"A darkly funny novel about betrayal, loneliness and the surprising pleasure of being single again" from the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Good Housekeeping). At sixty-nine years old, Pru has found herself alone for the first time in her life. Her grown children are out of the house, and her husband, Greg, has filed for divorce. She attributes Greg's betrayal to a cancer scare and a more-than-midlife crisis, but that doesn't make her feel any better—or less lonely. It seems that nothing—not even her eccentric, free-spirited best friend, Azra—can pull her out of her depression. Until Pru sees a black dress in a thrift store window . . . Its sleek silhouette calls to mind long-gone days of cocktail parties and sophisticated conversation. And it gives Pru a brilliant idea: where better to wear a black dress—and find age-appropriate single men—than at a funeral? As Pru combs through the obituaries and attends...

"Disturbing and witty . . . A deftly-described odyssey that places the battle of the sexes in a new arena" from the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (The Sunday Times). Meet Desmond Fletcher. At forty-two years old, his marriage has ended and he finds himself all alone in an apartment above an electrical repair shop lent to him by his soon-to-be-ex-wife's brother. With not much else to do besides his job driving coaches, Desmond has a lot of time to think. Mostly about where his life has gone wrong, the women he has failed, and the child he has never known. More than a decade ago, a woman Desmond was seeing became pregnant but wanted nothing to do with marrying him—or any man for that matter. Now, with his life in limbo, Desmond becomes obsessed with finding his son. Hijacking a coach, he travels across England, unearthing clues and following in his son's footsteps—from London to the mountains to the fens. It's a quest that will...

Four brilliant stories by best-selling novelist Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and numerous other works.Part of the Good Housekeeping Modern Voices series, which includes short stories from the archives of Hearst Magazines UK.

By the author of Tulip Fever, a historical drama bursting with secrets and passions.1916: Pretty young Eithne Clay runs a shabby-genteel South London boarding house while her husband is off at the War. There's Ralph, her fourteen-year old son, and Winnie the young maid, a homely, goodhearted country girl, and the lodgers, of course, a curious but necessary burden. They include blind Alwyne Flyte, communist and cynic, victim of a gas attack in the trenches. When the dreaded telegram arrives at the house, things turn from difficult to desperate for the two young women. Then along comes the butcher, Neville Turk, big handsome ladies' man, irresistible for his meat, money and brutish confidence, who throws flighty Eithne into a turmoil but has sinister plans of his own. Winnie and the blind lodger, meanwhile, conduct a strange, erotic liaison of their own. And young Ralph, ignored by his mother, looks on, feeling the undercurrents of desire, seeing more than he should. All the...

A wonderfully entertaining and astute collection of short stories about life today. Deborah Moggach's stories take as their subject modern marriage and the modern family. In a world of plastic SMILE badges, devout news-agents peddling porn magazines and bleak estate houses gadgeted like spaceships, men and women come together, draw apart and find out, in between, that there is much room for deception and discovery.

Now a major motion picture starring Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Billy Nighy, and Dev PatelWhen Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisiticated hotel has stalled, and that such amenities as water and electricity are . . . infrequent. But what their new life lacks in luxury, they come to find, it’s plentiful in adventure, stunning beauty, and unexpected love.Review“[Deborah] Moggach has served us a treat with this novel. Moving, sincere, funny.”—Independent on Sunday“Underneath the ironies, [The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel] is a book about remembering—too late, or not too late—how to be alive.”—The Times Literary Supplement“Classic Moggach: funny, touching, and . . . full of colours and visual details.”—*The Daily TelegraphAbout the AuthorDeborah Moggach is the author of sixteen successful novels, including the bestselling Tulip Fever, and two collections of stories. Her screenplays include Pride and Prejudice, which was nominated for a BAFTA. She lives in North London.

"Nobody in the world knows our secret...that I've ruined Bev's life, and she's ruined mine." Petra's romantic life has always been a car-crash, and even in her sixties she's still capable of getting it disastrously wrong. But then she falls in love with Jeremy, an old chum, visiting from abroad. The fatal catch? Jeremy is her best friend's husband. But just as Petra is beginning to relax into her happy ever after, she finds herself catapulted to West Africa, and to Bev, her best friend who she's been betraying so spectacularly. Meanwhile, on opposite sides of the world, two other women are also struggling with the weight of betrayal: Texan Lorrie is about embark on the biggest deception of her life, and in China Li-Jing is trying to understand exactly what it is her husband does on his West African business trips... It turns out that no matter wherever you are in the world,...

From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Claire - a model daughter, an imaginative teacher, as clear and legible as her handwriting. Laura - a student, a beauty, as vital and rebellious as her parents could ever have feared for.As children they had shared everything - so much so that later, neither sister could quite remember to which one of them some long-distant adventure had happened. Far from the leafy respectability of Harrow where they grew up, each is now going her distinctly separate way in this warm, funny and poignant novel of coming-of-age.

From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold HotelEast is East and West is West.Fresh from London, Christine and Donald Manley have come to the alien swelter of Karachi: Christine to conceive a child, Donald to sell the Pill for a pharmaceutical company. Among the ex-pats already there is straight-talking Duke Hanson, whose all-American values cannot prevent him falling, then sinking, helplessly in love with a sophisticated Pakistani girl. In the ensuing tangle of Anglo-American-Oriental relations, the strangest things for those who have come out East are revealed in the very people with whom they arrived.

The bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel delivers a "provocative, enthralling, bang up-to-the-minute" thriller (Daily Mail). It all starts with a prize. The Price family wins a holiday trip to Florida and gets their photo in the paper. They're all there, the picture-perfect family in front of their gorgeous home. But it's awkward, adolescent, seventeen-year-old Hannah who catches someone's eye. And only days later, she's gone. Val and Morris Price try not to panic when Hannah doesn't return from Camden Market on Sunday night. After all, she is a teenager. But when Hannah still hasn't shown up on Monday, they start to think the worst—then the ransom note comes with a demand for £500,000 and no police. After days of tallying assets and scrambling for money, Val makes the drop. Hannah comes home. Only what should be the end of a nightmare is just the beginning . . . The Prices' have lost their business and their home....

From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Meet Buffy.With three ex-wives, a failing career and only his dog George for company, Buffy's bachelorhood is looking worryingly confirmed.Until he meets Celeste. Dazzled by love, Buffy has no idea that Celeste is systematically researching his ex-wives, children and step-children, and unearthing secrets that will change all their lives.

From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold HotelNatalie is a girl who should be going somewhere. Beautiful, bright and ambitious, she's stuck in a dead-end job in the accounts department of Nu-Line Telecommunications, living her life through wild weekends and yearning for something more.When she sees a chance to change her life, she takes it.After all, it's only a minor crime.Nobody's going to get hurt. But other people do get hurt, because Natalie's actions do have consequences - tragic consequences. Poignant and beautifully written, Final Demand is a cautionary tale about the battle between greed and love, about human hopes and our own frailty in the face of temptation.

From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold HotelJules is an unknown English actress with a precarious career and a wayward but irresistible boyfriend, Trevor. But then she gets the break of a lifetime - a part as stand-in for Lila Dune, American film star and sex-symbol - and her world is transformed.