The compulsively readable (Susie Essman, actress, "Curb Your Enthusiasm") author of "Best Supporting Role" delivers a new novel of one woman who s stretched so thin, she almost disappears... Knocking on sixty, Barbara Stirling is too busy to find herself, while caring for her mother, husband, children, and grandchildren. But when she loses her job, everything changes. Exhausted, lonely, and unemployed, Barbara is forced to face her feelings and doubts. Then a troubled, vulnerable little boy walks into her life and changes it forever."

"When her gambling addict husband died, Sarah Green was left penniless--and with two children to raise. Since then, she's been desperate to keep her professional and personal lives on firm financial footing. And what could be safer than dating an accountant and working at a non-emergency crime help line? But then Sarah's aunt dies, leaving Sarah her once famous--now flailing--lingerie shop. With her fashion background, Sarah reluctantly decides to make a go of it, even if that means breaking up with her too-prudent boyfriend over the risk. Suddenly Sarah finds herself falling for Hugh, the handsome struggling actor she hired to renovate her new boutique, and entering a prestigious lingerie competition. Taking chances has never been her forte, but the built-in support of family and friends could give her the boost she's been looking for..."--

"The Splendor of Portugal's four narrators are members of a once well-to-do family whose plantation was lost in the Angolan War of Independence; the matriarch of this unhappiest of clans and her three adult children speak in a nightmarish, obsessive gush to give us the details of their grotesque family life and its consequences. Like a character out of Faulkner's decayed south, the mother clings to the hope that her children will come back, save her from destitution, and restore the family's imagined former glory. The children, for their part, haven't seen each other in years, and in their isolation are tormented by feverish memories of Angola. The vitriol and self-hatred of the characters know no bounds, for they are at once victims and culprits, guilty of atrocities committed in the name of colonialism as well as innumerable humiliations and betrayals of their own kin."--Page 4 of cover.

Asked to tightrope walk for the queen's birthday party, Muriel arrives to discover that all the decorative paper lanterns have disappeared and that her detecting skills are needed too.

From Scout Media comes A Matter of Words--the first volume in an ongoing short story anthology series featuring authors from all over the world. In this first installation, no limits were set on genre, allowing the authors to lead the reader to destinations unknown. From the outer limits of the galaxy to the darkest depths of the ocean, A Matter of Words conquers the struggles of everyday life before revealing the dramatic loss of innocence and disturbing the reader with things that go bump in the night. Whether to be enlightened, entertained, or momentarily caught up in another world, these selections convey the true spirit of the short story. Our list of contributors include Steven Hartov: NY Times best-selling author and military journalist Randy Blazak: expert hate-crime sociologist correspondent and novelist Chuck Mosley: musician and original Faith No More vocalist Brian Paone: musician and critically acclaimed novelist Kim Loraine: award winning romance novelist Douglas Esper: musician, children's book author, and novelist Jacob Prytherch: author of the #1 ranked cyberpunk novel on Amazon UK Michelle Jillian Bailey Faith Cooper Stephanie Rogish Dan Golden Travis West Leah Lederman Stephen Rhodes A. Lee Ajang Alfred Balcon Cynthia Paone Alex Lonchiadis Lee Diogeneia Richard Lopez Salgado S.M.

When Flora Elhayani is twelve years old, God appears to her through the television and suddenly, after being mute for two months, she can speak again. Flora changes her name to Ori, and acquires a new, fantastical vantage point of her life in the desert town of Netivot. Trying to decipher what the revelation holds for her, Ori comes across a rare series of young adult novels about a strange wonderland whose heroine plays special part in Ori's own coming of age. Twenty years later, we meet Ori again. She now lives in Tel Aviv, where she is married to a successful man and the mother of a little girl. She has become a writer for young adults, focusing her work on various Wonderland themes. Life is good until a second revelation, very different from the first, rattles the very foundations of her life and puts all in doubt. Sunburnt Faces examines the nature of revelation in a world in which the fantastical takes place only in situations of error and misunderstanding. But will the social and political nature of this world allow Ori to find the certainty without which she cannot live?

"Granny Yaga follows the switchback adventures of a boy called Danny, growing up in North London where the local she-dragons are notorious fighters, and any alert passer-by can spot Granny herself flying low over the British Museum. Danny becomes Granny's aide-de-camp in a life-or-death duel with the demon Koschei, fought out in the London underground, in disused stations, boarded-up houses and the enchanted skies over Crouch End, with back-up from the relatively orthodox magic of Yesterdayland (huts on chicken legs, talking cats, self-catering tablecloths) and the realpolitik of its neighbouring Soviet satellite, a land of cruel edicts and capricious tsars where the workers and permanently drunk, and the loo seats belonging to each family in a communal flat hang side by side on the wall 'like luckless horseshoes'. A gripping read for all ages, from Danny's to Granny's." Hilary Spurling"Delightfully inventive. Wickedly funny." Marina Lewycka, author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian