DENYSE DEVLIN

Just when she has resigned herself to being alone long-term, Marina Ffrench, a widow in her forties, meets a man and falls in love all over again. A midlife relationship, she thinks, will be straightforward — kids reared, careers established, mortgages almost paid off . . . However, midlife passion carries excess baggage. Luke, her man, may have a gorgeous villa on the Italian Lakes, but he also has a pious and eccentric Irish mammy, an Italian ex-lover who is as invasive as dry rot, and a son embroiled in a suspect engagement. And Marina has to admit that her own life is just as complicated — and getting more so by the day, given the number of stray souls and ghosts from the past that are turning up in her Cork home. Gradually, she and Luke come to see that love second time around is hard work. But in their efforts to find a happy ending for everyone, unwittingly they are creating a disaster that may destroy their shared future and the happiness of both families . . .

Hopscotch is the story of a young woman, Katie, simultaneously in flight and in pursuit - in flight from the love of her life for a mysterious reason, in pursuit of her best friend, who has run away after her husband''s sudden death. The story starts in Cork and moves to Stockholm, Budapest, Transylvania, Bucharest, Istanbul, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, Sydney and the Whitsundays and finally back to Cork, all in the space of a month. And on top of that, the love affair that Kadie is fleeing - told in flashbacks - is set in Croatia. To further complicate matters, Kadie meets another man on her travels - one who represents a different kind of future than the one she had imagined for herself. It is a story of intriguing romantic entanglements and ordinary people dealing with extraordinary events. Hopscotch is an engrossing, moving, entertaining and addictive read.

When Jude is orphaned at fourteen, her father's best friend comes to the rescue. Oliver wants to remain her friend as well as her guardian, but spirited Jude isn't a girl you can shelter from the world - not after she's already suffered so much heartache. And with each passing year, both Jude and Oliver struggle in their own ways against the ties that bind them.