A Second Hand Husband

‘Such a lovely, funny read. Smart, witty and full of heart.’ Ruth Jones Natalie and Carl are newlyweds, but the honeymoon period is over already. Carl has just announced he has bought their first home at auction without telling Natalie where it is, never mind showing her a picture of it. Natalie is horrified to discover that the dream home is in Little Wyford, mere minutes away from Carl’s ex-wife Antonia. And to make matters worse, Antonia’s palatial country mansion has a fully-functioning roof (and a heated swimming pool!), unlike the ramshackle cottage Carl has bought for them... Antonia is Little Wyford’s Queen Bee, mistress of the book club, organiser of the Christmas Fair and leader of the ladies-who-lunch. No matter how hard she tries, Natalie just doesn’t fit in, and when Antonia insists on referring to Carl as ‘Our Husband’, Natalie’s dreams of happily-ever-after take another nose dive. Second-hand furniture has much to recommend it, especially when doing up a country cottage, second-hand clothes can be ever-so chic, but second-hand husbands are proving to be a very bad idea indeed... Can Natalie ever escape the label of Wife Number Two or is she destined to share her husband forever? Hilariously funny, wickedly witty, but with a heart of gold and a warmth and wisdom that are all its own, A Second-Hand Husband is Claire Calman’s tour de force. 'So engrossing, you’ll read until four in the morning!' Jilly Cooper 'With her trademark warmth and wit, Calman unpacks the secrets everyone is keeping' Wendy Holden Praise for Claire Calman: 'Don’t take this hilarious, touching and very clever novel to bed if you’ve got to rise very early the next day, because it is so engrossing, you’ll read until four in the morning. Claire Calman’s plot twists and turns with endless surprises...' Jilly Cooper 'I really, really enjoyed it – I devoured it over four nights. Such a lovely, funny read. Smart, witty and full of heart. The characters were so well defined – I felt I knew them intimately. And the cottage and the pond and village – all the locations in fact were so beautifully depicted, I was completely transported there! But also the dialogue was a joy and such great humour - I laughed out loud on many occasions.' Ruth Jones 'A beautifully observed tale of new love and blending families, with a heroine I was rooting for from the very first page.' Shari Low on A Second-Hand Husband 'A beautiful book, so compassionate... and ultimately very hopeful. I enjoyed it hugely.’ Marian Keyes ‘A clever, bittersweet, uplifting novel’ Sophie Kinsella 'Writing with proper heart' Rachel Joyce 'The characterisation is brilliant, and the astute storytelling, punctuated by stiletto-sharp wit, produces an effervescent and spirit-lifting story.' Sunday Mirror 'A poignant and beautifully articulated tale of love and loss, memory and forgetting, grief and guilt, new love and letting go. I was engrossed, often tearful, and finally, uplifted.’ Isobel Wolff ‘Simply wonderful. I was totally enchanted, devoured it in a day, and have been raving about it ever since.’ Fiona Walker

Sara had been in love with her colleague Ian for the past ten years…until the day he introduced her to his new fianc?e. Heartbroken, Sara ran away, back to her hometown, only to discover that her parents are no longer there. Instead she finds a rugged young man, covered in dirt, named Stuart. He’s recently moved in down the street, and to Sara’s surprise, he treats her like a princess, taking care of her in her time of distress. She falls instantly in love with this tall, muscular, kind stranger, but can he heal the years of loneliness and heartbreak she carries deep inside?

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie. Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?

Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich invents a new genre of narrative non-fiction as she writes the life stories of housewives, artists, party workers, students, soldiers, traders, living through a time of political upheaval -- the fall of the Soviet Union and the two decades that followed it.

A tender and heartwarming novel that explores the trials of losing what matters most—and how there’s always more than we can imagine left to find—from the New York Times bestselling author of How to Walk Away and Things You Save in a Fire Now a major motion picture starring Leslie Bibb and Josh Duhamel • “A sweet tale about creating the family you need.”—People Dear Libby, It occurs to me that you and your two children have been living with your mother for—Dear Lord!—two whole years, and I’m writing to see if you'd like to be rescued. The letter comes out of the blue, and just in time for Libby Moran, who—after the sudden death of her husband, Danny—went to stay with her hypercritical mother. Now her crazy Aunt Jean has offered Libby an escape: a job and a place to live on her farm in the Texas Hill Country. Before she can talk herself out of it, Libby is packing the minivan, grabbing the kids, and hitting the road. Life on Aunt Jean’s goat farm is both more wonderful and more mysterious than Libby could have imagined. Beyond the animals and the strenuous work, there is quiet—deep, country quiet. But there is also a shaggy, gruff (though purportedly handsome, under all that hair) farm manager with a tragic home life, a formerly famous feed-store clerk who claims she can contact Danny “on the other side,” and the eccentric aunt Libby never really knew but who turns out to be exactly what she’s been looking for. And despite everything she’s lost, Libby soon realizes how much more she’s found. She hasn’t just traded one kind of crazy for another: She may actually have found the place to bring her little family—and herself—back to life.