Shut Up Skinny Bitches! offers a compassionate, engaging alternative to the extreme, rigid mentality found in many self-help, diet, and health books. Blending humor, well-researched weight-loss methods, and numerous pop-up bon mots, the authors have devised a realistic, strength-based, philosophy that not only applies to food and dieting, but to living well.
An International Situation... Family Meddling... Lola Danvers on a rampage, all equate to another day in the life of India Danvers... Exploring a new land and a new culture is a balm to India's soul, but the sexy stranger seems to add chaos to her heart and mind. With family constantly getting in the way and meddling exes, it's no wonder India is having such a hard time. Each new day is a chance to start over. Dealing with a deep sense of loss, India Danvers is challenged to rebuild and begin again. Find out how India gets her new beginning.
Challenging America's confusing standard of beauty, a humorous look at life from the perspective of a large woman shares her own experiences as well as her thoughts on eating, sex, dating, exercise, and other topics.
Can love mend what life has broken? In small town Kentucky, Scarlett has spent the last five years caring for her nephew, Ben, while trying to grow her baking business. Life has never been easy for Scarlett, but it takes a complicated turn when she loses her biggest client and gets behind on her rent. And to make things worse, Scarlett’s sister goes missing at the same time Ben's estranged father suddenly demands custody, leaving Scarlett to find a way to keep Ben. As she tries to keep her life from falling apart, Scarlett crosses paths with Tristen, a musician struggling to revive his career while embroiled in a paternity suit with a girlfriend he hasn’t seen in years. Sparks fly immediately, but Tristen is planning to leave town and needs to focus on his career. It wouldn’t be fair to get involved with Scarlett. And yet, he can’t stop thinking about her… Will love be the key ingredient to overcoming their obstacles, or will the pressures of family and ambition tear them apart? Discover a heartwarming tale of love, trust, and redemption where the sweetest moments can mend the deepest scars. Will Scarlett and Tristen find the strength to let love in?
Her sweetest mistake . . . tastes so, so good. Cool as a Chicago winter, private events planner Cara DeLuca is a model of self-control . . . until she meets the one temptation she can't resist: Shane Doyle. The sexy, Irish pastry chef is too hot, too sure, too young, and after a crazy night in Vegas, her new husband. While at first Cara wants nothing more than a way out of her sham marriage to Shane, she soon finds that beneath his farm boy demeanor lies a man who can match her drive, both in and out of the bedroom. How can the wrong guy feel so deliciously right? Shane has carefully structured his career and life around one goal: connecting with the family that doesn't know he exists. Marrying a woman with more issues than a magazine stand wasn't part of the plan, but melting Cara's icy exterior is so worth the detour. It isn’t long before this side trip is leading him down an unexpected path with love the final destination. As their annulment date nears and long-buried secrets are revealed, Shane will have to fight for the one thing guaranteeing the perfect life he craves . . . the current Mrs. Shane Doyle.
Book Summary Ken Hamrick learns first hand of the destructive actions of his Sayonara Heart in thwarting any romantic relationship development. A broken heart persuades him to join the Navy. Throughout the next twenty-two years, he experiences one destroyed relationship after another, sandwiched between near muggings in San Francisco, Kaohsiung, and Hong Kong; ‘friendly fire’ in Fallon, Nevada; attempted murder charges; and smuggling a foreign national to the States on a destroyer; all while a volunteer member of a Top Secret National Defense Program involving unheard of power. Reviews “For anyone who really enjoys a book that will keep you turning pages in anticipation of the next experience. The Sayonara Heart, exciting until the very end and a story you will long remember. Very easy read. Great work” ..... Beverly Steinberg, CEO, Segway of Oakland and multi-book club member. “Finally, a man willing to discuss the romantic side of a U. S. Navy career alongside the macho experiences for which sailors are renowned. I particularly enjoyed the various experiences he had on the USS Bradley while serving during the Viet Nam era.” .....Bud Sutton, Freelance Seascape Impressionist, Flowery Branch, GA.
