For fans of The Girl Before, Into the Water and The Couple Next DoorNot having a child can change your life as much as having one.Grace has returned to London after twenty years abroad to manage her dying mother’s affairs. When she receives a blank Mother’s Day card in the post, she is confused and unsettled. Who could have sent it to her and why? She isn’t a mother. Another Mother’s Day card arrives. Then come the silent phone calls. Haunted by disturbing flashbacks, Grace starts to unravel. Someone is out to get her. Someone who knows what she has done. Someone who will make her face the past she has run from for so long.Emerson creates an intricate web in this intense psychological thriller whose high energy and fast-pace will have you racing towards the climactic conclusion. Perfect for fans of The Girl Before.REVIEWS‘I read this in two days. Fast-paced, dark and unsettling, this is an intelligently written, edge-of-your-seat thriller. A compelling pageturner with a satisfying ending and a late twist that I didn’t see coming’ Susan Elliot Wright, author of The Flight of Cornelia Blackwood‘She Chose Me is a cleverly constructed, elegant page turner that will hook you from the very first line. An enormously enjoyable read’ Louise Dean, award-winning author of Becoming Strangers‘If you enjoy tension, suspense and surprise, She Chose Me, Tracey Emerson’s brilliant debut novel is your next favourite read. Emerson ratchets up the suspense from the first page and never lets it go. Dignified by deft and ingenious plotting, forensically insightful characterisation and impeccable prose, this psychological thriller delivers on all levels’ Lesley Glaister, award-winning author of The Squeeze ‘She Chose Me is an accomplished debut that despite being tightly plotted manages to retain a really refreshing rawness... The fastpaced story kept me guessing until the end and raised many thought provoking questions about family, motherhood, rejection and mental health. I do love a story that intrigues as much as it provokes, and to this end Tracey Emerson has scored on both counts. Very well done’ Cath Weeks, author of Mothers‘A great read. I loved the two female protagonists, particularly the brilliantly chilling anti-heroine’ Sarah J. Naughton, author of Tattletale‘Moving, compelling and beautifully written. It deserves to fly off the shelves’ Mel McGrath, author of Give Me the Child

After twenty years abroad, Grace returns to London to manage her dying mother's affairs. Taking a temporary post teaching English at a local school, she rents a rundown flat and travels to the care home on weekends. But the people in Grace's life are not what they seem to be... When she receives a blank Mother's Day card in the post, she is confused and unsettled. Who could have sent it to her, and why? She isn't a mother. Another Mother's Day card arrives, and then come the silent phone calls. Haunted by disturbing flashbacks, Grace starts to unravel. Someone is out to get her. Someone who will make her face the past she has run from for so long...

The biography of a young nurse from Minnesota who joins the war effort behind her father’s back. She finds herself holed up treating the critically wounded from the Battle of the Bulge. In December 1944, she blatantly defies discriminatory army rules to save the lives of her patients. A month after her 24th birthday, Lt. Mary Elizabeth Balster collapses among the rubble of a shelled supply room. Has the young nurse finally succumbed to the mounting emotional toll caused from months of caring for the sick and wounded just behind the front lines of General Patton’s Third Army? On the night of November 30, 1944, holed up in the Heinrich Himmler Barracks in Morhange, France, Lt. Balster’s evac receives a typical patient load (over 200 soldiers, including wounded enemy), but this time one of the admissions is a 19-year-old tanker she’d nursed back to health five months before in Normandy. The charge nurse on Surgical gently informs the lieutenant that the private is critical, admitted with two gunshot wounds and almost half his body consumed by burns. Rising determined to save him, Balster limps toward the shelled supply room determined to search for any blood plasma bottles still intact after Luftwaffe strafing. Recaptured from her mother’s reminiscences and letters home, N. C. R. Davis takes the reader through every heat-of-battle harrowing moment as Balster lived it, achieving a rare glimpse of one nurse’s point of view during the latter part of the European conflict. The book mixes Lt. Balster’s observations, memories, and dreams to re-tell the true story of a richly rebellious and intense woman trying to navigate her life and nurture her sanity while nursing the wounded and dying frontline soldiers of the Third Army. Her strong-willed, beguiling personality fosters the grit necessary for her success as a combat nurse, but these same characteristics cause two men to fall in love with her. And the personal cost of war comes to a heartrending conclusion, as she must choose one man over the other to save herself.

