MORE BESTSELLING FICTION AVAILABLE FROM PAN MACMILLAN

Dianne Blacklock
Wife for Hire

Sam knew she was a model wife, a prize wife, the kind of wife men secretly wished they had. But now Jeff wanted to leave her for someone else.

All Samantha Driscoll once wanted out of life was to be somebody’s wife. She would marry a man called Tod or Brad and she would have two blond children, one boy, one girl.

But instead she married a Jeff, had three children, and he’s just confessed to having an affair.

Sam’s life purpose crumbles before her eyes, with the words of her mother playing in a continuous loop in her head, ‘You’ve got no one to blame but yourself, Samantha.’

Spurred on by an eclectic bunch of girlfriends and her nutty sister Max, she finds the job she was born for: Wife for Hire. Sam handles the domestic affairs and acts as personal shopper and social coordinator for many satisfied customers.

But when attractive American businessman, Hal Buchanan is added to her client list, Sam soon realises she can organise many things in life, but not her emotions.

 

Ilsa Evans
Drip Dry

Because sometimes coffee isn’t nearly enough and you have to take a deep breath, maintain control, and assess the situation . . . or just reach for the scotch.

The twice-divorced mother of three is back. New, improved and stronger than ever – but still struggling to keep her head above water, even in the bath.

And what a week it is in the Riley/Brown/McNeill household. There’s one wedding, two babies, three engagements and four birthdays. Then ex ex-husband Alex’s long-awaited return from overseas heralds unexpected results, which in turn heralds the arrival of a most unwanted guest.

Meanwhile, Sam wants to join the armed forces, Ben is setting up embarrassing money-making schemes and CJ’s wreaking havoc with sharp fairy wands.

Along the way there’s an infectious disease outbreak, a mysterious death in the family, a broken nose, a bruised rump and several bruised egos. Can life get more frenetic than this?

Praise for Ilsa Evans’ first novel, Spin Cycle:

‘Wildly entertaining’
WOMAN’S DAY

‘A hilarious novel’
THAT’S LIFE

 

Liane Moriarty
Three Wishes

It happens sometimes that you accidentally star in a little public performance of your very own comedy, tragedy or melodrama.

The three Kettle sisters have been accidentally starring in public performances all their lives, affecting their audiences in more ways than they’ll ever know. This time, however, they give a particularly spectacular show when a raucous, champagne-soaked birthday dinner ends in a violent argument and an emergency dash to the hospital.

So who started it this time? Was it Cat: full of angry, hurt passion dating back to the ‘Night of the Spaghetti’? Was it Lyn: serenely successful, at least on the outside? Or was it Gemma: quirky, dreamy and unable to keep a secret, except for the most important one of all?

Whoever the culprit, their lives will have all changed dramatically before the next inevitable clash of shared genes and shared childhoods.

 

Louise Limerick
Dying for Cake

Life has suddenly taken an unexpected turn for the women in a Brisbane mothers’ coffee group. Baby Amy disappears, and her mother, Evelyn, broken and distant in a psychiatric hospital, won’t utter a word.

Desperate to find Amy, desperate to understand, the women cope with the loss in their own ways. But Evelyn’s withdrawal has altered them irreverisbly, and each begins to look for something to satiate the cravings they had not allowed to surface before . . .

Joanne is dying for cake. Clare is longing to paint again. Susan wants to claw back all the time she’s lost. Wendy is trying to forget the past. Then there’s Evelyn. Nobody knows what Evelyn wants. But how can she not want her baby back?

‘. . . a great read . . . a thoroughly diverting book that plunges us wholeheartedly into the lives of its five characters: all mothers of young children, but all different from one another . . . her depictions of the minutiae of raising children are lovingly realistic but not overly sentimental . . . this novel is essentially about the validity of different ways of mothering, and the importance of self-fulfilment for women, however that is gained.’
THE AGE

‘It is an intriguing plot . . . Where Limerick’s writing shines is in her buoyant evocation of the sticky, constant, exasperating and loving realm of small children and their carers. There are many such delicious scenes in this novel . . .’ Andrea Stretton, THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

‘Dying for Cake is honest, original, thoughtful, emotional, mature and suspenseful.’
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

 

Jessica Adams
I’m A Believer

Mark Buckle is one of life’s natural sceptics. He’s a science teacher who’d rather read Stephen Hawking than his stars and he’s highly suspicious of Uri Geller. And don’t even mention feng shui or crystals. Most importantly though, Mark Buckle absolutely, positively, doesn’t believe in life after death.

But then his girlfriend, Catherine, dies in a car crash. And everything changes.

Within days of her death, Mark sees Catherine sitting by his bedside wearing the dressing gown that he packed away in the bag bound for Oxfam. Next, he discovers that he can hear her and she him. Mark has some questions he wants answered . . .

By the end of the year, Mark Buckle, super-sceptic, will be a believer. But not before his dead girlfriend finally sorts out his love life for him.

Praise for I’m A Believer:

‘Even complete cynics will fall for the many charms of I’m A Believer’
NICK EARLS

‘Adams puts a refreshing spin on the boy meets girl scenario, guiding her flawed but likeable hero to the heights of love from the depths of despair’
VOGUE

‘Funny, sad, quirky – and very real. Adams has done it again’
MAGGIE ALDERSON