And They Lived Happily Ever Before

Fans of Payback’s a Witch and The Ex Hex won’t want to miss this charming and humorous novel featuring a South African writer facing her past and literally living her dreams—and conjuring a real-life hero. A Goodreads Most Hotly Anticipated Romance A USA Today Best RomCom of 2021 “An ambitious story of magic, romance, and healing from past trauma…Anxious Gaia’s difficult background and social awkwardness will endear her to many readers.” —Publishers Weekly “A sweet reminder of the connections between love and magic.” —Kirkus Reviews One unexpected kiss . . . Successful romance author Gaia Anders has a secret: anything she dreams at night is magically written into her bestselling novels. After a lonely childhood in foster care, her dream life is the only one she trusts. Gaia’s waking life just can’t compare—until she gets caught in one utterly surprising, crazy-passionate, real-life kiss . . . One near-perfect guy . . . Workaholic businessman Jacob Scott has had a crush on his brother’s best friend, Gaia, since forever—but he never expected to literally share her dreams. Living out their magical nighttime fantasies is explosive, but it’s their waking desire turning his single-minded ways upside down. It’s making him want a future he didn’t think was possible . . . One dream that could come true . . . But Gaia has secrets from her past she won't reveal. And Jacob's attempts to keep the peace in his own fractured family puts him up against her deepest fears. Soon, they’re facing hard truths about who they are and what they’re running from. And the only way to break this curse is realizing true love's real-life power . . .

Takes a comparative perspective on family life and childhood in the past half century in Russia and Eastern Europe, highlighting similarities and differences. Focuses on the problematic domains of the institutions and laws devised to cope with family difficulties, and discusses the social strains created by the transition from communist to post-communist national systems. In addition to the substantial historic analysis, actual challenges are also discussed. The essays examine the changing gender roles, alterations in legal systems, the burdens faced by married and unmarried women who are mothers, the contrasts between government rhteoric and the implementation of policies toward marriage, children and parenthood. By addressing the specifics of welfare politics under the Communist rule and the directions of their transformation in 1990–2000s, this book contributes to the understanding of social institutions and family policies in these countries and the problems of dealing with the socialist past that this region face.

This book is about the apparent incompatibility of romantic love and conventional marriage. They go together (the popular song has it) like a horse and carriage. But if the horse is ailing or otherwise not up to the task, the carriage will slowly rot away in the carriage house. It is also about the perverse fact that people bring to such relationships their expectations from the past as they remember them. Typically, they had hopes and dreams for their future together. When these are dashed, it occurs to them that they were better off before they got hitched. It is also about the fact that when love befalls us, we lose our bearings. Love is blind, and all that. We drift into the conventional fairy tale about living happily ever after. Thats to be desired. But the fairy tale ends with that line. It never tells us what we need to do or be in order to live happily ever after. Under the spell of the fairy tale, which is basic fare in various forms in our culture, we set off happily enough. But how is it possible to maintain the delusion of the love state in the banality of the everyday life that inevitably ensues? Who told us that making a living or keeping a house in order is a far different world than a wedding? Who told us that babies rule the house, unless they are tended by someone else? Copulate we apparently must. But that has consequences that are not a part of the fairy tale. So people end up on the other side of the mirror. The world is not about lovers, the realization creeps upon us. It is about 40,000 other things. And those have to be dealt with most often before anything else. Thus the title, And They Lived Happily Ever Before. Imagination and reality are often two very different things. This book answers the question, What Does Love Have to Do with It? The answers may surprise you. But they will make love affairs that end in marriage far better than you might even imagine they could be.

Separate spaces may be an option for renewing relationships when marriages struggle or divorce is contemplated.

No more kissing frogs! This is not a book about how to find a husband. This is not a book about whether or not to kiss dating goodbye. This is a book about living in grace and fulfillment as a single woman--written by a single woman. In these pages, Skip McDonald offers encouraging stories and practical help on building a satisfying career establishing a secure home finding your place in the church deciding whether or not to date drawing strength from God enjoying rich and meaningful relationships Packed with her own experiences and insights, as well as the wisdom of numerous other single women McDonald interviewed, And She Lived Happily Ever After will help you find your way to a vibrant and happy life.

Fairy tales for our times from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours A poisoned apple and a monkey's paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan's wing; and a house deep in the forest, constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread, vanilla frosting and boiled sugar. In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away—the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder—are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation. Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse. The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans. Reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.

The bestselling authors of Urban Jungle delve into the many ways that nurturing plants helps nurture the soul This new book by the authors of the bestselling Urban Jungle addresses the life-changing magic of living with and caring for plants. Aimed at a wider audience than typical houseplant books, each chapter combines easily digestible plant knowledge, style guidance via real home interiors, and inspiring advice for using plants to increase energy, creativity, and well-being and to attract love and prosperity. Also included: real-world @urbanjungleblog followers’ FAQs; a section on plants and pets; and plant care for the different stages of a houseplant’s life. The focus is on using plants to raise the positive energy of every room in the house and to live happily ever after with plants.

Some papers were presented at the conference "Family, Marriage and Parenthood in Eastern Europe, Russia and Sweden" held September 2008 in Sweden.