreams. Furious, and determined to start living, Jess heads off on an adventure--to her family's ancestral home.

1939. Bess Dudley's life is filled with possibility. As the daughter of the groom at historic Foxden Hall, she has worked hard to secure a sought-after teaching position in London. Then, on a visit home for the holidays, Bess reconnects with handsome and aristocratic James Foxden, whom she has loved since childhood. There’s a new spark between them and Bess travels to London with James’s card and joy in her heart.

As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined...until now. But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing - and too earth-shattering in its implications - to be forgotten. Here, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it.

Taking one of the most politicised and misused words associated with Muslim women and Islamophobia, It’s Not About the Burqa is poised to change all that. Here are voices you won’t see represented in the national news headlines: 18 Muslim women speaking frankly about the hijab and wavering faith, about love and divorce, about feminism, queer identity, sex and the twin threats of a disapproving community and a racist country. Funny, warm, sometimes sad and often angry, each of these essays is a passionate declaration.

How do we find love? How do we sustain it? And how do we survive when we lose it Interviewing authors and experts as well as drawing on her own experience, Natasha Lunn guides us through the complexities of these three questions. The result is a book to learn from, to lose and find yourself in. The real-life love stories will leave you feeling hopeful and seen, while the insights from experts will transform the way you think about your relationships.

For the last 20 years, Summer has lived a solitary life, focusing on her career as a vet and trying not to think of the past. Every year she escapes for a few weeks to beautiful Greek islands, losing herself in photography and wreck diving. When the junk room of her clifftop cottage is cleared to accommodate a carer for her father, Summer stumbles across the belongings of her great-grandmother, Gertie Smith. She finds a WWI nurse's uniform, a soldier's blanket and a recording of Gertie's memoirs.

Cyprus in the run up to the civil war of the 1970s...the threat of it hangs in the atmosphere like a fine mist. A terrible thing, war. Against this backdrop of war and violence, the island's inhabitants make the best they can of their lives, building friendships, falling in love, having children, watching people die, making mistakes. Maria Petrakis, however, flees a brutal marriage on the island where she has always lived for London and a new start.

Eleni has been coming to Crete her entire life, swapping her English home for cherished sun-baked summers with her grandfather in his idyllic shoreside villa. When she arrives in 1936, she believes the long, hot weeks ahead will be no different to so many that have gone before. But someone else is visiting the island that year too: a young German man called Otto. And so begins a summer of innocence lost, and love discovered; one that is finite, but not the end.

Single mum Ellie is shown a missing person post on Facebook. It’s of her three-year-old son, Tyler. But he’s right there, holding her hand. Surely this is some kind of prank – she knows her friend Louise can go too far with her jokes sometimes. And Ellie is used to the other mums gossiping at the school gates. But now the other parents are questioning whether Tyler is really her child. Ellie does everything she can to prove the post is fake, but the longer it goes on she knows it is malicious. Who would do this to her? And why?

When I married Bill, he was still reeling from the loss of his first wife. After our wedding, back in his dusty, quiet house, I hugged his daughters Lucy and Sara close and swore I would help heal this grieving family. But sweet, troubled Lucy is still struggling. I was so worried about her, but now I think I’ve found the perfect therapist. He says he can unlock her memories and reveal what’s really causing her anxiety. Sitting in his sunlit waiting room, I allow myself to hope. But then Lucy comes running out of the room, her eyes wild. She says she saw her mother die.

September 1939. Friends Maggie Shaunessy and Lizzie Taylor are heartbroken to be evacuated from their Liverpool homes to rural Yorkshire. Lizzie is sent to live with a vicar in the village of Gargrave while Maggie finds herself delivered by chauffeur to Hawith Hall and Lady and Lord Bradley. Both the hall and the vicarage are far different to what the girls are used to – and both are very homesick. Though Maggie finds friendship too in the form of Alice, a young servant at the hall who takes her under her wing. But change is coming to the Dales too.

Imogen Charlton is sorted. Dead-beat husband? History. Dream job? Application sent. But then her impulsive brother, Harry, spends every last penny on a Greek restaurant in Corfu, and is determined to run it himself. It’s up to Imogen to bring him to his senses. When sexy millionaire Panos Dimitriou offers to buy back his family taverna, Imogen wonders if all her prayers have been answered (and all her fantasies are about to come true). But Harry won’t budge, and his enthusiasm is infectious.