Late for the Wedding

Late for the Wedding
Author: Amanda Quick
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2003-04-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 055389756X

New York Times bestselling author Amanda Quick returns with a thrilling new venture into romance and mystery, featuring the most unusual, highly compatible--undeniably combustible--pairing of Tobias March and his mesmerizing partner, Lavinia Lake. An invitation to a country house party at Beaumont Castle provides a perfect solution to Tobias and Lavinia’s most exasperating challenge: how to escape the chaos of London for a remote, relaxing--and above all romantic--retreat from prying eyes and wagging tongues. But the lovers’ plans are foiled when their first cozy interlude of the weekend is disrupted by the appearance of a stunning woman from Tobias’s past. Aspasia Gray’s beauty is as haunting as her connection to Tobias. Her long-deceased fiancé was a friend of his--in addition to being an eccentric assassin. The mysterious nature of the bond between Tobias and Aspasia makes Lavinia more than a little uncomfortable. Especially as her first encounter with Aspasia occurs when she finds her in Tobias’s bedchamber... It seems Aspasia is seeking protection--and solace--after receiving an ominous message that eerily recalls the past. Suddenly the obstacles standing betweenTobias and Lavinia appear greater than just a little London gossip--and far more deadly.When events at the castle suggest someone is imitating the dead killer’s methods, the team of Lake and March fervently pursue the investigation--and each other--as their leads take them from Society’s most elegant haunts--and most discreet hideaways--to London’s shadiest backstreets. As their relationship heats up, so does the intrigue. Soon Lavinia will have to employ all her talents to flummox the scoundrel who so rudely interrupted her rendezvous. And then she and Tobias can get back to more pleasurable affairs.

Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give

Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give
Author: Ada Calhoun
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 117
Release: 2017-05-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0393254801

Seven essays celebrating the beauty of the imperfect marriage. We hear plenty about whether or not to get married, but much less about what it takes to stay married. Clichés around marriage—eternal bliss, domestic harmony, soul mates—leave out the real stuff. After marriage you may still want to sleep with other people. Sometimes your partner will bore the hell out of you. And when stuck paying for your spouse’s mistakes, you might miss being single. In Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, Ada Calhoun presents an unflinching but also loving portrait of her own marriage, opening a long-overdue conversation about the institution as it truly is: not the happy ending of a love story or a relic doomed by high divorce rates, but the beginning of a challenging new chapter of which “the first twenty years are the hardest.” Calhoun’s funny, poignant personal essays explore the bedrooms of modern coupledom for a nuanced discussion of infidelity, existential anxiety, and the many other obstacles to staying together. Both realistic and openhearted, Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give offers a refreshing new way to think about marriage as a brave, tough, creative decision to stay with another person for the rest of your life. “What a burden,” Calhoun calls marriage, “and what a gift.”

The Wedding Guest

The Wedding Guest
Author: Jonathan Kellerman
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2019-02-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0525618503

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Psychologist Alex Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis unravel a shocking crime at a raucous wedding reception in this gripping psychological thriller from the bestselling master of suspense. “Jonathan Kellerman’s psychology skills and dark imagination are a potent literary mix.”—Los Angeles Times LAPD Lieutenant Milo Sturgis is a fine homicide detective, but when he needs to get into the mind of a killer, he leans on the expertise of his best friend, the brilliant psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware. While Sturgis has a knack for piecing together the details of a crime, Delaware can decipher the darkest intents driving the most vicious of perpetrators. And there’s no better place for the doctor’s analytical skills to shine than a rowdy hall full of young men and women intoxicated on life and lust . . . and suddenly faced with the specter of death. Summoned to a run-down former strip joint, Delaware and Sturgis find themselves crashing a wild Saints and Sinners–themed wedding reception. But they’re not the only uninvited guests. A horrified bridesmaid has discovered the body of a young woman, dressed to impress in pricey haute couture and accessorized with a grisly red slash around her neck. What’s missing is any means of identification, or a single partygoer who recognizes the victim. The baffled bride is convinced the stranger snuck in to sabotage her big day—and the groom is sure it’s all a dreadful mistake. But Delaware and Sturgis have a hundred guests to question, and a sneaking suspicion that the motive for murder is personal. Now they must separate the sinners from the saints, the true from the false, and the secrets from those keeping them. The party’s over—and the hunt for whoever killed it is on. “As usual, [Delaware and Sturgis] form a formidable team. Also as usual, the characters here are varied and described with gritty clarity, and the puzzle facing the duo involves a delightful mix of L.A. culture, this time from its dive bars to its much more serious side.”—Booklist

