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| Earthly Pleasures | Each Way Bet | Eating Peaches |
| Elegance | Emily Ever After | English as a Second Language |
| Everyone Worth Knowing |
Earthly Pleasures - Karen Neches (2008)
Skye Sebring is a hospitality greeter in Heaven - a place where you use a Wishberry to order chocolate or a room makeover and you can watch what's happening on Earth via TV channel Earthly Pleasures. She is far from angelic though - I mean who else would pipe Highway to Hell through the sound system to scare the newly dead? But she is obviously good at her job, as she shows the ropes to thirteen-year-old Chelsea who has died in a skateboarding accident. When Ryan Blaine, a son of a former US president and favourite with Earthly Pleasures viewers, turns up briefly before being revived, she feels drawn to him. His marriage is in trouble because his wife Susan just hasn't been the same since she had a devastating car accident. Even though Skye is one of the few new souls with no wish to live on Earth, she wins the honour and has to attend a class on life's important lessons revealed through the lyrics of five Beatles songs. What will happen when she arrives in her new destination and will she ever see Ryan again? Read this for the heavenly description of life in the hereafter, the mystery surrounding Ryan's wife and a coma victim, and to discover which Beatles songs are the secrets to a happy life. A true pleasure to read - it's a book with real soul and heart-warming spirit.
8/10
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Each Way Bet - Ilsa Evans (2006)
It's the night before Melbourne Cup Day and the Broadhurst sisters, Jill and Emily, decide to trade places with one another. Mother of four Jill, who is thinking of leaving her husband Jack, takes off for some peace and quiet at Emily's apartment while single Emily wants to try out a more action-packed life. And action she gets . . . With their other sister Corinne unable to host her annual race day luncheon, the festivities move to Jill's house but Emily is in charge. From an elusive pregnancy test, a predatory visitor, flying carpet bowls and a swearing three-year-old, can the race that stops a nation get these women back on track?
6/10
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Eating Peaches - Tara Heavey (2004)
Dublin solicitor Elena reluctantly moves to set up an office in Ballyknock, on the promise of her boss Tyrone Power that she will be made partner. She leaves behind boyfriend Paul and moves into a cottage in the middle of nowhere. However she soon realises life in the country isn't as bad as she thought, especially when the local publican has seven handsome sons.
4/10
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Elegance - Kathleen Tessaro (2004)
After suffering the ultimate indignity of being thought pregnant when she's not, Louise Canova discovers an ageing hardback, Elegance, in a second-hand bookshop. She uses this A-Z of style written by French fashion expert Madame Antoine Dariaux to help her transform her appearance. As her old self disappears, her marriage to her actor husband ends. The book helps her deal with a range of events, from a weekend at a country home, to a trip to Ascot and going yachting with a new man. Louise soon discovers that looking the part is only the beginning of acquiring elegance. The novel was inspired by the author's discovery of the Elegance book - the 1960s version of What Not to Wear.
6/10
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Emily Ever After - Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt (2004)
Emily Hilton wants out of her small hometown and she gets the perfect opportunity when she lands a job as an editorial assistant at a New York publisher. She thinks she's found the perfect man in Bennett - he's from a rich family and only dates Christians. But as she struggles over a controversial book and a flirtation with a boy from back home, maybe Emily was better off back where she belonged.
5/10
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English as a Second Language - Megan Crane (2004)
Twenty-six-year-old Alex Brennan was bored in her New York job but not sure what direction her life should take. So when an ex-boyfriend tells her she could never get into graduate school in England, she does just that. Arriving at a northern campus with its hideous architecture and dreary weather, she begins an master's degree in literature - discovering pints and pubs, getting a crush on her hot lecturer and making a strange assortment of friends - and enemies. What she discovers is that instead of running away from home, she may have actually found it.
6/10
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Everyone Worth Knowing - Lauren Weisberger (2005)
When Bette Robinson quits her banking job, her uncle, a social columnist, sets her up as a party planner for one of Manhattan's hottest PR firms. But Bette starts getting lots of publicity herself when she is seen out and about with one of New York's most eligible bachelors, Philip Weston. She gets quickly promoted to organising events. But is a job that pays you to party all that it's cracked up to be?
7/10