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In this rowdy, frank reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and the bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain. For the last decade, as she's spent countless hours in doctor's waiting rooms searching for diagnoses, treatments, and relief, being the owner and operator of Lena Dunham's body has felt, as she puts it, 'like towing a wrecked car across town at midnight.' It's not easy dragging a wrecked car anywhere, much less to the Met Gala while sewn into a gold lamé corset. Or to the set of the hit show that you - as a twenty-five-year-old - are writing, directing, producing, and starring in. Or to the White House, the Golden Globes, or your publicist's office to discuss the latest internet disaster. But Dunham does it - even if it means interminable hospital stays, vomiting in the bathroom when she's meant to be meeting Oprah, or terrifying those closest to her - because she can no longer tell the difference between fighting to do what she loves and being a servant to her own ambition. All the while, she is holding out for a love that can withstand her personal and public challenges and, more than anything, yearning to feel like herself again - if only she could remember who that self was. As Dunham takes us through her journey, tracking her rise to fame - from selling the pilot of Girls to the present - in three acts, it becomes clear that the spotlight casts long shadows, distorting the relationships she once held dear and isolating everyone in its glare. When an endless supply of drugs can't protect you from pain - and begins to control your every move - being famous doesn't stand a chance against the darker corners of the human experience. In Famesick, Dunham asks herself what the cost of fulfilling her dreams has really been, and whether it was worth it. What she finds is deeper than physical relief, and more lasting, as she learns to live with what she can't change and turn her regrets into wisdom that can carry her forward, as she reconnects to what, and who, she loves.

Princess Tanadelle of the Widdenmar is disillusioned with life as a princess. She longs for real conversation, the chance to build a life of her own making, and uninterrupted reading time. During a routine royal visit to the town of Little Pepperidge, Tandy’s dream comes true when she finds herself cursed to remain in a run-down bookshop until she unlocks her heart’s desire. Certain that someone will figure out how to break the curse eventually, and delighted by the prospect of an entire bookstore of her own, Tandy settles into life among the stacks. She finds it easy to exchange balls and endless state dinners for teetering piles of books and an irritatingly handsome pirate who seems bent on stealing her stock. She even starts to believe she's stumbled into her very own happily ever after. There's just one, minor problem: as Tandy's royal duties go unfulfilled, her frantic parents start sending princes to woo her, each one of them certain their kiss will break the curse. After all, what more could a princess want but a prince?

I was trained to be a pawn, but I will rise as a queen. My life has never been my own. After the death of my parents, I was saved by my grandfather, with the promise that he would turn me over to the Brotherhood on my twenty-first birthday. I was kept away from the outside world so I could one day be sold to the highest bidder—pure and unsullied. Penance for my parents’ alleged crimes. That’s how I come to be sold at an auction. And who buys me but the reclusive billionaire, Lincoln Knight? Some say that he’s a monster, more dangerous than any of the evil men from the Brotherhood. That he wears a mask to cover his scars. But I believe he’s hiding more than just his face behind his mask. My fate is sealed when he takes me to his crumbling mansion deep in the woods. I’m trapped. Entirely at his mercy. I have to escape. But something here isn’t what it seems. Lincoln isn’t what he seems. Maybe he’s not a monster at all. I’m drawn to him in a way that I can’t explain. Until I discover that his secrets go far beyond his mask. He’s everything I’ve been taught to fear, but what if everything I’ve ever known has been a lie?

I mean hey, what's the worst that could happen? Ok fine, the worst that could happen is that I didn't imagine those fangs after all… Squeaky clean good girl Lucy Partridge is a sucker for heartwarming tales and happy endings. So a weekend reporting on the Whitby Goth Weekend is well outside her comfort zone. As is sharing her tiny annexe accommodation with all six feet three inches of bad boy bar owner Liam Bramwell. And that's before she discovers that he's an actual living - or, er, 'undead' - vampire! Logically, Lucy knows she should run the other way, but the reporter in her can tell there's more to Bram than his fangs. It's clearly time for this good girl to take a walk on the dark side, and if that path leads her straight into Bram's muscular tattooed arms? Well, a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do…

