Marriage Friendship

Leroy recalls his childhood friend Matthew Barber. Peter and Matthew seem unlikely friends. Matthew finds little to like in life, and his outlook is decidedly blue. Peter finds much to like in life, though nearly everything puzzles him, and he is essentially sanguine about his future, no matter how groundless his optimism might be. Eventually the friends find, as most friends do, that each has added to his developing self a little of the other. "The Fox and the Clam is a wonderfully wacky ringing of plot changes on the kind of idiotically moralistic fables that used to fill the pages of ...

Four women. Four decades of friendship. Four twisted relationships. Roxanne – the popular beauty whose encounter with Ted Bundy seals her fate when he murders the young women who are her sorority sisters. Her guilt turns her into a bully with dark and mysterious motives as she seeks revenge. Jackie – the peacemaker who settles for a revenge marriage instead of sweet love when she marries the bully from college surprising everyone when her dark enemy turns into her lover. It takes her decades to realize the truth about her marriage and complicated friendship with Roxanne. Charlene – ...

West London. Tania Samarasena (recently divorced), her mother Helen (recently widowed), and her best friend Priya (recently nearly sacked following The Outburst) are three women at a crossroads in their lives. As they make plans to reinvent themselves, a series of shocks, old secrets and surprises plays havoc with their relationships, as well as their futures.

Luke Craven is convinced that the world is against him; his once-happy life hasn’t been the same since he lost both of his parents and his wife in quick succession, and his everyday has become more about existing than living. But he is forced to reconsider his glass-half-empty outlook when he narrowly escapes a freak accident with his life - pushed to safety by a stranger, who isn’t so lucky.

Izzy has always taken everything in her stride, but motherhood is proving more difficult than she thought. She keeps telling herself it’s just a phase, but the dark clouds are starting to appear. Neighbour and widower Arthur might be in the winter of his life, but he’s not ready to be packed off to a care home. He’s determined to do things his way. When Izzy hears about Arthur’s big move, she offers to help. But Arthur isn’t telling her the whole story.

Peter Leroy recalls a childhood journey of discovery that he made from the mouth of the Bolotomy River to its source, traveling with his best (and imaginary) friend Rodney “Raskol” Lodkochnikov. The journey begins with the work of turning a packing case (which Cap’n Andrew Leech intends to use, later, as a coffin) into a shallow-draft boat, it involves encounters with a philosophical vagrant and a gaggle of beautiful nymphs, and it ends with the metaphor of life as a river turned on its head. "Life on the Bolotomy concerns the river journey of Peter and his chum Raskolnikov to the ...

Peter Leroy recalls his maternal grandfather’s attempt to build a shortwave radio, a project that begins with an article in Impractical Craftsman magazine promising "hour after interminable hour of baffling precision work." After many, many hours spent watching his grandfather labor at his basement workbench, Peter at last gets to put the earphones on, flip the switch, and twiddle the dials. Through the crackling and sussurous static he detects the sounds of love and lust, joy and sorrow, hope and loss. “Reading the Peter Leroy saga is akin to watching a champion juggler deftly keep ...

Relationships aren't as simple as you think. It needs nurturing and a whole lot of understanding for it to work. Some of us are in haste to be in a commitment without really knowing what we're up against. Meanwhile, many have gone in and out of relationships bruised and afraid to trust again. All of us are different and it takes time to figure out who's perfect for us.

When three women are thrown together by unusual circumstances, ruffled feelings are just the beginning. A wise, sharply observed celebration of the life-changing power of female friendships.

Tara Hooper is at breaking point. With two young children, a business in a town struggling under an unexpected crime wave, and her husband more interested in his cricket team than their marriage, life is a juggling act. Then, when new neighbors arrive and they are exactly the sort of people the town doesn't want or need, things get worse.

Okay, so putting superglue on all of Randy’s pens wasn’t my best idea, but when your control-freak husband makes you his executive assistant to avoid signing divorce papers, a girl’s gotta get creative. Randy Butts thinks he’s so clever with his little scheme. What he doesn’t know? I’m about to turn his perfectly organized office into my personal playground. This gorgeous, infuriating man has rules for everything—from my bathroom breaks to how I stack papers—so naturally, I’m going to break every single one. Glitter bombs in his mail? Check. Fart spray booby traps? Double ...

