David and his family are typical -- three messy, noisy teenagers; two tidy, organised parents. It just doesn't work, does it? But when Mum inherits some money, the find a solution -- two houses next door to each other. Now they can split up, teens in number 8 and parents in number 10. At first it seems like paradise, but then things begin to go wrong ...
Agnes Blythe and her glamorous Aunt Effie must take a break from restoring their inn to rake in the clues when a local mechanic is murdered in national bestselling author Maia Chance’s charming second Agnes and Effie mystery. It’s leaf-peeping season in Naneda, New York, and Agnes Blythe has settled into helping her eccentric Great Aunt Effie restore the Stagecoach Inn. It seems nothing can shatter the golden idyll—or the ka-ching of cash registers—until a mechanic at Hatch Automotive is found bludgeoned to death with a wrench. Sweeping into action, Agnes and Aunt Effie are on the scene, when a tourist-laden motor coach breaks down outside of town. The Stagecoach Inn isn’t exactly ready for guests, but Agnes and Effie agree to take in a group of seniors while they wait for repairs. But then, Agnes finds herself pulled into the investigation when she learns her new boyfriend, gorgeous Otis Hatch, is the Naneda Police Department’s prime suspect. With bodies falling faster than the foliage, Agnes must leaf through the more viable suspects and clear Otis’s name of murder in Bad Neighbors, the charming second Agnes and Effie mystery from national bestselling author Maia Chance.
Life is never dull when you have neighbours! Neighbours – we all have them. Whether they’re amazing or the bane of your life, everyone has a story about them. Have you ever had a disagreement with a neighbour? Have your neighbours ever woken you up shouting? Slamming doors? Revving a car? Do you avoid your neighbours because they’re irritating, boring or nosy? Do you sometimes wish you had normal neighbours? Or do your neighbours go out of their way to help you? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these, then this book is for you! Written with humour, insight and perception, this book explores our relationships with our neighbours, how they work, why they break down and the strategies we all employ to survive. An Annoyance of Neighbours will help you to identify and classify your neighbours, discover how to remedy a relationship and take the quiz to find out what kind of neighbour you are. This book will appeal to anyone who is curious about their neighbours, as well as those who wish to ease unresolved tension with theirs.
He's sexy. He's dangerous. He's right next door. I gave up everything to save my sister from a monster, and now I'm lying low in this rundown apartment so I can stay out of danger. Hiding from everyone. Except for the guy in apartment 1A. He's rude. Silent. Muscled, mysterious, and hot as hell. I don't know if he likes me or hates me, but the more time I spend with him, the less it matters. I want him. And for the first time in my life I'm going to go after what I want. She doesn't belong in my world. From the second 1B moves in, I know she's keeping secrets. She doesn't belong here, much less with a street fighter like me. But that doesn't stop me from craving her. Her softness and sweetness. She's a drug, and suddenly I'm addicted. I know someone is going to try and hurt her and I can't let that happen. But unless I push her away and get her out of my world, that someone could be me...
A kiss from a mean man is so wonderful it melts you...? Pernelle tried to buy a beautiful home in Cotswolds, but a rich man swooped in and took it from under her. She ends up buying the tiny house next to it, but her new neighbor isn't very welcoming. He makes fun of her butt in shorts, sees her drenched in the rain while she's locked out of her house, and countless other embarrassing moments. But despite his not-so-nice demeanor around her, she can't help but melt at his spur-of-the-moment kiss... From that day on, her heart is filled with only him.
In fourteen sweeping and sublime stories, five of which have been published in The New Yorker, the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Known World shows that his grasp of the human condition is firmer than ever Returning to the city that inspired his first prizewinning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens. All Aunt Hagar's Children turns an unflinching eye to the men, women, and children caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations that await them further north, people who in Jones's masterful hands, emerge as fully human and morally complex, whether they are country folk used to getting up with the chickens or people with centuries of education behind them. In the title story, in which Jones employs the first-person rhythms of a classic detective story, a Korean War veteran investigates the death of a family friend whose sorry destiny seems inextricable from his mother's own violent Southern childhood. In "In the Blink of God's Eye" and "Tapestry" newly married couples leave behind the familiarity of rural life to pursue lives of urban promise only to be challenged and disappointed. With the legacy of slavery just a stone's throw away and the future uncertain, Jones's cornucopia of characters will haunt readers for years to come.
