Other Women

Don't miss the stunning new novel from Cathy Kelly about sisterhood, love & friendship - The Wedding Party is available to pre-order now! 'A burst of warmth and wit, twists and turns' MARIAN KEYES 'This is Cathy Kelly on top form writing about warm, believable women with real, messy lives' RACHEL HORE 'Other Women captures the stories of three modern women... A real feel-good read' HEAT 'The brilliant storyteller is back with another perfectly concocted tale' OK! --- Three women. Three secrets. Three tangled lives... Sid wears her independence like armour. So when she strikes up a rare connection with unlucky-in-love Finn, they are both determined to prove that men and women can just be friends. Can't they? Marin has the perfect home, attentive husband, two beloved children - and a secret addiction to designer clothes. She knows she has it all, so why can't she stop comparing herself to other women? Bea believes that we all have one love story - and she's had hers. Now her life centres around her son, Luke, and her support group of fierce single women. But there's something that she can't tell anyone... With her inimitable warmth and wisdom, Cathy Kelly shows us that in the messy reality of marriage, family, and romance, sometimes it's the women in our lives who hold us together. --------------------------- Praise for Cathy Kelly's irresistibly comforting storytelling: 'Honest, funny, clever, it sparkles with witty, wry observations on modern life. I loved it' - Marian Keyes 'This book is full of joy - and I devoured every page of it gladly' - Milly Johnson 'Filled with nuggets of wisdom, compassion and humour, Cathy Kelly proves, yet again, that she knows everything there is to know about women' - Patricia Scanlan 'Packed with Cathy's usual magical warmth' - Sheila O'Flanagan 'Comforting and feel-good, the perfect treat read' - Good Housekeeping 'With nuanced and believable characters, each grappling with complex, messy lives, the drama explodes from the first two pages of Other Women and doesn't let up until the final chapter' - Carmel Harrington

Ever since the death of her husband Theo, Jane Fielding has tried to keep Rawlston House for herself and her children, despite the money problems she inherited. Selling off bits of the property has helped: there are new people next door, and in the lodge on the lane. But just when it seems her head is finally above water, Jane is beset with new anxieties. Sam Clarke has groomed her home with the same style and polish she applies to herself. She adores her husband, Ben, and the life he gives her, but struggles with being a stepmother to his daughter. Marooned in the countryside, far from her family and friends, she soon becomes aware that Ben's life is more of a mystery to her than she realised¿ It was never Bella Balfour's dream to live in the country and when her husband Iain insists they move to a tiny hamlet, miles from anywhere, it's a shock after her busy London life. The cracks in her marriage are turning into unbridgeable chasms, and Bella is hungry to find the passion for life she feels she has lost. Each woman is drawn inexorably into the lives of the others, whether she likes it or not¿

Fiona, an accomplished young artist, falls in love with Raymond. An older married man. Their haunted relationship evolves in a floating melange of restaurants and hotel rooms against the looming backdrop of their separate, anonymous cities. Although erotically charged, the affair is never consummated - yet the love Fiona feels intensifies into an obsession that continues to possess her long after Raymond leaves her. Along the way, at receptions and restaurant tables, at dinner parties and on trips, Fiona meets other men and women in relationships that are coming together or falling apart-friendships, marriages, love affairs - each offering their own version of love's nature. And, throughout, Raymond's wife Helen holds a central place. For Fiona, Helen herself is "the other woman" - mysterious, enviable and untouchable.

After dropping out of college, a young woman wanders through New York both invisible and vulnerable, studying the city's strong magic and longing for a man she knows will never love her back. She thinks she finds salvation when Charlotte Herzfeld, the young wife of a successful businessman, hires her as a live-in nanny to accompany the family on their trip to Berlin. As the Herzfelds begin to crack under the weight of their secrets, she finds herself in a more precarious position than ever before.

Many women have false beliefs about who we are and what we must do to succeed. If you pit yourself against other women because of this, you’re holding yourself back. It’s time for a change. Women are ready to stop the vicious cycle of criticizing, judging, gossiping, and comparing themselves. We want to feel good in our own skin and know we’re enough, just as we are. This book is an evidence-based, actionable guide to creating a better life for yourself and a better world with more opportunity for women and girls. Strong Women Lift Each Other Up is perfect for any woman or girl who has ever: struggled with jealousy or comparing your life or body to other women. wanted to support or believe in women, but felt like they’re catty or tearing you down. felt like you’re competing with other women for opportunities that are scarce, or felt like you were made for more than the life you’re living now. Strong Women Lift Each Other Up will help you radiate confidence from the inside out, chase your dreams without worrying what others think, lift other women up, and live a life filled with a purposeful meaning. You’ll walk in a room feeling like you don’t have to compare yourself to other women. You’ll know exactly who you are and be damn proud of it!