Meet the dragonslayer who feeds her people and stands ready to rule them, if she can only tame her brother's rebellious wife. Tawananna loves her people and her brother Ephron. The arranged marriage between herself and Elon seems likely to show strength and unite the clans. It might even tame Shelometh’s rebellious heart. Tawannana is a slayer of dragons and the best archer in the village. But her greatest challenge comes when she has to sit and do nothing while her people face the army of Sargon. Tawannana receives a visit from her grandmother, known to some as Heth’s whore and to ...

Voice memos, care packages, hours-long phone conversations, treasured traditions that go back decades, glasses held aloft during wedding toasts, hands held at funerals, first cuddles with newborns, work lunches with work wives, taking it to the group chat – our friendships touch and enrich every part of our lives. But how often do we stop to consider them deeply?

We love to think that the face of God is turned toward us. We want Him looking down on us, protecting us, blessing us, and doing things for us. If you think God looks good from the front, wait until you see that Glory from the back. As well, what do we look like to others, all the way around? What kind of glory do you have on you, and will that attract a Kingdom spouse?

Sonia, thrown by a broken mid-life marriage, flees to Sweden to stay with her friend Inge. Forty-nine, a professional woman in Washington, D.C., she’s run the gamut from open relationships to an attempt at a normal marriage with Ben. She’s failed to get love, sex, and respectability lined up. Inge’s had her own take on “normal,” having been a Swedish trophy wife in America. Her brother Ammon sparks Sonia’s bruised heart with temptation. By chance, Sonia brings the answer to their family secret.A serious tale in the style of Ingmar Bergman (e.g., Scenes From a Marriage).

Peter Leroy explores his earliest memories, which involve Dudley Beaker, a next-door neighbor with a shady occupation; Eliza Foote, a shapely blonde (a product of his imagination); six kittens and one red wagon; and his mother’s tumble from her lawn chair. "A good half of [My Mother Takes a Tumble] is spent on a loony romantic correspondence between a man and a woman, where each thinks the other is someone else, and each writes in the guise if the opposite sex. Somehow this oddball romance intertwines with Peter's first memory — piling a litter of kittens into his wagon — and the day ...

Peter Leroy considers the origins of his childhood pelecypodophobia (the fear of bivalve mollusks), meets the imaginary friend who will remain his best friend for life, memorizes the legends of his ancestors in the Leroy line (including Black Jacques Leroy, who “invented beer”), studies his father's nude photographs of family friend May Castle, and enjoys a moonlight swim with Margot and Martha, the Glynn twins, after which he concludes that clams do not bite. "Do Clams Bite? chronicles Peter's sufferings when he goes clamming with his grandfather, expecting momentarily to have a vital ...

One takeaway dinner. Two lonely hearts. Did somebody order a rom com? Gia thrives on risks. Ben plays it safe. She crossed continents to chase her London dream; he works the same job in the same restaurant, night after night. Then fate steps in. When Gia’s takeout is delivered, her embarrassing list of New Year’s resolutions accidentally makes its way to Ben’s restaurant, stuck to the bottom of a delivery backpack. With each delivery Gia orders, Ben slips in a note of his own and eagerly awaits her reply.

She’s betting on the wrong man—and he’s all in to prove it to her Aria Nixon doesn’t need a man, but when her Aunt Serenity predicts Aria will find love via a makeover, it’s game on to prove this understated wallflower can land a man as is. Superstition Springs newcomer Isaiah West is just the guy to help since she’s set her sights on his teammate. This quirky small town is just a temporary stopping place for Isaiah. As soon as the Navy veteran comes up with a plan for his life, he’ll move on—but suddenly he can’t deny a fierce attraction to blunt, feisty Aria. Sure he’s...

In her early adulthood, Debbie made a choice. She had two men who loved her. She chose one. She lost the friendship of the other. Twenty years on, horrific tragedy strikes. Mother to three grown children, she has to find the strength to be there for them, while pushing her own grief aside. Dealing with the loss of the man who has been by her side for two decades pushes her into depression. Every day seems harder to deal with than the last. The feeling of loss is further heightened by finding her husband's lifetime of journals. Hesitant at first to look inside them, she eventually does. ...