Good Girls Do Swallow

This book is the sometimes shocking, often blackly funny story of her rollercoaster ride through anorexia, bulimia, bulimarexia, gym-obsession and, finally, recovery. Between the ages of 17 and 30, Rachael Oakes-Ash lost 60kg (10 stone) and gained 72kg (12 stone). As the title indicates, it's a book packed with attitude. Rachael may be an extreme case, but almost every woman out there understands her obsession with food, her bad body image and the amount of wasted energy she put into both. Three-quarters of the women in Australia think they are too fat. Most of them are wrong. More than 95% of Australian women have dieted at some point, even though they probably know that dieting doesn't work as a way of losing weight and that it can have the exact opposite effect. This book is for all of those women. Unlike previous books on anorexia, bulimia, food obsession and bad body image, this is a very accessible story. Rachael doesn't spare herself - readers will learn why she dusted cigarette ash off food scraps in the bin and ate them, why she stole food from the retirement-home dwellers she was supposed to be visiting, and how a smart bulimic plans their operations. But the humour in the way she tells her story means that this is not a guilt-inducing 'heavy' read. It's stark and it's black but it is often very funny.

For fans of Karen McManus' One of Us is Lying and films like I Know What You Did Last Summer, comes a gripping thriller about murder, mystery, and deception. Blackmail lures Ava to the abandoned amusement park on Portgrave Pier. She is one of ten teenagers, all with secrets they intend to protect whatever the cost. When fog and magic swallow the pier, the group find themselves cut off from the real world. As the teenagers turn on each other, Ava will have to face up to the secret that brought her to the pier and decide how far she's willing to go to survive. The teenagers have only their secrets to protect and each other to betray. Perfect for: 13-18 year-old mystery fans Fans of Karen McManus and Stephen King

... A graphic yet poetic insight into the pain and suffering experienced by sufferers of eating disorders.

A classic ghost story with twists and turns: a spooky house, a malevolent spirit and two plucky heroines. In 1960s Toronto, two girls retreat to their attics to escape the loneliness and isolation of their lives. Polly lives in a house bursting at the seams with people, while Rose is often left alone by her busy parents. Polly is a down-to-earth dreamer with a wild imagination and an obsession with ghosts; Rose is a quiet, ethereal waif with a sharp tongue. Despite their differences, both girls spend their days feeling invisible and seek solace in books and the cozy confines of their respective attics. But soon they discover they aren't alone--they're actually neighbors, sharing a wall. They develop an unlikely friendship, and Polly is ecstatic to learn that Rose can actually see and talk to ghosts. Maybe she will finally see one too! But is there more to Rose than it seems? Why does no one ever talk to her? And why does she look so ... ghostly? When the girls find a tombstone with Rose's name on it in the cemetery and encounter an angry spirit in her house who seems intent on hurting Polly, they have to unravel the mystery of Rose and her strange family... before it's too late.

The daughter of a prominent Chicago judge and his socialite wife, inner-city art teacher Mia Dennett is taken hostage by her one-night stand, Colin Thatcher, who, instead of delivering her to his employers, hides her in a secluded cabin in rural Minnesota to keep her safe from harm.

Gabi’s a girl in pieces. She wants a lot of things. Will she find the thing she needs most?

In this YA contemporary queer romance from the author of Hot Dog Girl, an openly gay track star falls for a closeted, bisexual teen beauty queen with a penchant for fixing up old cars. “Earnest, wistful, romantic, and real.” —Casey McQuiston, New York Times bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue Morgan, an elite track athlete, is forced to transfer high schools late in her senior year after it turns out being queer is against her private Catholic school's code of conduct. There, she meets Ruby, who has two hobbies: tinkering with her baby blue 1970 Ford Torino and competing in local beauty pageants, the latter to live out the dreams of her overbearing mother. The two are drawn to each other and can't deny their growing feelings. But while Morgan--out and proud, and determined to have a fresh start--doesn't want to have to keep their budding relationship a secret, Ruby isn't ready to come out yet. With each girl on a different path toward living her truth, can they go the distance together? “Beautiful, necessary, and completely irresistible.” —Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

When Laura Flynn was a little girl, her beautiful, dynamic mother, Sally, was the center of her imagination. It wasn't long, however, before Sally's fun-loving side slowly and methodically became absorbed by madness. As Laura's parents divorced and her father struggled to gain custody, Sally's symptoms bloomed in earnest while Laura and her sisters united in flights of fancy of the sort their mother taught them so that they might deflect the danger threatening their fragile family. Set in 1970s San Francisco, Swallow the Ocean is redolent with place. In luminous prose, this memoir paints a most intimate portrait of what might have been a catastrophic childhood had Laura and her sisters not been resilient and determined enough to survive their environment even as they yearned to escape it.