Hodder & Stoughton Turning Thirty Гейл Майк

How to turn forty • 1. Set yourself a personal challenge • 2. Clear wardrobe of all age inappropriate clothing • 3. Relax • How not to turn forty • 1. Have a complete meltdown • High flier Matt Beckford's sole ambition is to turn forty with his life sorted. And with a Porsche on the drive and a job that requires him to spend more time in BA's club lounge than his own lounge, it looks like things are going in the right direction. But when Matt's wife unexpectedly calls time on their marriage, a chain of events is set in motion that very quickly sees him facing forty broke, homeless and completely alone • But all is not lost because Matt has a plan

Вошедшие в данный сборник рождественские рассказы Энид Блайтон по праву считаются нестареющей классикой детской литературы. Эта книга - отличный подарок для тех, кто насладился этими историями в детстве и хочет познакомить с ними новое поколение читателей • Книга «Enid Blyton`s Christmas Stories» оказалась столь популярной, что издательство Hodder & Stoughton по просьбам читателей выпустило второй праздничный сборник, и именно его вы держите в руках! Энид Блайтон передаёт атмосферу Рождества с несравненным мастерством, какой бы аспект праздника она ни описывала: колядки, ожидание подарков, праздничный стол и, конечно, посиделки с родными и близкими… Да, в историях Блайтон, как обычно, нашлось место для озорства и хаоса, но добро и веселье в них всегда на первом месте! • Рассказы из этой книги ранее не публиковались в «Enid Blyton`s Christmas Stories»

Can she find happiness in her new home? • 1935. At thirty-six, Bella Porter is dependent on her abusive cousin, acting as an unpaid servant. When a kind relative leaves her a house in the village of Backshaw Moss, Thomas tries to take it from her, but she defies him and grasps this chance of a new start in Lancashire • It is not going to be easy, though. The house is on the edge of a slum and in a state of disrepair, let out as flats. As kind people help her find her feet, however, her confidence grows and when she meets struggling, widowed father-of-three Ryan, she begins to hope she may find the happy family she's always dreamed of • She's offered partial help with her renovations by the local council who are planning to clear up the slums, but other landlords will do anything to avoid costly improvements and protect their profits

Change is afoot in the usually sleepy village of Risingdale. Gerald Gaunt, headmaster of the primary school for over thirty years, is retiring. It is the end of an era and Gerald hopes that his replacement will work with him to secure a bright, happy future for the school. But Mr Smart has his own ideas about how things should be run, and things start to become fraught very quickly • On top of this, the teachers have plenty of other dramas to contend with. Still dealing with a class of children who seem to understand agriculture better than arithmetic, Tom Dwyer is pining over Janette, his one-that-got-away. Meanwhile, his colleague Joyce Tranter's new marital bliss is shattered by the arrival of her husband's avaricious, scheming nephew. And elsewhere in the village, Sir Hedley's long-cherished plans for his future are jeopardised by the arrival back in his life of his bitter, desperate ex-wife

Just one man can make all the difference • 1931, Lancashire • When Finn Carlisle loses his wife and unborn child, he spends a few years travelling to keep the sad memories at bay. Just as he's ready to settle down again, his great-uncle dies and leaves everything to him. This includes Heythorpe House in Ellindale just down the road from Leah Willcox and her little fizzy drink factory • Finn finds a village of people in dire need of jobs, a house that hasn't been cleaned or lived in for thirty years and Reggie, an eleven-year-old who's run away from the nearby orphanage and its brutal Director Buddle. When Finn sees the marks left by regular beatings, he decides Reggie will never go back there • But Buddle has other plans for the child, and will stop at nothing to get Reggie back in his cruel grasp

When Star Bligh got pregnant at the age of sixteen, she thought her life was over. Now thirty-three, mother to Skye and owner of the successful jewellery stall in Ferry Lane Market in Hartmouth, Cornwall, she wouldn't change a thing about it • Well, maybe one. A few months ago she fell hard for American visitor Jack, but then he left without even saying goodbye and ever since she has struggled to get him out of her head. Until the handsome, roguish Conor turns up and sweeps her off her feet. But then one day, Star is shocked to bump into Jack. He's back in Hartmouth to tell her why he left - but is she ready to listen? • As things get more complicated with her love life, another revelation threatens to turn the lovely world she has built for her and Skye upside down

