(Follows the lives of three roommates - Ralph, Smith, and ...)
Follows the lives of three roommates - Ralph, Smith, and Jem - and their romantic entanglements with unsuitable partners, leading up to a memorable party that decides their fates.
(Ever wondered what happened to your first love? Imagine b...)
Ever wondered what happened to your first love? Imagine bumping into them twelve years later and realizing you still fancy them rotten. That's exactly what happens to Dig Ryan when he sees Delilah again. Now imagine you're Nadine. You and Dig have been best friends for fifteen years. And you've finally realized that you're in love with him. So when Delilah - who always was your nemesis - returns, you're mad with jealousy and can't help behaving childishly. Like phoning your first love Phil - just to get your own back.
(Bee Bearhorn had a number-one hit single in 1985 and was ...)
Bee Bearhorn had a number-one hit single in 1985 and was never heard of again. Fifteen years later she is found dead in her flat and nobody seems to care But Ana Wills always day-dreamed about the exotic half-sister she hasn't seen in years. And when she comes to London to clear Bee's flat, she uncovers a life more exotic than she imagined: a secret country cottage, mysterious weekends away, and even a missing cat. With Bee's closest friends mad Lol and strong, silent Flint Ana sets out to discover exactly what did happen to Bee Bearhorn, the one-hit wonder
(Brothers Tony, Sean, and Ned had the perfect upbringing, ...)
Brothers Tony, Sean, and Ned had the perfect upbringing, but now that they are grown-up, real life is starting to get in the way. Tony’s dealing with divorce and a weight problem. Novelist Sean is up against a serious case of writer’s block and a shock announcement from his “perfect” new girlfriend. Their parents have a new lodger, Gervase - why is Bernie, their mother, so keen to give this unsavory waif a home? And what is the real reason for kid brother Ned’s surprise return from his travels in Australia? A Friend of the Family is a hilarious, dead-on-target story from the bestselling author of Thirtynothing and Ralph’s Party.
(Remember falling in love for the first time? Remember thi...)
Remember falling in love for the first time? Remember thinking, This is The One? Remember life getting in the way? Back in the 1980s, teenagers Vince and Joy met, fell desperately in love, and never quite said good-bye.
(Leah and Toby have lived across the street from one anoth...)
Leah and Toby have lived across the street from one another for years without meeting... and Leah has been itching to peek behind the front door of Toby's eccentric house, always packed to the rafters with weird and wonderful tenants. When fate finally lets her in, Leah finds that Toby needs her as much as she is surprised to realize she might need him. Sometimes life needs a helping hand and with a sprinkle of romance and their own special magic, Toby and Leah's dreams show the glimmer of a chance of coming true.
(Toby Dobbs received a big Victorian house with too many b...)
Toby Dobbs received a big Victorian house with too many bedrooms to count as a wedding present from his father, but his marriage is over within a month. Very alone, and very lonely, Toby posts an advertisement seeking the "Unexpectedly Alone" to become his roommates. Fifteen years later the wayward souls he takes in are still living with him, with no intention of leaving.
(When she was nine years old, Melody Browne's house burned...)
When she was nine years old, Melody Browne's house burned down, taking every toy, every photograph, every item of clothing and old Christmas card with it. But not only did the fire destroy all her possessions, but it also took with it all her memories - Melody Browne can remember nothing before her ninth birthday. Now in her early thirties, Melody lives in a council flat in the middle of London with her seventeen-year-old son. She hasn't seen her parents since she left home at fifteen, but Melody doesn't mind, she's better off on her own. She's made a good life for herself and her son and she likes it that way. Until one night something extraordinary happens. Whilst attending a hypnotist show with her first date in years she faints - and when she comes round she starts to remember.
(Eleven years ago, Jem Catterick and Ralph McLeary fell de...)
Eleven years ago, Jem Catterick and Ralph McLeary fell deeply in love. They thought it would be forever, that they’d found their happy ending. As everyone agreed, they were the perfect couple. Then two became four, and an apartment became a house. Romantic nights out became sleepless nights in. And they soon found that life wasn’t quite so simple anymore. But through it all, Jem and Ralph still loved each other. Of course, they did. Now Jem is back at work part-time as a talent agent. Ralph, a successful painter, is struggling to come up with new, hopefully, groundbreaking, work for his upcoming show. But the unimaginable has happened. Two people who were so right together are starting to drift apart.
(Meet the picture-perfect Bird family: pragmatic Meg, drea...)
Meet the picture-perfect Bird family: pragmatic Meg, dreamy Beth, and towheaded twins Rory and Rhys, one an adventurous troublemaker, the other his slighter, more sensitive counterpart. Their father is a sweet, gangly man, but it’s their beautiful, free-spirited mother Lorelei who spins at the center. In those early years, Lorelei tries to freeze time by filling their simple brick house with precious mementos. Easter egg foils are her favorite. Craft supplies, too. She hangs all of the children’s art, to her husband’s chagrin.
(As Adrian looks back on their brief but seemingly happy m...)
