by Ilsa Evans
I stand on tiptoe to peer through the peephole in the front door and immediately a broad, contented smile spreads over my face. So I take a minute to compose myself by smoothing down my dress and taking a deep breath before opening the door. And there stands Alex, with a bottle of champagne in one hand and a bottle-green beanbag with a dinky mustard stripe grasped firmly in the other.
‘I’ve brought another birthday present over.’
‘Lovely! Shall we share it?’
‘I meant the beanbag.’
‘I know,’ I say as I shut the door behind him.
MORE BESTSELLING FICTION AVAILABLE FROM PAN MACMILLAN
Ilsa Evans
Spin Cycle
Ever had one of those weeks when you’ve been soaked, put through the ringer and hung out to dry?
On Monday morning, this twice-divorced mother of three was bemoaning her boring life that left her feeling deflated and unhappy. By the end of the week she wishes that was all she had to worry about.
In the space of seven days her life is picked up and spun around when she discovers her mother’s getting married again (for the fourth time), her older sister is pregnant again (for the fifth time), her younger sister lands the perfect boyfriend (who is very fanciable), her sister-in-law is running a brothel, her new next-door neighbour is going to be her ex-ex husband. Oh, and she’s been arrested, her best friend’s gone missing and the pets keep dying. All in the same week she sacks her therapist because she thinks she can work it all out for herself. But can she? And how can she work it all out if she doesn’t even know what it is she wants to work out?
‘Wildly entertaining’
WOMANS DAY
‘A hilarious novel’
THAT’S LIFE
Dianne Blacklock
Almost Perfect
Mac and Anna appear to have the perfect marriage, but their relationship is cracking under the strain of infertility. Anna cannot let go of the increasingly elusive dream of having a child, but Mac doesn’t know how much longer he can cope with her pain and disappointment.
Georgie and her sister-in-law Louise have made The Reading Rooms bookshop a successful business, but Georgie has not been so successful in her love life. Her brother Nick wonders if she’s waiting for the impossible – the perfect man.
And then Liam walks into The Reading Rooms and Georgie finds herself at a turning point. As do Mac and Anna, when finally the hurt and frustration sets Mac on a path that will have unforeseen consequences for them all.
Dianne Blacklock, author of Call Waiting and Wife for Hire, expertly crafts a novel of interweaving characters which asks that crucial relationship question: if there is no such thing as ‘perfect’ how do you know when to settle for Almost Perfect?
‘Full of genuine warmth and gentle humour’
CATHY KELLY on Call Waiting
‘Delves into the many issues confronting women today – wives, mothers and businesswomen alike’
MELBOURNE WEEKLY on Wife for Hire
Liz Byrski
Gang of Four
She had a husband, children and grandchildren who loved her, a beautiful home, enough money. What sort of person was she to feel so overwhelmed with gloom and resentment on Christmas morning?
They have been close friends for almost two decades, supporting each other through personal and professional crises – parents dying, children leaving home, house moves, job changes, political activism, diets and really bad haircuts.
Now the ‘gang of four’, Isabel, Sally, Robin and Grace, are all fifty-something, successful . . . and restless.
It is Isabel who makes the first move, taking a year away from her family to follow in her mother’s footsteps across Europe. Soon Sally is on her way to San Francisco, to come face to face with a guilty secret. Robin, in the wake of a clandestine relationship, heads for isolation in the country. And Grace? Well, Grace would never go away for an entire year, but, lonely in the others’ absence, she thinks she might take a short holiday in England. Once there, she bumps into someone she hardly knows – herself.
Gang of Four is a story of four very different journeys and a celebration of women in the prime of life.
‘Finally. A coming of age novel for the rest of us’
Susan Maushart, author of The Mask of Motherhood
‘Every woman needs her gang of four’
MARY MOODY
