Wife In The North

When Judith O'Reilly, a successful journalist and mother of three, agreed to leave London for a remote northern outpost, she made a deal with her husband that the move was a test-run to weigh the benefits of country living. In the rugged landscape of Northumberland County, O'Reilly swapped her high heels for rubber boots and life-long friends for cows, sheep, and strange neighbors. In this tremendously funny and acutely observed memoir, O'Reilly must navigate the challenges and rewards of motherhood, marriage, and family as she searches for her own true north in an alien landscape. Her intrepid foray into the unknown is at once a hilarious, fish-out-of-water story and a poignant reflection on the modern woman's dilemma of striking the right balance between career and family.

Judith O'Reilly, author of the hugely popular blog and book Wife in the North embarks on a year long social experiment in the witty A Year of Doing Good. Fed up of New Year's resolutions involving diets and exercise abandoned on January 2nd, Judith is attempting to be good. For one whole year. She embarked on a mission to do one good deed every day. Some called it a social experiment. At times she called it madness. Juggling family, friends and a variety of neighbours in the small Northumberland village she calls home, she recounts the ups, downs, moments of doubt and sheer bloody hard work of doing good. From the small - babysitting a friend's child, clearing up her neighbour's dead mice and feeding her friendship cake Herman the German, to the slightly larger - trying to raise £10,000 for charity with her Jam Jar Army and teaching a severely handicapped child to write - she describes what she learns along the way: that no good deed is too small and that being good makes you happy. Well, most of the time. 'A funny, uplifting and admirable book' Observer 'Banish January blues with A Year of Doing Good by Judith O'Reilly who resolved to do one good turn day. . . utterly uplifting' Woman & Home 'Fizzing with energy Judith's writing is open-hearted and funny. . . though not a guide to doing good, Judith's story may inspire you to do a little more for others this year' Express 'Glorious sincerity. . .the admiring accounts of others' lives, the detailing of the deeds gladly done or furiously resented, the unending chaos of family life - all are rendered honestly, colourfully and occasionally hilariously' Lucy Mangan, Sunday Times A Year of Doing Good inspires the reader with the day-to-day journey of meaning, gratification and joy that comes from contributing to the lives of others in so many creative ways. For those who want to put "do unto others" in the centre of their lives and reap the unexpected benefits of happiness and health, this is the book for you. Elegantly written, the words jump off the page' Stephen G. Post, PhD, author of The Hidden Gifts of Helping Judith O'Reilly is a writer and journalist. Her first book Wife in the North was based on her blog of the same name and was a bestseller. Her second book, a novel, is living in a drawer. Her third book is this one. She is married with three children, and for one year she tried to be good.

A stunning historical romance from debut author Sandra Lake transports readers to 12th century Sweden, where a powerful Viking lord will discover a fierce heart cannot be taken by mere force. Lida was married to the love of her life for just two months when she became a widow. Pregnant and disowned by her late husband’s family for suspected infidelity, she was forced to return to her family in shame. Eight years later, uninterested in the prospect of finding another husband, she finds herself the unwilling object of a marriage contract with a powerful warlord. In a day, she is wed, bed, and put on a ship headed for Tronscar; an unknown icy stone and steel fortress. Jarl Magnus is pleased to have taken a strong wife who, however stubborn she may be, will surely produce sons. However, he is less pleased with his wife’s additional baggage—a young daughter. But despite himself, Magnus falls for the daughter just as hard as the mother, and Lida’s heart is warmed to see the cold, serious Jarl move surprisingly fast into the role of stepfather. When enemies attack Tronscar, Jarl Magnus’s nerves of steel waver, as the warrior fears his love for Lida will weaken him. But when his family is threatened, he’ll go to war to protect them, discovering along the way that they have the strength to protect themselves. “With compelling characters and a clever plot, The Warlord’s Wife will appeal to readers obsessed with TV’s Vikings, and who miss the classic Viking romances of Catherine Coulter or Johanna Lindsey.”—Heroes and Heartbreakers “Lake’s debut historical romance is sure to appeal to those who enjoy spirited heroines, grumpy alpha heroes, and a slow sweet journey to everlasting love.”—Smexy Books “Man, this was a fun book! … I cut my teeth on Johanna Lindsey, and this book reminded me so much of those experiences.”—Dear Author Sandra Lake lives with her husband and son in Quebec, Canada. The Warlord’s Wife is her debut novel.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the whaling industry in New England sent hundreds of ships and thousands of men to distant seas on voyages lasting up to five years. In Captain Ahab Had a Wife, Lisa Norling taps a rich vein of sources--including women's and men's letters and diaries, shipowners' records, Quaker meeting minutes and other church records, newspapers and magazines, censuses, and city directories--to reconstruct the lives of the "Cape Horn widows" left behind onshore. Norling begins with the emergence of colonial whalefishery on the island of Nantucket and then follows the industry to mainland New Bedford in the nineteenth century, tracking the parallel shift from a patriarchal world to a more ambiguous Victorian culture of domesticity. Through the sea-wives' compelling and often poignant stories, Norling exposes the painful discrepancies between gender ideals and the reality of maritime life and documents the power of gender to shape both economic development and individual experience.

A true story--as powerful as "Schindler's List"--in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.

After twenty years of marriage, Rami discovers that her husband has been living a double--or rather, a quintuple--life. Tony, a senior police officer in Maputo, has apparently been supporting four other families for many years. Rami remains calm in the face of her husband's duplicity and plots to make an honest man out of him. After Tony is forced to marry the four other women--as well as an additional lover--according to polygamist custom, the rival lovers join together to declare their voices and demand their rights. In this brilliantly funny and feverishly scathing critique, a major work from Mozambique's first published female novelist, Paulina Chiziane explores her country's traditional culture, its values and hypocrisy, and the subjection of women the world over.

Patriarch's Wife: Literary Evidence and the History of the Family

She faced years of abuse after arriving in Canada as a teenage bride in a hastily arranged marriage, but nothing could stop Samra Zafar from pursuing her dreams At 15, Samra Zafar had big dreams for herself. She was going to go to university, and forge her own path. Then with almost no warning, those dreams were pulled away from her when she was suddenly married to a stranger at 17 and had to leave behind her family in Pakistan to move to Canada. Her new husband and his family promised that the marriage and the move would be a fulfillment of her dream, not a betrayal of it. But as the walls of their home slowly became a prison, Samra realized the promises were empty ones. In the years that followed she suffered her husband’s emotional and physical abuse that left her feeling isolated, humiliated and assaulted. Desperate to get out, and refusing to give up, she hatched an escape plan for herself and her two daughters. Somehow she found the strength to not only build a new future, but to walk away from her past, ignoring the pleas of her family and risking cultural isolation by divorcing her husband. But that end was only the beginning for Samra. Through her academic and career achievements, she has gone on to become a mentor and public speaker, connecting with people around the world from isolated women in situations similar to her own, to young schoolgirls in Kenya who never allowed themselves to dream to men making the decisions to save for their daughters’ educations instead of their dowries. A Good Wife tell her harrowing and inspiring story, following her from a young girl with big dreams, through finding strength in the face of oppression and then finally battling through to empowerment.