As Adrian looks back on their brief but seemingly happy marriage, disturbing secrets begin to surface. The divorces from his two previous wives had been amicable, or so it seemed; his children, all five of them, were resilient as ever, or so he thought. But something, or someone, must have pushed Maya over the edge.
(Imagine that you live in a picturesque communal garden sq...)
Imagine that you live in a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses. You’ve known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really? On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her thirteen-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?
(Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was fifteen, the...)
Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was fifteen, the youngest of three. She was beloved by her parents, friends, and teachers. She and her boyfriend made a teenaged golden couple. She was days away from idyllic post-exams summer vacation, with her whole life ahead of her. And then she was gone. Now, her mother Laurel Mack is trying to put her life back together. It’s been ten years since her daughter disappeared, seven years since her marriage ended, and only months since the last clue in Ellie’s case was unearthed. So when she meets an unexpectedly charming man in a café, no one is more surprised than Laurel at how quickly their flirtation develops into something deeper.
(Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns...)
Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am. She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well - and she is on a collision course to meet them.
Lisa Jewell is a British author of popular fiction. She is the internationally bestselling author of eighteen novels, including the New York Times bestseller Then She Was Gone, as well as I Found You, The Girls in the Garden, and The House We Grew Up In.
Background
Lisa Jewell was born on July 19, 1968, in Middlesex Hospital in London's West End and was brought up in North London. Her father Anthony is a Textile Agent and her mother Kay is a secretary. She has two younger sisters, Sacha and Tanya. She was brought up in a strange part of North London called Totteridge, known to some as the Beverly Hills of London, where her neighbors included such luminaries as Micky Most, Des O'Connor and Patti Boulay.
Education
Lisa was educated at Saint Michael"s Catholic Grammar School in Finchley, north London, leaving school after one day in the sixth form to do an art foundation course at Barnet College followed by a diploma in fashion illustration at Epsom School of Art & Design.
Career
After graduating, Jewell went to work for the high street fashion chain Warehouse as a PR assistant. She stayed there for 3 years before moving to work as a receptionist and PA at Thomas Pink. Lisa had always planned to write her first book when she was fifty. In fact she wrote it when she was twenty-seven and had just been made redundant from her job as a secretary. Jewell accepted a challenge from her friend to write three chapters of a novel in exchange for dinner at her favourite restaurant. She wrote the first three chapters of what was to become her first novel, Ralph’s Party, which went on to become the bestselling UK debut novel of 1998.
Lisa Jewell has since written over 18 novels, all of which have been very popular and well-received. Lisa still lives in the north of London but is now joined by her IT consultant husband Jascha, their two daughters Amelie and Evie and two tabby cats.
(Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was fifteen, the...)
2017
Views
Lisa aims to write about 1000 words a day, which takes around three hours, sometimes working at the kitchen table in the house she shares with her husband, two daughters and a menagerie of assorted pets, or heading to a local cafe.
Quotations:
"I’m terrible at twists. I wish I could do more of them, but withholding information from the reader — which is basically all a twist actually is, [as in] it was there all along, you just chose a moment quite late in the day to reveal it — can really mess with the basics of a good, organically flowing narrative, and I’d rather let the narrative flow than tie myself in knots trying to throw in a twist."
"The only difference between writing in a historical setting and a contemporary setting was that I had to keep checking facts as I went along; what kind of buses were there? How were telegrams laid out? Had the Marcel wave been invented in 1920? Who was the most famous film star of the day? But apart from that, no, I wrote Arlette’s chapters the same way I write all my chapters. I wouldn’t set out deliberately to write another historical novel, this one did just kind of happen to me. But equally, I wouldn’t rule it out either, if it felt right at the time."
"I would love to go back to the early fifties, Middle America. I’d love to have been driven to high school in one of those enormous cars with fins and bench seating and all my friends sitting perched on the back, then off to a burger bar after school to drink malt shakes in a circle skirt and red lipstick."
"Sometimes when I write multiple-perspective narratives I do have favorites, but that wasn’t the case with my previous book, the Making of Us and neither was it the case with this one. I loved writing both girls equally, they were both discovering life after a rather late blossoming and they were both living in my favorite city in the world."
"I love the social side of being a writer – they say writing is a solitary occupation and it can be but I love book festivals, going to book and library events and meeting people who love reading.”
Personality
Here is what Lisa stated about her own personality: "I am a terrible, terrible typist. I could not have been a writer in the age of typewriters. Fellow author Jenny Colgan and I have been exchanging daily emails for about twenty years. We were inspired by the letters between Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin. We hope to keep going until one of us drops dead.
I write in cafes, never at home. I cannot focus at home, am forever getting off my chair to do other things. In a cafe, I have to sit still or I’ll look a bit unhinged. I have five animals; a dog, two cats, and two guinea pigs. They are all substitutes for the third child I didn’t get round to having."
Interests
pets
Writers
Clare Mackintosh, Louise Candlish, Sabine Durrant, Tamar Cohen, Agatha Christie
Connections
Lisa Jewell currently lives in Swiss Cottage, London with her husband Jascha, and daughters Amelie Mae (born 2003) and Evie Scarlett (born 2007).