The Late Wedding

The Late Wedding
Author: Christopher Albert Chen
Publisher: Samuel French, Incorporated
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2021-06-21
Genre: Marriage
ISBN: 9780573709326

Inspired by the writings of Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities and If on a Winter's Night a Traveler), The Late Wedding is a fractured portrait of a fractured marriage, as told through a series of interconnected fables, including an anthropological tour of fantastical tribes and their marital customs. Christopher Chen's winking second-person narrative, delivered by a six-person shape-shifting cast, deftly guides you on a wild and delightful examination of love and longing. At once an anthropological tour through marriage customs, a spy thriller, and a sci-fi love story, the mind-bending The Late Wedding is an inventive and surprising theatrical experience. "Wild, witty... contemplative and poignant... you gotta see this funny, brilliant play." - San Francisco Examiner "A seductive play... a fascinating little gem... a script about the mystery and challenges of love, in all its permutations. The play is a provocative one-act composed with a unique theatrical structure... a swirling nebula of magical notions put down in a contemporary world." - DC Metro Theatre Arts "A comic, dramatic inquiry into human relationships - between lovers or spouses; between playwright and audience - [The Late Wedding] is another of Chen's slyly metatheatrical, blissfully funny, whiplash-smart creations... What begins as a look at anthropological research into the marital arrangements and lore of a few odd tribes segues without warning into a political drama cum action thriller." - SF Gate "Bold and brainy... As The Late Wedding dips in and out of such genres as the spy caper and science fiction... it blurs the boundaries between its two strands of Calvino homage, so that the genre-sampling meta-theater begins to reflect on the bittersweet realities of marriage." - The Washington Post "[The Late Wedding] is about the vagaries of love and marriage, both homo- and heterosexual, and the way that we both cherish and distort the past, and about the creative process itself... you gotta see this funny, brilliant play." - San Francisco Examiner

Thanks for Waiting

Thanks for Waiting
Author: Doree Shafrir
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2021-06-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0593156749

An honest, witty, and insightful memoir about what happens when your coming-of-age comes later than expected “Thanks for Waiting is the loving, wise, cuttingly funny older sister we all need in book form.”—Tara Schuster, author of Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies Doree Shafrir spent much of her twenties and thirties feeling out of sync with her peers. She was an intern at twenty-nine and met her husband on Tinder in her late thirties, after many of her friends had already gotten married, started families, and entered couples’ counseling. After a long fertility struggle, she became a first-time mom at forty-one, joining Mommy & Me classes where most of the other moms were at least ten years younger. And while she was one of Gawker’s early hires and one of the first editors at BuzzFeed, she didn’t find professional fulfillment until she co-launched the successful self-care podcast Forever35—at forty. Now, in her debut memoir, Shafrir explores the enormous pressures we feel, especially as women, to hit particular milestones at certain times and how we can redefine what it means to be a late bloomer. She writes about everything from dating to infertility, to how friendships evolve as you get older, to why being pregnant at forty-one is unexpectedly freeing—all with the goal of appreciating the lives we’ve lived so far and the lives we still hope to live. Thanks for Waiting is about how achieving the milestones you thought were so important don’t always happen on the time line you imagined. In a world of 30 Under 30 lists, this book is a welcome reminder that it’s okay to live life at your own speed.