'I came to realise my mother was a lioness. She was soft and strong at the same time and had the gentlest of hearts.' - Sean Hepburn Ferrer The deeply personal, official biography of Audrey Hepburn, full of untold stories exclusive photos and cherish memories from her son Sean Hepburn Ferrer, one of the people who knew her best. Audrey Hepburn was many things. She was a child survivor of the Second World War. She was a symbol of timeless style. She played a runaway princess, an eccentric socialite and a nun struggling with her faith. But perhaps her greatest contribution to the world was as a selfless humanitarian in the final years of her life. For Sean Hepburn Ferrer, Audrey was also his mother. In INTIMATE AUDREY, he candidly recounts how the shy 'girl from across the landing' became the star we remember and love today. Featuring never-before-seen photographs and excerpts from her personal letters, this book is an intimate portrait of Audrey: as an icon, as a mother and as an altruist who drew on her own experience of hunger and suffering to advocate fiercely for children in war-torn countries. Audrey shines in this moving portrait of a mother by her son; a visionary woman who continues to defy all expectations decades after her death.

Deluxe slipcased edition of this previously unknown short satirical fantasy by J.R.R. Tolkien edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien, accompanied by illustrations from the author together with an essay, 'The Origin of Bovadium', by Richard Ovenden OBE, and featuring an exclusive foldout colour frontispiece. As Christopher Tolkien notes in his Introduction, The Bovadium Fragments was a 'satirical fantasy' written by his father, which grew out of a planning controversy that erupted in Oxford in the late 1940s, when J.R.R. Tolkien was the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature. Written initially for his own amusement, Tolkien's tale was a private academic jest that poked gentle fun at such things as 'the pomposities of archaeologists' and 'the hideousness of college crockery'. However, it was at the same time expressing a barbed cri de coeur against the inexorable rise of motor transport and 'machine-worship' that was overwhelming the tranquillity of his beloved city. Enriched by a selection of illustrations by the author, and enhanced by Christopher Tolkien's notes and commentary, readers can enjoy at last this tale of an imagined Oxford viewed through the lens of future (and not wholly reliable) academic study. Richard Ovenden's accompanying essay paints a vivid portrait of Oxford during that time. He also provides rich background to the casus belli which led to the furore that Tolkien witnessed first-hand, as the embers of debate between town planners and the university colleges were fanned into flame. Playful, erudite, and ultimately tragically moving, The Bovadium Fragments is like nothing else that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, and its themes remain both provocative and timely. Within its lines may be found a concern for the fragility of our natural world, a love of which that was shared by both father and son. As Christopher Tolkien's final presentation of his father's work, it is therefore perhaps fitting that The Bovadium Fragments should be their coda.

Maybe having a few enemies on the school run means you're doing something right… Florence knows all about failure. After a dismal end to her 2000s girlband career, she's moping around West London, single, broke and unfulfilled. The only things she's proud of are her increasingly elaborate nail art choices - and her ten-year-old son, Dylan. But when Alfie Risby, Dylan's bitter class rival and the child heir to a frozen foods empire, mysteriously vanishes on a school trip, Dylan becomes a prime suspect. Florence has to get her act together, find the missing boy and clear her son's name or risk losing him forever. The only problem? She doesn't have any detective skills, she's not exactly popular at the school gates and she's just found Alfie's backpack hidden under Dylan's bed… All the Other Mothers Hate Me is an irresistibly witty novel about fitting in, starting over and the lengths we'll go to for the people we love.

Take flight to save the secret city in the sky, in the heart-stopping finale to the soaring Starminster trilogy. London Overhead, the secret city hidden in the stars, is the only place where Astrid has ever felt at home. But when the enchantments protecting the city mysteriously start to glitch, everyone who lives there is plunged into danger. As the grown-ups abandon the city, Astrid refuses to give up her wings and go back to her old life on the ground. It's up to Astrid and her friends to save their home, but they'll have to unravel the darkest secrets of London Overhead, before time runs out, and the magic is gone forever …

Jenna Chen has spent her life in the shadow of her flawless cousin. Jessica Chen is so smart she gets the top score on every test. Jessica Chen is so beautiful people stop in the hallway to stare at her. Jessica Chen is so perfect she got into Harvard. And Jenna Chen will only ever be a disappointment. So when Jenna makes a desperate wish to become her cousin, the last thing she expects is for it to come true-literally. All of a sudden she gets to live the life she's always dreamed of . . . but being the model student at cutthroat Havenwood Private Academy isn't quite what she'd imagined. Worse, people seem to be forgetting that someone named Jenna Chen ever existed. But isn't it worth trading it all away-her artistic talent, her childhood home, even the hope of golden boy Aaron Cai loving her back-to be Jessica Chen?

