Funny, passionate, outrageous and honest, this is a memoir about travel, house renovations, food, music, men and change. ‘I’ve escaped more houses than I’ve said Hail Marys.’ Peta Mathias has been making major moves since leaving home to train as a nurse, before living in Canada, London and later France, where she set up her own restaurant. Although she returned to New Zealand, writing food books and making television series, she continued to yoyo back to Europe and started culinary tours to Spain, Italy, Morocco, India, Vietnam, and the recurring attraction: France. In this ‘memoir of sorts’, Peta looks back at the patterns of her life while she embarks on the next big stage in it: selling her beloved cottage in Auckland to buy a dilapidated old house in Uzès in the south of France and transforming the old wreck into a stylish home and cooking school. This new domesticity is set against her nomadic instincts and past history of running away from all conventional expectations of settling down. Spiced with recipes, the thrills and tribulations of reinventing yourself and her trademark humour, this book is really about never putting all your eggs in one bastard.

Abandoned by her husband and facing foreclosure on her home, Alison Waxman Koff takes a job as a maid for malicious celebrity biographer Melanie Moloney, only to find herself the prime suspect in her employer's murder.

After a market crash, a rich suburbanite turns to cleaning houses—and solving murders—in a “sexy and humorous” romp by a New York Times–bestselling author (Library Journal). What’s a woman to do when her husband loses everything in the stock market . . . then ditches her for his first wife? For Alison Waxman Koff, who up until now has been living the good life in her Connecticut McMansion, the answer is to sell her furs and starts doing her own nails. But that isn’t enough to stave off foreclosure, so she falls back on her one marketable skill: housecleaning . . . Secretly becoming a maid-for-hire, she piles her Windex, Fantastik, and vacuum into her Porsche and finds her first client: a sleazy celebrity biographer. But after her only customer is killed, Alison’s run of bad luck gets even worse as she becomes a suspect herself . . . “What’s so great about Heller’s writing is her wit.” —The Plain Dealer “Will be enjoyed by fans of Susan Isaacs’s After All These Years and Judith Viorst’s Murdering Mr. Monti.” —Library Journal “A bright, lively comedy that zips right along.” —Booklist

In a world of hate, let’s serve up some love . . . Peta Mathias has encountered many a lovelorn tale on her gastronomic travels around the world. Searching further, she has unearthed more stories — the heart-warming and heart-rending, the passionate and poignant, the macabre and merry — and in these retellings brings them all to life. With her characteristic wit and colour, she also dishes up many of the ingredients of love: * intriguing courtship rituals, such as bundling and the apple slice dance; * poetry penned by those with their own stories to tell; * and, of course, romantic recipes, purported aphrodisiacs and alluring delicacies. Entertaining, hilarious and informative, this book is a smorgasbord of love.

‘The point of this book is to explore my ideas for sartorial satisfaction, to tell the stories associated with my love of clothes and fashion, and to share the message of accidental sustainability.’ When Peta Mathias dug through the clothes she had stored away for twenty years in her shed, she realised it was full of valuable, beautiful items that were crying out to be worn again: ‘Fashion is mysterious, irresistible and alluring . . . they are not just frocks — they are beauty, art, history, emotion, memory, identity and, above all, joy.’ From this arose a new appreciation of buying well but cannily, so your clothes will not bankrupt you nor go out of fashion. Reviving her neglected wardrobe, Peta revelled in mixing fabrics, colours and patterns, considering how to make an impact and how that dull pair of shoes can be transformed into something just a little bit fabulous.

From Sophie McKenzie, bestselling and award-winning author of Girl, Missing and Sister, Missing On a quiet, sunny Sunday morning, Livy arrives at her best friend Julia's apartment for a lunch date only to find her dead. Though all the evidence supports it, Livy cannot accept the official ruling of suicide; the Julia she remembers was loud, inappropriate, joyful, outrageous and loving, not depressed. The suspicious circumstances cause Livy to dig further, and she is suddenly forced to confront a horrifying possibility: that Julia was murdered, by the same man who killed Livy's sister, Kara, eighteen years ago. Desperate to understand the tragedies of her past and hold her unraveling life together, Livy throws herself into the search for Kara and Julia's killer, who she now believes is someone close to her family. But if that is true, can she still trust anyone? Damien, the man Julia was secretly dating? Leo, her husband's boss and a close family friend? His son Paul, her husband's best mate since college? Or even Will, her own dear husband, who has betrayed her perhaps one time too many? And when Livy finally faces her sister's killer, and he traps her with one horrible, impossible choice, she must finally decide: is she strong enough to trust herself? Get lost in the dark, gripping pages of You Can Trust Me.