The Johnson sisters is the riveting story of a close knit bunch struggling to keep the family legacy going in spite of their differences. Vivian, the oldest sister, has the house, the nice car, designer clothes and money, but no man to share her life with. After a previous abusive relationship, she’s struggling with her self-esteem. What will it take to convince her she’s worthy of love? Shauna is the funny, happy-go-lucky sister. Give her a drink and she’s content with the world—until one tragic event forces her to face her demons. The revelation of her secret threatens to damage her relationship with her sisters. Dawn feels like the black sheep of the family, and this feeling is reinforced when her sisters voice their opinion of her upcoming marriage. Will she be forced to choose between her family and her future husband? Serena is the only sister who has a child, but she’s also got plenty of drama in her life. Her child’s father already has another crazy baby mama, so he has no intention of marrying anyone. Serena believes love can conquer all, but will love be enough for her to endure this roller coaster relationship? Phoenix, the baby of the bunch, says she’s never getting married. Diva extraordinaire, Phoenix enjoys the life she has, until one of her men invades the sanctity of her home and finds a way to lawfully squat in her home. When secrets begin to spill and resentments from the past come flooding back, it’s a pressure cooker of drama that could leave these sisters divided, and possibly destroyed, in the end.
“This inventive retelling of Pride and Prejudice charms.”—People “A fun, page-turning romp and a thought-provoking look at the class-obsessed strata of Pakistani society.”—NPR Alys Binat has sworn never to marry—until an encounter with one Mr. Darsee at a wedding makes her reconsider. A scandal and vicious rumor concerning the Binat family have destroyed their fortune and prospects for desirable marriages, but Alys, the second and most practical of the five Binat daughters, has found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Knowing that many of her students won’t make it to graduation before dropping out to marry and have children, Alys teaches them about Jane Austen and her other literary heroes and hopes to inspire the girls to dream of more. When an invitation arrives to the biggest wedding their small town has seen in years, Mrs. Binat, certain that their luck is about to change, excitedly sets to work preparing her daughters to fish for rich, eligible bachelors. On the first night of the festivities, Alys’s lovely older sister, Jena, catches the eye of Fahad “Bungles” Bingla, the wildly successful—and single—entrepreneur. But Bungles’s friend Valentine Darsee is clearly unimpressed by the Binat family. Alys accidentally overhears his unflattering assessment of her and quickly dismisses him and his snobbish ways. As the days of lavish wedding parties unfold, the Binats wait breathlessly to see if Jena will land a proposal—and Alys begins to realize that Darsee’s brusque manner may be hiding a very different man from the one she saw at first glance. Told with wry wit and colorful prose, Unmarriageable is a charming update on Jane Austen’s beloved novel and an exhilarating exploration of love, marriage, class, and sisterhood. Praise for Unmarriageable “Delightful . . . Unmarriageable introduces readers to a rich Muslim culture. . . . [Kamal] observes family dramas with a satiric eye and treats readers to sparkling descriptions of a days-long wedding ceremony, with its high-fashion pageantry and higher social stakes.”—Star Tribune “Thoroughly charming.”—New York Post “[A] funny, sometimes romantic, often thought-provoking glimpse into Pakistani culture, one which adroitly illustrates the double standards women face when navigating sex, love, and marriage. This is a must-read for devout Austenites.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The love of family. The heartbreak of war. The triumph of coming home. 1940. Rural Wisconsin. Sixteen-year-old Earl “Earwig” Gunderman is not like other boys his age. Fiercely protected by his older brother, Earwig sees his town and the world around him through the prism of his own unique understanding. He sees his mother’s sadness and his father’s growing solitude. He sees his brother, Jimmy, falling in love with the most beautiful girl in town. And while Earwig is unable to make change for customers at his family’s store, he is singularly well suited to understand what other people in his town cannot: that life as they know it is about to change; the coming war will touch them all. For Jimmy will enlist in the military. And Earwig will watch his parents’ marriage buckle under the strain of a family secret. And when Jimmy returns–a fractured shadow of his former self–it is Earwig’s turn to care for him. His struggles to right the wrongs visited upon his revered older brother by war, women, and life are at once heartwarming and riotously funny. Their family and town irrevocably altered, Earwig and Jimmy fight to find their own places in a world changed forever.