This actually is a love story, just not the one Sunny was looking for • Sunny is the queen of living a double life. To her friends, she's the entertaining, eternally upbeat, single one, always on hand to share hilarious and horrifying date stories. But while they're all settling down with long-term partners and mortgages, Sunny is back in her childhood bedroom at thirty, playing the role of the perfect daughter. She spends her time watching the Sikh channel, making saag and samosey with her mum, hiding gins-in-a-tin in her underwear drawer and sneaking home in the middle of the night after dates, trying but failing to find 'the one' • She juggles both lives perfectly . . . on the outside, at least. But when her mum sees a guy dropping Sunny home one evening, Sunny's life gets a little complicated

The terrifying thriller from the acclaimed and bestselling author of Every Dead Thing • Still raw from the brutal slayings of his wife and daughter, and the events surrounding the capture of their killer, The Travelling Man, Charlie Parker retreats to the wintry Maine landscape of his childhood. By following in the steps of his beloved grandfather, Parker hopes to heal his spirit and get through the bitter anniversary of Jennifer and Susan's murder. But the echoes of the past that await him are not all benign. In a gruesome re-enactment of Parker's own nightmares, another young woman is killed with her child and his brief involvement in their lives impels Parker to hunt their vicious murderer. As the death toll mounts, Parker comes to realise that the true answer to the puzzle lies thirty years in the past, in a tree with strange fruit, in his own grandfather's history, and in the perverted desires of a monster incarnate - Caleb Kyle

Three women. Three decades. The friendship of a lifetime • Zainab, Funmi and Enitan first meet at University in northern Nigeria, all learning how to become themselves. It's an experience that binds the three very different women together. When Enitan moves to New York to elope with a white man, Zainab and Funmi are left behind, with drastically different fortunes • Over the course of thirty years, their lives and friendships diverge and change. Enitan is separating from her husband, trying to understand her daughter Remi. Zainab finds herself the sole breadwinner for her husband and their four sons. And Funmi is living a life of confined luxury, as the wife of a successful, shady businessman • But theirs is a friendship that can endure decades of distance

1592. England and Spain are at war, yet there is peril at home, too. The death of her trusted spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham has left Queen Elizabeth vulnerable. Conspiracies multiply • The quiet life of John Shakespeare is shattered by a summons from Robert Cecil, the cold but deadly young statesman who dominated the last years of the Queen's long reign, insisting Shakespeare re-enter government service. His mission: to find vital papers, now in the possession of the Earl of Essex • Essex is the brightest star in the firmament, a man of ambition. He woos the Queen, thirty-three years his senior, as if she were a girl his age. She is flattered by him - despite her loathing for his mother, the beautiful, dangerous Lettice Knollys who presides over her own glittering court - a dazzling array of the mad, bad, dangerous and disaffected

Athene Forster embraced the Sixties like few others. Nicknamed the Last Deb, she was spoiled, beautiful, and out of control. And within two years of her marriage, the rumours had begun again • Thirty-five years on, Suzanna Peacock finds refuge from her mother's shameful legacy in her shop, the Peacock Emporium. Within its magical walls she discovers not just friendship, and an escape from her troubled marriage, but the first real passion of her life • But the spectre of her mother still haunts Suzanna, setting in place a series of dramatic events. Only by confronting the past will she finally be able to face the future

A girl in a new country • A dark secret left behind • A dead body which might tell all • Ever since she was adopted from an orphanage in Sri Lanka, Paloma has led a privileged Californian life: the best schools, a generous allowance and parents so perfect that Paloma fears she'll never live up to them • Now at thirty, Paloma has managed to disappoint her parents so thoroughly that their relationship will never recover. Unemployed and friendless, the only person still talking to her is Arun - the Indian man subletting her spare room. That is until Arun discovers Paloma's darkest secret, one that could jeopardize her fragile place in this country, and the next day is found face down in a pool of blood • On finding Arun's body Paloma flees her apartment