Cesca Major

ne Day meets Groundhog Day, in this heartwarming and emotionally poignant novel about a stressed woman who must relive the same day over and over, keeping her family and work life from imploding as she attempts to spare her husband from an unfortunate fate.

It is an ordinary Monday and harried London literary agent Emma is flying out of the door as usual. Preoccupied with work and her ever growing to-do list, she fails to notice her lovely husband Dan seems bereft, her son can barely meet her eye, and her daughter won’t go near her. Even the dog seems sad.

She is far too busy, buried deep in her phone; social media alerts pinging; clients messaging with “emergencies”; keeping track of a dozen WhatsApp groups about the kids’ sports, school, playdates, all of it. Her whole day is frantic—what else is new—and as she rushes back through the door for dinner, Dan is still upset. They fight, and he walks out, desolate, dragging their poor dog around the block. Just as she realizes it is their anniversary and she has forgotten, again, she hears the screech of brakes.

Dan is dead.

The next day Emma wakes up… and Dan is alive. And it’s Monday again.

And again.

And again.

Emma tries desperately to change the course of fate by doing different things each time she wakes up: leaving WhatsApp, telling her boss where to get off, writing to Dan, listening to her kids, reaching out to forgotten friends, getting drunk and buying out Prada. But will Emma have the chance to find herself again, remember what she likes about her job, reconnect with her children, love her husband? Will this be enough to change the fate they seem destined for?

A moving “What if” story of what it is to be a woman in the modern world—never feeling we’re getting it quite right—about learning to slow down and appreciate life that is sure to resonate with women’s fiction fans.

A Novel

Maybe Next Time

"1952 A woman waits. She does not speak. Her past haunts and she cannot contemplate her future. She is watched over by nuns at a convent in south west France. Mute ever since she turned up at their door in the weeks following the defeat of Germany, her name is Adeline and she has a secret. 1940 Sebastian, a young Jewish businessman living in Limoges, has fallen in love with a local girl. But as the mood in the country darkens it seems their future is threatened. Ten-year-old Tristin and his family leave Paris for the safety of the French countryside. They settle in a quiet village in the unoccupied zone where life appears unaffected by war. Adeline and her family run the small shop on the high street. As the war progresses their stories become entwined. And when a horrifying event rocks their peaceful village nothing will ever be the same ..."

The silent hours

W. F. Howes Limited

An epic, sweeping tale set in wartime France, The Silent Hours follows three people whose lives are bound together, before war tears them apart: Adeline is a mute who takes refuge in a convent, haunted by memories of her past. Sebastien is a young Jewish banker whose love for the beautiful Isabelle will change the course of his life dramatically. Finally there is Tristian, a nine-year-old boy, whose family moves from Paris to settle in a village that is settle in a village, that is seemingly untouched by war.

The Silent Hours

From the author of Maybe Next Time comes a funny and emotional read about a couple struggling in their relationship who accidentally swap bodies on their way to a family wedding weekend. Amy and Flynn have been dating for two years. And they love each other. Don’t they? Only Amy can’t read Flynn’s mind and Flynn can’t read Amy’s. Little do they know this weekend is make or break. Amy’s nervous older sister is getting married at the world’s swankiest wedding venue in rural Devon and is relying on her younger sister to be the perfect Chief Bridesmaid. Frustrations on the way to the wedding escalate until both Amy and Flynn are shouting at each other in a country lane during a thunderstorm. Why can’t they see things from the other’s point of view? When lightning strikes, Flynn and Amy are thrown to the ground, and when they stand back up they realize—they’ve switched bodies. Forced to attend the glamorous wedding weekend as each other is surely an impossible task. With spa mornings, exes, flash mob rehearsals, speeches and more, getting through this swap will test their relationship to breaking point. And when they each discover big secrets in the other’s past—it seems that switching bodies could be the least of their problems. Even if they do manage to swap back—can their relationship survive?

If I Were You

The Last Night

In a quiet coastal village, Irina spends her days restoring furniture, passing the time in peace and hiding away from the world. A family secret, long held and never discussed, casts a dark shadow, and Irina chooses to withdraw into her work. When an antique bureau is sent to her workshop, the owner anonymous, Irina senses a history to the object that makes her uneasy. As Irina begins to investigate the origins of the piece, she unearths the secrets it holds within. Decades earlier in the 1950s, another young woman kept secrets. Her name was Abigail. Over the course of one summer, she fell in love, and dreamed of the future. But Abigail could not know that a catastrophe loomed, and this event would change the course of many lives for ever.

Cesca Major

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