How do you mourn someone you never really knew? Three siblings - Anna, Gemma and Matthew - will have to work that out quickly. Monday is the day of their gentle, but distant, father's funeral, and for the first time in a long while they are under one roof with their mother, imperious Yvonne, awaiting the arrival of their aunt Amy, an award-winning poet. Yet, as the funeral looms, their everyday concerns refuse to diminish: will newly sex-obsessed Gemma work out what she wants from life, beyond her mother's expectations? Can Anna maintain the fine balance between desire and nonchalance with her not-quite-exclusive boyfriend back in London? Will Amy's past explode the relationships of the present? And, crucially, will Yvonne pull off her grand, post-funeral family dinner, the solution to what she fears may be an unsolvable problem? Told from five perspectives, into the wreck worries at the knotty complexities of one family's bonds, written with Susannah Dickey's trademark empathy and wit.

Jenna byla do Damona Wyatta zamilovaná snad odjakživa a v koutku duše doufala, že se jednou s Damonem dají dohromady. Proto ji opravdu bolelo, když ji požádali, aby jako svatební koordinátorka organizovala svatbu právě jemu. Během příprav zjistila, že není všechno tak, jak se zdá… A když se nevěsta nakonec nedostavila a jediná, kdo ji mohl zastoupit, byla právě ona, rozhodla se, že této „náhody“ využije…

Ocitnout se z minuty na minutu na dlažbě, bez peněz a bez střechy nad hlavou, tak si Lizzie budoucnost nepředstavovala. Ještě má však před sebou poslední úkol v roli hospodyně na plný úvazek – ukázat dům italskému milionáři, jeho novému majiteli. „Chci vás políbit,“ řekl Niccolo. Chci, abyste mě políbil,“ odpověděla mu ta neznámá žena. Žádné závazky, žádná očekávání…

Arion si opravdu si myslel, že ta žena je jiná. Úplně jiná, možná dokonce taková, jakou si vysnil. Tím horší to bylo zklamání! Pro Perlu znamenala noc s uhrančivým Řekem příležitost uvědomit si, že život běží dál. Věděla, že si na něj navždy uchová vzpomínku. A že dokáže žít jenom z této vzpomínky. Jenže dokáže to doopravdy?

Hnací silou mladého miliardáře Quinna Sullivana byla touha pomstít předčasnou smrt svého otce, za kterou vinil Earla Murraye, bývalého otcova obchodního společníka. Součástí jeho plánu bylo nejen převzetí Earlovy naftařské společnosti, ale i sňatek s mladší z jeho dvou dcer. Setkání se starší dcerou Kirou však zhatilo všechny jeho plány.

Čí je to chyba? Samozřejmě, že tvoje Jessie, protože ses vždycky bála riskovat! Jessie se tedy rozhodla začít riskovat. Přímo na exkluzivním pařížském maškarním plese, na který se vetřela s ukradenou pozvánkou… Kdo je ta holka v červeném? Renza ta záhadná dívka na maškarním plese zaujala okamžitě. Proto se v ní pokusil vzbudit zájem. A rozhodl se, že bude jeho! Když po čtyřech letech poznal Renzo v Jessii, kuchařce a hospodyni ve svém sídle na Riviéře, tu dívku v červeném, zjistil, že touha nezmizela… ale všechno kromě ní je úplně jinak!

Když jste ředitelka prestižní dívčí soukromé školy – tak jako Beatrice –, čekáte dítě, a jste jaksi bez manžela, těžko se některým nabídkám odolává! Když jste milionář – jako Cesare – a potřebujete umravnit nezvedenou nevlastní sestru, abyste se mohl oženit, můžete si na to najmout toho nejlepšího muže… tedy, pardon, ženu! Jenže pak se ukáže, že se s tou ženou znáte, řekněme více než dobře. A že máte společné tajemství…