Three SEALs need a nanny for their twins… and someone to satisfy their hot-as-sin bodies, too. I moved cross-country to be with my ex, and one night I followed him, suspecting he was cheating on me. He ended up going to the strip club, Ranchy High. I had to find a way to get in, so when the bouncer asked if I was the nanny, I lied. I found out that my ex was cheating and stealing from others. Distressed and distraught, I found myself in the Jeep with a driver, with not only one kid, but two. Their driver took me to their penthouse, which was on the other side of town. I soon found out that their dads were hot triplets—Stan, Rick, and Pete. They told me that I did a good job and hired me on the spot. The three hot-as-sin SEALs were triplets, but they’re different in every way. Rick, with his seductive and commanding emerald eyes, made me want to surrender to him. Pete was the fun one, the kind who loved to keep entertaining me all night long. Stan was the shy one, the virgin I had to set free from his anxieties. I found a new lease on life, one that I’d never dreamed of having until I moved in. No more did I have a man making all my anxieties go into overtime. My world could turn upside down because everything was going right, but it could go wrong if they found out my secret. The lie in which I’d been holding on to, could be revealed, and I would end up losing a lot more than the new home I’ve found—I could end up losing my heart, too.
Border fixity—the proscription of foreign conquest and the annexation of homeland territory—has, since World War II, become a powerful norm in world politics. This development has been said to increase stability and peace in international relations. Yet, in a world in which it is unacceptable to challenge international borders by force, sociopolitically weak states remain a significant source of widespread conflict, war, and instability. In this book, Boaz Atzili argues that the process of state building has long been influenced by external territorial pressures and competition, with the absence of border fixity contributing to the evolution of strong states—and its presence to the survival of weak ones. What results from this norm, he argues, are conditions that make internal conflict and the spillover of interstate war more likely. Using a comparison of historical and contemporary case studies, Atzili sheds light on the relationship between state weakness and conflict. His argument that under some circumstances an international norm that was established to preserve the peace may actually create conditions that are ripe for war is sure to generate debate and shed light on the dynamics of continuing conflict in the twenty-first century.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Another thrilling domestic suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Not a Happy Family “The twists come as fast [as] you can turn the pages.” —People “I read this novel at one sitting, absolutely riveted by the storyline. The suspense was beautifully rendered and unrelenting!” —Sue Grafton It all started at a dinner party. . . A domestic suspense debut about a young couple and their apparently friendly neighbors—a twisty, rollercoaster ride of lies, betrayal, and the secrets between husbands and wives. . . Anne and Marco Conti seem to have it all—a loving relationship, a wonderful home, and their beautiful baby, Cora. But one night, when they are at a dinner party next door, a terrible crime is committed. Suspicion immediately lands on the parents. But the truth is a much more complicated story. Inside the curtained house, an unsettling account of what actually happened unfolds. Detective Rasbach knows that the panicked couple is hiding something. Both Anne and Marco soon discover that the other is keeping secrets, secrets they've kept for years. What follows is the nerve-racking unraveling of a family—a chilling tale of deception, duplicity, and unfaithfulness that will keep you breathless until the final shocking twist.
A hopeful single mom moves to the Houston suburbs to start anew, only to find a new adversary in the HOA. Amelia Marsh relocates with her two young kids to a northern suburb of Houston after a brutal divorce. All she wants is a bit of normalcy for her children. The last thing she needs is to be the center of a disagreement with the HOA representative. Believe it or not, her children's garden gnome is accused of violating the association's rules. No way is Amelia backing down on this one. Gnomegate? Really? HOA President Kyle Sanders would be a good friend—or even something more—if Amelia wasn't gearing up for battle with the HOA in her determination to make her house a home and her neighborhood a community... "An excellent read and a surefire hit for those looking to beat the heat this summer." —Library Journal