Happiness for Beginners

Happiness for Beginners
Author: Katherine Center
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2015-03-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466847697

As seen on Netflix - from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bodyguard and Hello Stranger Helen Carpenter can’t quite seem to bounce back. Newly divorced at thirty-two, her life has fallen apart beyond her ability to put it together again. So when her annoying younger brother, Duncan, convinces her to sign up for a hardcore wilderness survival course in the backwoods of Wyoming—she hopes it’ll be exactly what she needs. Instead, it’s a disaster. It’s nothing like she wants, or expects, or anticipates. She doesn’t anticipate the surprise summer blizzard, for example—or the blisters, or the rutting elk, or the mean pack of sorority girls. And she especiallydoesn’t anticipate that her annoying brother’s even-more-annoying best friend, Jake, will show up for the exact same course—and distract her, derail her, and . . . kiss her. But it turns out sometimes disaster can teach you exactly the things you need to learn. Like how to keep going, even when you think you can’t. How being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes getting really, really lost is your only hope of getting found. Happiness for Beginners is Katherine Center at her most heart-warming, captivating best—a nourishing, page-turning, up-all-night read about how to get back up. It’s a story that looks at how our struggles lead us to our strengths. How love is always worth it. And how the more good things we look for, the more we find.

Beautiful Day

Beautiful Day
Author: Elin Hilderbrand
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2013-06-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0316227188

A summer wedding stirs up trouble on both sides of the family in this beloved bestseller from "the queen of the summer novel" (People). The Carmichaels and the Grahams have gathered on Nantucket for a happy occasion: a wedding that will unite their two families. Plans are being made according to the wishes of the bride's late mother, who left behind The Notebook: specific instructions for every detail of her youngest daughter's future nuptials. Everything should be falling into place for the beautiful event -- but in reality, things are falling apart. While the couple-to-be are quite happy, their loved ones find their lives crumbling. In the days leading up to the wedding, love will be questioned, scandals will arise, and hearts will be broken and healed. Elin Hilderbrand takes readers on a touching journey in Beautiful Day -- into the heart of marriage, what it means to be faithful, and how we choose to honor our commitments.

The Wedding Date

The Wedding Date
Author: Jasmine Guillory
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2018-01-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0399587667

A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in this fun and flirty multicultural romance debut by New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory—author of the Resse Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick The Proposal. THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER #5 LibraryReads Pick “A swoony rom-com brimming with humor and charm.”—Entertainment Weekly (The Must List) “What a charming, warm, sexy gem of a novel....One of the best books I've read in a while.”—Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Hunger Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with in an elevator is something Alexa Monroe wouldn't normally do. But there's something about Drew Nichols that's too hard to resist. On the eve of his ex's wedding festivities, Drew is minus a plus one. Until a power outage strands him with the perfect candidate for a fake girlfriend.... After Alexa and Drew have more fun than they ever thought possible, Drew has to fly back to Los Angeles and his job as a pediatric surgeon, and Alexa heads home to Berkeley, where she's the mayor's chief of staff. Too bad they can't stop thinking about the other.... They're just two high-powered professionals on a collision course toward the long distance dating disaster of the century--or closing the gap between what they think they need and what they truly want.... One of... Entertainment Weekly’s “12 Romances for V-Day” • Cosmopolitan’s “2018 Anticipated Reads” • Elle’s “2018 Must Reads” • Harpers Bazaar’s “New January Must Reads” • The Fug Girls’ “Best Books of the Year” • Elle UK’s “Books to Get You Through 2018” • Nylon’s “January Must Reads” • Hello Giggles’ “New Release Recs” • Electric Lit’s “Books by WoC to Read in 2018” • Bitch Media’s “2018 Must Reads” • BookBub’s “2018 Romance Must Reads” • Bookriot’s “Must Read 2018 January Releases” • RetailMeNot’s “2018 Must Reads”

The Member of the Wedding

The Member of the Wedding
Author: Carson McCullers
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Total Pages: 157
Release: 2019-12-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0735254125

A novel that became an award-winning play and a major film, and that has charmed generations of readers, The Member of the Wedding is a story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is utterly bored with her life until she hears about her older brother’s wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her house servant, Berenice, and her six-year-old cousin—and her own unbridled imagination—Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, even hoping to go (uninvited) on the honeymoon. This story is a marvelous study of the agony of adolescence and of wanting to be part of something larger and more accepting than yourself. The Member of the Wedding showcases Carson McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and lasting best. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.