Simon & Schuster Ali. A Life Eig Jonathan

Life is full of second chances, if only you keep your heart open for them • Spring Hill Square is a pretty sanctuary away from the bustle of everyday life. And at its centre is Leni Merryman's Teashop on the Corner, specialising in cake, bookish stationery and compassion. And for three people, all in need of a little TLC, it is somewhere to find a friend to lean on • Carla Pride has just discovered that her late husband Martin was not who she thought he was. And now she must learn to put her marriage behind her and move forward • Molly Jones's ex-husband Harvey has reappeared in her life after many years, wanting to put right the wrongs of the past before it is too late • And Will Linton's business has gone bust and his wife has left him to pick up the pieces

With the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, the next two centuries for France would be tumultuous. Bestselling historian and political commentator Jonathan Fenby provides an expert and riveting journey through this period as he recounts and analyses the extraordinary sequence of events of this period from the end of the First Revolution through two others, a return of Empire, three catastrophic wars with Germany, periods of stability and hope interspersed with years of uncertainty and high tensions. As her cross-Channel neighbour Great Britain would equally suffer, France was to undergo the wrenching loss of colonies in the post-Second World War as the new modern world we know today took shape. Her attempts to become the leader of the European union is a constant struggle, as was her lack of support for America in the two Gulf Wars of the past twenty years

One Day meets Up: The House That Made Us is a love story – and a life story – told through a series of photographs and inspired by a true story • When Mac and Marie marry and find a home of their own, Mac takes a snap of them outside their newbuild bungalow, the garden bare and the paint on the front door still wet. It becomes a tradition, this snap, and slowly the photographs build into an album of a fifty-year relationship • Every year they take a photo and though things change around them – the garden matures, the fashions change, they grow older – the one constant is their love. Every year, come rain, come shine, from the Seventies through the decades, every photo tells the story of their love. But life never travels the path you expect it to, though they know that a life with love is a life lived to the full

‘For 30 years I was the voice of sport at The Times – but that’s enough about me. What matters is sport.’ • This is an autobiography from which the author, award-winning writer Simon Barnes, has been surgically removed. He has reported on six World Cups, seven Olympic Games, cricket on five continents and more than 20 Wimbledons, watching Diego Maradona, Usain Bolt, Sachin Tendulkar and Roger Federer at their peak. Along the way he had soul-revealing conversations with Ayrton Senna and sat on Desert Orchid • His journalist’s experience gives him perspective, until the addictive madness of sport takes over. Epic is a stunning mosaic of some of the greatest sporting moments in recent years, which build up to provide the reader with a better idea of what sport is for, what differentiates winners from losers, and reveals how sport teaches us how better to enjoy life

In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure. On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever • Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness. That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her

On paper, Merina Wilde has it all: a successful career writing the kind of romantic novels that make even the hardest hearts swoon, a perfect carousel of book launches and parties to keep her social life buzzing, and a childhood sweetheart who thinks she’s a goddess. But Merry has a secret: the magic has stopped flowing from her fingers. Try as she might, she can’t summon up the sparkle that makes her stories shine. And as her deadline whooshes by, her personal life falls apart too. Alex tells her he wants something other than the future she’d always imagined for them and Merry finds herself single for the first time since – well, ever • Desperate to get her life back on track, Merry leaves London and escapes to the windswept Orkney Islands, locking herself away in a secluded clifftop cottage to try to heal her heart and rediscover her passion for writing

‘I want you to remember something, Nat. You’re small on the outside. But inside you’re as big as everyone else. You show people that and you won’t go far wrong in life.’ • An uplifting, feel-good story perfect for fans of Mrs England The Doll Factory and The Devil and the Dark Water • My name is Nat Davy. Perhaps you’ve heard of me? There was a time when people up and down the land knew my name, though they only ever knew half the story • The year of 1625, it was, when a single shilling changed my life. That shilling got me taken off to London, where they hid me in a pie, of all things, so I could be given as a gift to the new queen of England • They called me the queen’s dwarf, but I was more than that. I was her friend, when she had no one else, and later on, when the people of England turned against their king, it was me who saved her life

Scarlett is far from perfect • She changes herself to please others • She makes mistakes – over and over again • She repeatedly goes back to people that have hurt her • Scarlett has a tricky relationship with her mother and is desperate for people to like her • She moves to London without a plan, but when she manages to land a job at a modelling agency she thinks that her life is finally on track • Scarlett soon discovers that the fashion industry is far from what she had imagined and her life begins to spiral out of control. But at least people know who she is. She is starting to become someone • And surely it’s better to be someone – even if it’s someone you hate? • With a vein of dark humour at its core, The High Moments offers an astute, often stark, look at the fashion industry and the challenges you can face as a woman in your twenties

When you go looking for a new start, make sure you don't find a nightmare instead • The Kane family, Lorcan, Naiyana and their young son, relocate from Perth to Kallayee, an abandoned mining town in the Great Victoria Desert to start over again, free from their chequered past • The town seems like the perfect getaway: Peaceful. Quiet. Remote. Somewhere they won’t be found • But life in Kallayee isn’t quite as straightforward as they hope. There are noises in the earth, mysterious shadows and tracks in the dust, as if the town is coming back to life • But the family won’t leave. No one can talk sense into them • And now, no one can talk to them at all • They’ve simply vanished • Now it's up to Detective Emmaline Taylor to find them… before it’s too late

A family secret, a mysterious legacy, and a journey that will change everything… • When Isla, a 65-year-old grandmother, is left nothing but an old painting in her mother’s will, while her sisters and aunt inherit the estate, she is devastated. Close to retirement, getting ready to live on her own terms, the last thing she expects at this time of her life is such turmoil. So, to find an explanation for her mother’s rejection, she embarks on a road-trip • But, right at the last moment, she’s forced to take her sullen – and, in her view, impossible – 14-year-old granddaughter Charlie with her. Cramped together in Isla’s car with her smelly old dog, these ill-assorted travelling companions set off to uncover some shattering and life-changing family truths at the same time as learning to love each other… • The Long Way Home is set in the UK and 1950s Paris where the story really begins, spanning four generations of women and the secrets that get passed down through them

Faced with losing everything, all that matters is Here and Now • Marigold has spent her life taking care of those around her, juggling family life with the running of the local shop, and being an all-round leader in her quiet yet welcoming community. When she finds herself forgetting things, everyone quickly puts it down to her age. But something about Marigold isn’t quite right, and it’s becoming harder for people to ignore • As Marigold’s condition worsens, for the first time in their lives her family must find ways to care for the woman who has always cared for them. Desperate to show their support, the local community come together to celebrate Marigold, and to show her that losing your memories doesn’t matter, when there are people who will remember them for you

Sometimes to find yourself, you have to go back to where you came from • You just might not like what you find • After failing in his new life, Luke decides to go home, back to the one place where he’d once felt he belonged. But that was a long time ago and now he has to face the life that he chose to run away from: The Combine. The gang that his uncle now leads, but which his father still runs from prison. Brutal, unforgiving . . . family • Reunited with his childhood friend Callie and tagging along on jobs with her and her boyfriend Pretty Baby, Luke soon discovers that he might have a place back home after all. When another gang try to encroach on their turf, The Combine and Luke must go to war to save all that they know • But in trying to be someone you’re not, can you ever find out who you really are? • Family is everything and blood is love