JOSEPH CONNOLLY

His girlfriend commands that he marry her. His wife demands him home in time for tea. His blackmailer commandeers half of his secret earnings. Then he gets hit by a bus. All in all, it's not a good d

The sequel to the bestselling summer things. A summer of lust has given way to the winter of discontent. Brian and Dotty have lost everything and are seeing in the Yuletide from a caravan on their fr

The luxury cruise ship Transylvania takes six days to cross the Atlantic - just enough time for the passengers to find their sea-legs and lose their heads. Whether its husbands pining for their mistresses back on shore, stewards with a raging cabin fever or mothers sweating to outshine their daughters, they transform the Transylvania into a floating purgatory of Pacific proportions. S.O.S. is Joseph Connollys brilliant boat-bound comedy, a novel of holiday-makers and holiday-haters running aground on each others lives and loves. Getting away from it all is hopeless - and hilarious - when youve brought it all on board with you.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE: AS IF THE ROYLE FAMILY WERE WRITTEN BY MARTIN AMISVibrant tragicomic slices of cosmopolitan Englishness Independent on SundayMay well be his masterpiece . . . a rich and compelling drama of lifeDaily MailVirtuosic farce and razor-edged comedy of mannersIndependentJim and Milly. Stan and Jane. Jonathan and Fiona. Winter, 1959. Three married couples: each living in Englands Lane, each with an only child, and each attending to family, and their livelihoods - the ironmonger, the sweetshop and the butcher. Each of them hiding their lies, coping in the only way they know how.He remains essentially a comic novelist, but one whose work has its dark, even sinister side . . . There is no other novelist today who writes quite like ConnollyScotsman

His girlfriend commands that he marry her. His wife demands him home in time for tea. His blackmailer commandeers half of his secret earnings. Then he gets hit by a bus. All in all, its not a good day for Eric. And once hes on crutches, it becomes impossible to juggle two lives, three women and one vicious gangster. Erics double-decker life and triple-tangled lies drive him to a catastrophic collision in Joseph Connollys wry and ingeniously plotted black comedy.

Susan wants another husband. Which comes as a shock to the current one. But not instead of you, Alan, my sugar - as well as. You see?Yet once Susan has brazenly commandeered her bosss rich, elderly hand, Alan finds himself curiously cherishing the company - sharing wife, whisky and other, odder peccadilloes. Indeed Susan is forced to root out alternative amusements - and with their teenage daughter copying her disintegrating moral code, the complex machinery of their lives soon begins to break down. Joseph Connolly plunges the reader into a tumultuous medley of inner monologues with keen, unabashed relish; exposing marital bedroom and male bonding in this biting, excruciatingly funny observation of men, women and adolescent girls.

When Emily, a successful interior designer and utter bitch, has finished throttling her startlingly dim-witted husband Kevin one morning and packed him off for a days labour, she never expects him to achieve anything but the usual myriad incompetencies: let alone seduce a young, attractive woman in Portobello Road. And when shes done screwing her husbands best friend Raymond in his dingy office, little does she know Raymond will be consecutively screwed over by his shrewd, secretly lustful PA with a fusion of blackmail and bankruptcy. Emilys a maelstrom of malice and cares not for the mess she leaves behind. But theres only so far she can push Kevin and Raymond before the storm finally breaks. With vicious flair, Connolly hurtles his cast of thrillingly repulsive characters into a plot of adultery, sadism and revenge, speeding towards a violent climax. This is a world where pretension has the biggest price tag and reason has been stripped, revarnished and hung with a darling, fake chandelier.

London, 1939. Mary and Jack. In love, unmarried and happy. Until the outbreak of the Second World War. Jackie, ever the lad, is bent on escaping conscription, but the contacts he makes drag him ever deeper into a dangerous criminal underworld. Yet it is Mary who undertakes the most surprising transformation. Despite striving for normality, she must confront a set of choices that will lead to a backstreet abortion and an unexpected vocation. With every tone and cadence of this novel, from wireless to air-raid siren, Connolly conducts with masterful hand and compassionate grace the voices of a once hopeful working class couple - now blitzed, battered and breaking into a desperate new dawn.