The bestselling author of Close My Eyes returns with a chilling psychological thriller. Julia has always been the friend that Livy turns to when life is difficult. United fifteen years ago by grief at the brutal murder of Livy's sister, Kara, they've always told each other everything. Or so Livy thought. So when Julia is found dead in her home, Livy cannot come to terms with the news that she chose to end her own life. The Julia that Livy knew was vibrant and vivacious, a far cry from the selfish neurotic that her family seem determined to paint her as. Troubled by doubt but alone in her suspicions, Livy sets out to prove that Julia was in fact murdered. But little does she realise that digging into her best friend's private life will cause her to question everything she thought she knew about Julia. And the truth that Livy discovers will tear the very fabric of her own life apart.

Jenny is a third-rate music-hall chanteuse living in Edwardian London. When she remarks to her mentor and lover Leo that she never wants to grow old, she is unwittingly making a pact with the Devil. Her contract to love him will reside at the Metaphysical Bank in High Street Kensington—forever. Leo has lived through thousands of years in numerous incarnations. As he gleefully exploits what 20th century London has to offer—as a magician ("the Great Pantoffsky"), fighter pilot, coke dealer, city banker—Jenny finds that the joy of eternal youth is short-lived. Her unchanging appearance provokes questions and Jenny has to move abroad or constantly reinvent herself. For 60 years she has to pass herself off as her own offspring. When she bears a real daughter that may or may not be Leo's, his destructive nature comes to the fore. She flees from him and destroys the contract that she has never read. At the same time Leo understands that Jenny is the one woman that he has truly loved and that perhaps it is time the Devil made a stab at family life, whatever the consequences. A compelling journey through 20th-century Europe and beyond, Miranda Miller’s ingenious take on the Faust story is by turns humorous, erotic, and terrifying.

Americans have a gift for coining proverbs. "A picture is worth a thousand words" was not, as you might imagine, the product of ancient Chinese wisdom -- it was actually minted by advertising executive Fred Barnard in a 1921 advertisement for Printer's Ink magazine. After all, Americans are first and foremost a practical people and proverbs can be loosely defined as pithy statements that are generally accepted as true and useful. The next logical step would be to gather all of this wisdom together for a truly American celebration of shrewd advice.A Dictionary of American Proverbs is the first major collection of proverbs in the English language based on oral sources rather than written ones. Listed alphabetically according to their most significant key word, it features over 15,000 entries including uniquely American proverbs that have never before been recorded, as well as thousands of traditional proverbs that have found their way into American speech from classical, biblical, British, continental European, and American literature. Based on the fieldwork conducted over thirty years by the American Dialect Society, this volume is complete with historical references to the earliest written sources, and supplies variants and recorded geographical distribution after each proverb.Many surprised await the reader in this vast treasure trove of wit and wisdom. Collected here are nuggets of popular wisdom on all aspects of American life: weather, agriculture, travel, money, business, food, neighbors, friends, manners, government, politics, law, health, education, religion, music, song, and dance. And, to further enhance browsing pleasure, the editors have provided a detailed guide to the use of the work. While it's true that many of our best known proverbs have been supplied by the ever-present "Anonymous," many more can be attributed to some very famous Americans, like Ernest Hemingway, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, J. Pierpont Morgan, Thomas Alva Edison, Abigail Adams, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, to name but a few offered in this fascinating collection.Who wouldn't want to know the origin of "the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings?" This uniquely American proverb and many more are gathered together in A Dictionary of American Proverbs. A great resource for students and scholars of literature, psychology, folklore, linguistics, anthropology, and cultural history, this endlessly intriguing volume is also a delightful companion for anyone with an interest in American culture.

Writer and broadcaster Peta Mathias is a woman who has never been afraid to embrace life with all its glorious inconsistencies, joys and heartbreaks. In Fabulous, she becomes every woman's confidante, as she shares with us the wisdom she has learnt over years of living outrageously. She is a woman who appreciates the importance of a gorgeous pair of shoes and the perfect shade of lipstick. She knows the value of good friends, great music, lively conversation, beautiful surroundings and a one-way ticket to an exotic destination. And having loved and lost - more than once - Peta also has her own theories on why relationships begin and end. And then there's the sex chapter! Inspirational, razor-witted and irresistibly funny, Fabulous is a must-read for each and every fabulous woman out there.