The Other Women’s Lib provides the first systematic analysis of Japanese literary feminist discourse of the 1960s—a full decade before the "women’s lib" movement emerged in Japan. It highlights the work of three well-known female fiction writers of this generation (Kono Taeko, Takahashi Takako, and Kurahashi Yumiko) for their avant-garde literary challenges to dominant models of femininity. Focusing on four tropes persistently employed by these writers to protest oppressive gender stereotypes—the disciplinary masculine gaze, feminist misogyny, "odd bodies," and female homoeroticism—Julia Bullock brings to the fore their previously unrecognized theoretical contributions to second-wave radical feminist discourse. In all of these narrative strategies, the female body is viewed as both the object and instrument of engendering. Severing the discursive connection between bodily sex and gender is thus a primary objective of the narratives and a necessary first step toward a less restrictive vision of female subjectivity in modern Japan. The Other Women’s Lib further demonstrates that this "gender trouble" was historically embedded in the socioeconomic circumstances of the high-growth economy of the 1960s, when prosperity was underwritten by an increasingly conservative gendered division of labor that sought to confine women within feminine roles. Raised during the war to be "good wives and wise mothers" yet young enough to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them by Occupation-era reforms, the authors who fueled the 1960s boom in women’s literary publication staunchly resisted normative constructions of gender, crafting narratives that exposed or subverted hegemonic discourses of femininity that relegated women to the negative pole of a binary opposition to men. Their fictional heroines are unapologetically bad wives and even worse mothers; they are often wanton, excessive, or selfish and brazenly cynical with regard to traditional love, marriage, and motherhood. The Other Women’s Lib affords a cogent and incisive analysis of these texts as feminist philosophy in fictional form, arguing persuasively for the inclusion of such literary feminist discourse in the broader history of Japanese feminist theoretical development. It will be accessible to undergraduate audiences and deeply stimulating to scholars and others interested in gender and culture in postwar Japan, Japanese women writers, or Japanese feminism.

A fresh cultural analysis of female monsters from Greek mythology, and an invitation for all women to reclaim these stories as inspiration for a more wild, more “monstrous” version of feminism The folklore that has shaped our dominant culture teems with frightening female creatures. In our language, in our stories (many written by men), we underline the idea that women who step out of bounds—who are angry or greedy or ambitious, who are overtly sexual or not sexy enough—aren’t just outside the norm. They’re unnatural. Monstrous. But maybe, the traits we’ve been told make us dangerous and undesirable are actually our greatest strengths. Through fresh analysis of 11 female monsters, including Medusa, the Harpies, the Furies, and the Sphinx, Jess Zimmerman takes us on an illuminating feminist journey through mythology. She guides women (and others) to reexamine their relationships with traits like hunger, anger, ugliness, and ambition, teaching readers to embrace a new image of the female hero: one that looks a lot like a monster, with the agency and power to match. Often, women try to avoid the feeling of monstrousness, of being grotesquely alien, by tamping down those qualities that we’re told fall outside the bounds of natural femininity. But monsters also get to do what other female characters—damsels, love interests, and even most heroines—do not. Monsters get to be complete, unrestrained, and larger than life. Today, women are becoming increasingly aware of the ways rules and socially constructed expectations have diminished us. After seeing where compliance gets us—harassed, shut out, and ruled by predators—women have never been more ready to become repellent, fearsome, and ravenous.

The author of A Peacock in the Land of Penguins shares an inspiring collection of stories, anecdotes and insights by incredible women of all walks of life. The world is full of inspiring women. Some overcome the seemingly impossible. Some follow their dreams into uncharted territory. Some rise to incredible heights of achievement. And some act as mentors to other women, helping them find spiritual fulfillment, creative expression, and personal satisfaction in life. Inspirational lecturer and author B.J. Gallagher has encountered many such women in her life and work—from clients and coworkers to shopkeepers, neighbors, relatives and others. In Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Other Women, she shares their wisdom through short stories, personal anecdotes, inspirational quotes, remembrances, and even comedic one-liners. In this inspiring volume, B.J. helps reveal truths about the topics most women care about: friendship, love, sex, motherhood, food, body image, and happiness and fulfillment.