An agent will do anything to take down a terrorist. Even if that means using a woman as his weapon. To locate a terrorist, Ren McClement must find the criminal’s “dead” wife Natalie. His plan: use the innocent beauty as bait. But when his duplicity leads them into grave danger, Ren reveals his secret to Natalie...and his passion for her. Will furious Natalie be able to forgive his lie? And will they get to the mastermind before he unleashes mass destruction? Omega Sector: Under Siege

Raw and informative, They Chose Me: An Adoption Story shares the gripping story of Denise Defoe who was relinquished for adoption at birth. Adopted at the age of 2 by a loving family, Denise still struggled intensely with feelings of grief, abandonment, lack of self identity, and resentment about being adopted. Join the author on her journey to healing, peace, contemplation of search and reunion, and exploration of tools to deal with the challenges of not knowing where she truly belonged. Whether you are an adoptee, adoptive parent, or birth parent this story has something for you.

This book is an exploration and critique of 'playback theatre', a form of improvised theatre in which a company of performers spontaneously enact autobiographical stories told to them by members of the audience. With more than ten years' experience as an actor with Playback Theatre York, the author introduces the reader to the basics of playback theatre within a historical and theoretical context. The history and development of the form is traced, from its conception in the late 1970s to its subsequent growth worldwide, and its relationship to the psychodrama tradition from which it has evolved is discussed. Through an examination of playback performances from the perspectives of performers, `tellers' of their stories and the audience, the author critically explores the nature, implications and ethics of the performers' response to the teller's experience, how notions of the public and personal are constructed, and the risks involved in improvising a response to a member of the audience's story. Playing the Other will be essential reading for drama students, dramatherapists and all those interested in the history and use of the theatre.

For decades, social scientists have assumed that “fictive kinship” is a phenomenon associated only with marginal peoples and people of color in the United States. In this innovative book, Nelson reveals the frequency, texture and dynamics of relationships which are felt to be “like family” among the white middle-class. Drawing on extensive, in-depth interviews, Nelson describes the quandaries and contradictions, delight and anxiety, benefits and costs, choice and obligation in these relationships. She shows the ways these fictive kinships are similar to one another as well as the ways they vary—whether around age or generation, co-residence, or the possibility of becoming “real” families. Moreover she shows that different parties to the same relationship understand them in some similar – and some very different – ways. Theoretically rich and beautifully written, the book is accessible to the general public while breaking new ground for scholars in the field of family studies.

Piper and her masters are back with even more troubles than before! This human thought she found the prefect job. All her bills paid, a salary, and dental to boot! Not to forget that her bosses were literally to die for. Piper quickly learned that not everything in the House of Durand was as it seemed and somethings should have been kept hidden. Now thrust into the world of vampires, Piper must navigate the bloodied water while holding onto her heart and her humanity. With surprises around every corner will Piper and her dangerously tempting masters make it through it all unscathed? keywords: paranormal romance, fantasy romance, reverse harem romance, boss employee romance, workplace romance, vampire romance, steamy romance, vampires, alpha heroes, alpha vampires, damsel in distress, mythology, love story, mystery, horror keywords: urban fantasy, paranormal romance, thriller, horror, vampires, mystery, supernatural suspense, reverse harem, why choose, work place romance, maid, boss, vampire romance, mythology

Ellie Alexander's Bakeshop Mysteries will make readers hungry for baked goods with a side of murder. Here together for the first time are the first three books in the series. Meet Your Baker After returning to her hometown of Ashland, OR, Jules Capshaw helps heal her broken heart by working at Torte, the family bakeshop. But when the town busybody turns up dead in the store, Jules is drawn into a murder investigation between whipping up batches of her signature raspberry danishes. A Batter of Life and Death Autumn has come to Ashland, and Jules and her team at Torte are prepping for the arrival of the Pastry Channel, which has chosen their town to film the current season of their reality show Take the Cake. When one of the contestants turns up dead, face-down in buttercream, Jules takes his place. She dusts off her best Bavarian Chocolate Cake recipe and gets ready to bake—and solve a murder. On Thin Icing Jules and her team from Torte have been hired to cater the annual retreat for the directors of the Oregon Shakespeare festivals at a remote mountain resort. Visions of hearty stews and orange cardamom rolls dance in her head, and she can't wait to get started. Then someone puts the (very irritating) bartender on ice, and Jules has to pull double duty in the kitchen, and figuring out whodunit.