The moment he spots Maria''s long legs at a party, Jeremy knows he''s done for.The moment she sees that look in his eyes, Maria knows she''s in for a free ride.The moment she twigs Jeremy''s sneaking around, his wife Anne thinks she knows he''s having an affair with Nan - their nanny. And chucks Jeremy out.Like dropping a grenade into a pond, this sets off a ricochet of concentric calamity that changes Jeremy''s life; and those of Anne, Maria, Nan, Max, Hugo and everyone else they know; leaving them in disarray, washed up or exactly where they were before.In razor-sharp comic style, Joseph Connolly sets up his characters like pawns in a devilish chess game, prodding them towards war, conquest, or merely in ever-maddening circles. Lust, manipulation and fear of being alone propel Jeremy in the most inextricable of purgatorial repetitons, until he seems to embody society''s cruellest absurdities about the pointlessness of it all - forever going on.

Quelques mois après les événements survenus l¿été précédent, les personnages de Embrassez qui vous voudrez se retrouvent autour d¿un traditionnel repas de Noël. Cette période de fêtes va se Révéler redoutable pour chacun : péripéties, adultères, drames et histoires d¿amour torrides... pour le pire et le meilleur. Émotion, humour acide et catastrophes en série sont au rendez-vous !

David emmène femme, enfant et maîtresse en croisière sur le Transylvania, un Transatlantique reliant Londres à New York. Ils vont côtoyer Stacy, Jennifer (où l¿on dissocie mal la mère de la fille) et Earl, le fils en peine d¿amour, ainsi qu¿un couple d¿Américains. Un voyage en huis clos d¿une semaine, où les rencontres et les romances inattendues vont bon train... personne ne sortira indemne de cette folle aventure.

Elisabeth se fait offrir par son mari Howard des vacances dans un hôtel chic de la côte anglaise. Dotty, sa voisine londonienne, entend faire de même, mais Brian, son mari, ne peut que louer une Caravane. Autour d¿eux gravitent enfants, mère célibataire, dragueur professionnel, mari jaloux... de quoi réveiller les libidos et provoquer mésaventures et rebondissements.

Pourquoi Anne met-elle à la porte son mari, Jeremy, et Nan, la baby-sitter ? Parce qu'il a passé la nuit dehors. Et qu'il a probablement eu aussi une aventure avec la baby-sitter. Pourquoi Marsha annonce-t-elle à Max que tout est fini entre eux ? Parce qu'elle vient - justement - de passer la nuit avec Jeremy. Pourquoi Susie fait-elle une scène à Jake ? Parce qu'elle l'a trouvé au lit avec Nan (oui, la baby-sitter) et que ça tombe mal. Très mal. Tony, l'ex-petit ami de Nan, a-t-il vraiment braqué une banque ? Et George, le chauffeur du taxi dans lequel il a laissé l'argent, va-t-il donner 5 000 £ à la caissière du supermarché ? Il faut faire quelque chose. Ça ne peut plus durer ! Comme toujours, chez Joseph Connolly, un événement insignifiant provoque une réaction en chaîne. Une ronde infernale commence, que personne ne sait arrêter.

« Une maîtresse femme, cette Emily. Sinon un dragon. Avec elle, pas de familiarités. Elle fait marcher tout son petit monde à la baguette : un mari qu''elle bat, un amant qu''elle méprise, un fils qu

Banlieue de Londres, années 50. La famille Coyle est au bord de l'explosion : le père partage son temps entre un boulot minable, une prostituée, le whisky et le poker ; la mère tente tant bien que mal de faire tourner la maison -, la fille se rebelle contre une éducation religieuse trop rigide -, le fils ne rêve que d'une chose, avoir comme son meilleur copain un poste de télévision. Lorsque l'appareil tant convoité arrive enfin, pour Clifford, le bonheur est total. Mais la catastrophe est proche. Les mésaventures des Coyle, contées tour à tour par les quatre membres de cette famille, sont l'occasion pour Joseph Connolly de mettre en scène les bouleversements de la société anglaise d'après-guerre. Et de passer au vitriol des notions aussi " dépassées " que l'amour, la fidélité, la maternité. Roman au souffle épique et à l'humour grinçant, L'amour est une chose étrange fait entrer Connolly dans la sphère très fermée des grands auteurs anglais.

Blind Faith. We all have it, particularly when we realize we are not in control of circumstances, conditions, people, or, for that matter, threats to our very existence. The thief crucified with Jesus is known as the Penitent Thief or Saint Dismas. He asked Jesus to remember him when He came into his Kingdom. In response, Jesus promised him that he would be with Him in Paradise that very day. So, even a thief facing certain death had the blind faith to ask and trust that his spirit, his very soul unknown to him at the time, would be welcomed into paradise. This book is about blind faith. It is about a man, Peter, who, finds his own faith while facing the challenges of evil to all he has been taught, and to his own life.