Amy, wife of American business tycoon Blade, resolved to leave her husband. He loves her with all his heart, and she still loves him, too. Amy has no secrets from him…except one. It’s because of that secret and because she loves him that she has disappeared from his sight. Now Amy is working in a restaurant in a small village. When Blade shows up, he demands to know the reason she left him, but Amy won’t say a word?she loves him too much to tell him the truth!
Amy, wife of American business tycoon Blade, resolved to leave her husband. He loves her with all his heart, and she still loves him, too. Amy has no secrets from him…except one. It’s because of that secret and because she loves him that she has disappeared from his sight. Now Amy is working in a restaurant in a small village. When Blade shows up, he demands to know the reason she left him, but Amy won’t say a word?she loves him too much to tell him the truth!
Marriage aims at the glory of God through intimate companionship. God meant husband and wife to walk together, talk together, work together, and sleep together. As the Puritans said, God did not make the woman out of man's head to control him, or out of his feet for him to trample on her, but out of his side to be embraced near to his heart. Here is a book of practical encouragements for two key aspects of marriage: companionship and sex. Dr. Joel Beeke draws upon the wisdom of the Holy Scriptures and over three decades of pastoral ministry to present a dozen practical principles for fanning into flame the fire of love between husband and wife. The Bible has a higher aim than a satisfying marriage, namely, glorying in God forever. Marriage will one day be done, made obsolete by the magnificent relationship between Christ and His people. Even now, marriage is neither the chief purpose nor the highest joy of man. But the Scriptures do call wedded people to glorify God here and now through their marriages. Dr. Beeke's book aims to assist them in this. In Part I ("Friends"), the book explores the meaning, cultivation, and threats to friendship in marriage. Friendship is that personal bond of shared life that brings people together in delightful harmony. It is rooted God's created order of making men and women in His image. We broke this harmonious order when our first parents sinned against God, simultaneously turning against each other. But Christ is the great peacemaker and friendship-restorer. Cultivating friendship with your spouse is hard work, but profoundly rewarding. It revolves around sharing life together. The book gives guidance in how to share yourself with your spouse through the gifts of time, discussing decisions, listening to each other's feelings, talking about how God is at work in your lives, praying together, building trust, laughing together, giving thanks, pleasing your spouse, and finding shared interests. It also walks the reader through the minefields of giving and receiving correction, honoring in-laws, having balanced friendship with others, and supporting on another in crises. Above all, we must remember that our most important friendship is with our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone can walk with us through life, death, and eternity. In Part II ("Lovers"), Dr. Beeke sets forth several ways in which the gospel energizes married Christians to enjoy sex in holy delight. The words "gospel," "sex," and "holy," may not seem to go together. This book shows that in reality sexual love between husband and wife is both a holy duty pleasing to God and blessed privilege empowered by Christ's grace. Rather than splitting our lives into different compartments such as sex and religion, God calls us to respond to Christ's mercies by offering our whole existence to Him as a living sacrifice. The Bible teaches us doctrines like the image of God in man, the creation mandate God laid upon the human race, the moral law for marriage, forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ, sanctification by divine grace, Christ's call to take up our cross, adoption by God, and turning from idols to give thanks to God. All these doctrines have massive implications for our sexual relationship with our spouses. However these doctrines must do more than sit in our minds; they must sink into our hearts. In Reformed, experiential fashion, Dr. Beeke leads the reader to know, believe, feel, and act based upon God's Word applied by God's Spirit.
A hardened cynic and a hopeless romantic teach each other about love in this swoony and heartful romance that's perfect for fans of Tweet Cute and The Upside of Falling. Harper works in her mom's wedding shop, altering dresses for petulant and picky brides who are more focused on hemlines than love. After years of watching squabbles break out over wedding plans, Harper thinks romance is a marketing tool. Nothing more. Her best friend Theo is her opposite. One date and he's already dreaming of happily-ever-afters. He also plays the accordion, makes chain mail for Ren Festers, hangs out in a windmill-shaped tree house, cries over rom-coms, and takes his word-of-the-day calendar very seriously. When Theo's shocked to find himself nursing his umpteenth heartbreak, Harper offers to teach him how not to fall in love. Theo agrees to the lessons, as long as Harper proves she can date without falling in love. As the lessons progress and Theo takes them to heart, Harper has a harder time upholding her end of the bargain. She's also checking out her window to see if Theo's home from his latest date yet. She's even watching rom-coms. If she confesses her feelings, she'll undermine everything she's taught him. Or was he the one teaching her?
Hailed as one of “the most successful Black authors of the last quarter-century” (The New York Times), Eric Jerome Dickey captures the humor and heartache of modern love in this sexy, soulful tale. Attraction can be instant. So can the consequences. Just ask Leonard, Debra, Tyrel, and Shelby. Four friends with so much in common: They’re good-hearted, loyal, and vulnerable to the complicated state of relations between men and women. They’re all searching for love—or at least unqualified affection. Either way, their lives are about to change…. A witty, honest portrait of the choices we make in the search for happy ever after, Friends and Lovers chronicles the lives of four young Black people through the joy, laughter, and pain of not-so-everyday life.
An investigation of love in all its forms, featuring conversations with Lisa Taddeo, Esther Perel, Emily Nagoski, Kate Bowler, Alain de Botton, Stephen Grosz, Roxane Gay and others Journalist Natasha Lunn was almost 30 when she realized that there was no map for understanding love. While she was used to watching friends fall in and out of love, the older she got the more she had to acknowledge: her friends' relationship struggles could no longer be chalked up to youth, and the more she learned about her parents, grandparents, work colleagues, and mentors the clearer it became that age had not brought any of them any closer to understanding this elusive, transformative, consuming emotion. One night during the months she found this realization settling over her, she sat up in bed and jotted three words in a notebook: conversations on love. In that moment, Lunn understood that she didn't want advice about love, she wasn't looking for the answers, or evergreen wisdom but she craved candid, wide-ranging, sometimes uncomfortable conversations about the parts of love that often don't make it into our everyday discussions of marriage, sibling relationships, friendships, or mother/daughter bonds. Conversations on Love started as an experiment aimed at interviewing experts about what love meant to them, in all of it's messiness, and quickly blossomed into a newsletter that attracted thousands of subscribers and a prestigious range of interviewees. It turns out that Lunn wasn't the only person ready to talk more openly and expansively about love. Interweaving personal essays and revealing interviews with some of the most sough-after experts on love, journalist Natasha Lunn guides us through the paradoxical heart of three key questions about love--How do we find love? How do we sustain it? And how do we survive when we lose it?--to deliver a book that is a solace, a beacon, a call to arms, a tool-kit. The real-life love stories in these pages will leave you hopeful and validated, while the insights from experts will transform the way you think about your relationships. Above all, Conversations on Love will remind you what love is: fragile, sturdy, mundane, beautiful, always worth fighting for.
'IMAGINATIVE AND COMPELLING' Juliet Marillier, author of the Sevenwaters Series THERE IS A VERY OLD STORY, RARELY TOLD, OF A WOLF THAT RUNS INTO THE OCEAN AND BECOMES A WHALE. Born with the soul of a hunter and chosen by the spirit of the Wolf, Omat is destined to follow in her grandfather's footsteps - invoking the spirits of the land, sea and sky to protect her people. But the gods have stopped listening, the seals won't come and Omat's family is starving. Alone at the edge of the world, hope is the only thing they have left. Desperate to save them, Omat journeys across the icy wastes, fighting for survival with every step. When she meets a Viking warrior and his strange new gods, they set in motion a conflict that could shatter her world . . . or save it. Blending myth and magic from Norse and Inuit folklore, The Wolf in The Whale is a captivating tale of identity and survival featuring an unforgettable narrator who will do anything to protect those she loves, even confront the gods themselves. 'I honestly could not put into words how much I loved this book . . . one of my favorite books I've ever read . . . Magical, heartbreaking, and beautiful' Jes Reads Books 'An enchanting blend of myth, magic and faith . . . treat yourself and dive right in' SciFiNow 'Magical and awe inspiring . . . brings together an incredible world of ice and magic and characters that will capture your heart' Fantasy Hive
The delightful second installment in Alexander McCall Smith’s already hugely popular new detective series, The Sunday Philosophy Club, starring the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie — editor of the Journal of Applied Ethics — and her no-nonsense housekeeper, Grace. When Isabel’s niece, Cat, asks Isabel to run her delicatessen while she attends a wedding in Italy, Isabel meets a man with a most interesting problem. He recently had a heart transplant, and is suddenly plagued with memories of events that never happened to him. The situation appeals to Isabel as a philosophical question. Is the heart truly the seat of the soul? And it piques her insatiable curiosity: could the memories be connected with the donor’s demise? Grace, of course, thinks it is none of Isabel’s business. Add to the mix the lothario Cat brings home from the wedding in Italy, who, in accordance with all that Isabel knows about lotharios, shouldn’t be trusted . . . but goodness, he is charming. That makes two mysteries of the heart to be solved — just the thing for Isabel Dalhousie.
'There's never been a more honest or raw memoir ... and it may just save lives' Daily Mail 'Funny, fascinating, compelling ... also a wonderful read for fans of Friends' The Times The beloved star of Friends takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this candid, funny, and revelatory memoir that delivers a powerful message of hope and persistence. This is the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, who takes us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who travelled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more. In an extraordinary story that only he could tell - and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it - Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he's found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humour, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fuelled it despite seemingly having it all. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening - as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for. 'An unflinching and often harrowing must-read for 90s pop culture fans' Guardian 'Written with Chandler's trademark sarcasm and self-deprecation' Telegraph 'A hopeful read ... I started to think of [it] not as a celebrity memoir about addiction, but as an addiction memoir written by a man who understands his own history through the prism of showbiz' Independent
