Kirjahaku

At seventeen, Lucy Tan was offered the lead in the school musical Queen of the May. She turned it down in favour of working on set design with her beloved teacher, August Herron. Later, she wishes she hadn't. As she grows older, Lucy realises her life calls for a lot of compromises. She works at her dream job, but since that means being off the grid and unavailable for half of every year, sustaining a romance is difficult. Catch and release is her solution, but that's a compromise, too. What she needs is a man she can put in cold storage...or maybe one with an off switch.She doesn't find one like that, but she does find Paris, who is sexy, gorgeous and devoted to her pleasure. She can't exactly take him home to meet her parents, though. For one thing, he lives in fairyland, where he spends most of his time attending to the needs of lonely women. For another, he has a weird aversion to wearing clothes.But Lucy is determined. This is her life, and this time, she's going to play the leading role.

Lili and Chiara never miss a rostered shift at their aunt's caf . When Yannick makes them an offer they don't want to refuse, they have to make a choice. Trusting their future to a grumpy baker and a Christmas wish is risky, but sharing is their style. Why change that now?Lili and Chiara love their jobs at Fee Kaffee, but after the peach schnapps and poteen incident sets off a family row, their home life feels increasingly restrictive. When Irish Toby tosses them charmed apples, they decide to make a Christmas wish. The caf offers a venue, but their apples have vanished. It seems they're not the only ones using Fee Kaffee for a little Christmas magic.Yannick has worked for Martina Bless for three years. He likes the job, but Martina's twin nieces constantly distract him. In an effort to get them off his mind, he makes a charmed cake meant to attract his heart's desire. He's just added two spare apples to his recipe when he hears someone in the caf .The twins need men, and Yannick needs a woman. It might be a match made in heaven, but there are two of them and only one of him. The three of them go to Yannick's house to thrash the matter out. Once they find their solution, everything is fine...maybe.Meanwhile, at the caf , Martina faces the post-Christmas rush with a staff gone suddenly AWOL. The only clue she has is a napkin with a two-word message saying Just Eloped.

Martina's caf staff have gone missing. Dequan's mystery Christmas holiday is far too full of homicidal geese. Martina offers Dequan sanctuary-and nights in her feather bed. Time flies, geese are a laying, and the time for Christmas magic is nearly over.After Christmas, Martina wakes to a world of trouble. How can she run her caf when her staff is MIA? Who is that handsome gooseman at the market? Why does he crash her caf with six geese? Gott im Himmel Where is the gentleman lover of her dreams?The staff have left a message on a Christmas napkin. If it means what Martina fears, a family row is brewing.Dequan's plans to spend Christmas with his cousin are thwarted when Lucy gets a better offer. Now he's at a fairy-tale B&B.The people seem nice but peculiar. Six geese seem-oddly homicidal. Are they really chasing Dequan, or is it his Christmas feather they're after? What's with all the eggs? Then, at the market, he sees the fr ulein of his dreams.After taking refuge in Fee Kaffee, Dequan fills in for Martina's missing staff, but the geese are still on his case and laying eggs.Martina has a feather bed that's big enough for two. Dequan's mystery holiday takes a delicious turn-until the geese, the caf staff and his phone bring reality crashing in. It's such a mess, and Martina needs a holiday.

Tamzin finally has her life where she wants it. She's betrothed, and a satisfying and exciting future beckons, but first she needs to face the two people whose actions have caused so much complication in her life. Her parents-whoever they are.Tamzin has found some answers to her strange and complicated life. Confronting her parents, the architects of her problems, was never going to be easy, but she has finally cornered them in a cafe. The answers, when they come, are shocking, but Tamzin can now move on with her life, marry Matin Campania, and work with him on a new and challenging venture.Meanwhile, Nelis Winter and Xavier Partridge are also getting married after a year of romance and planning. Things are going their way, but they can't give their friend Lucy an answer to the question of what happened to her cousin Dequan's first girlfriend who vanished back in 2009. Nelis makes a wish to help Lucy with her puzzle, but she has no idea if it will work. Anyway, her own future is more enticing than trying to solve a decade-old mystery.Tamzin, now in possession of her old memories and happily married to the love of her life, has let go of her obsession with Dequan, but Matin is convinced she will meet him again and make a belated explanation for her abrupt disappearance from his life.Tamzin can't see how this will ever happen, but her life is already stranger than any fairy tale, and in the end she accepts that Matin is usually right. She leaves the matter in the lap of fate, but fate hasn't finished its games with Tamzin yet

Queenie had no idea why she suffered from the Caledonian Curse at Halloween. Maybe a move to a charming, remodelled church would help. Then she met the Fixer...Since her parents became grey nomads, Queenie Hart was just about alone in the world. Her strange obsession with all things Scottish in the weeks before Halloween was ruining her life. While in the grip of the Caledonian Curse, she insulted people and spent money she couldn't afford on bagpipe serenades. She turned down a date with her perfect man, angered her employers, and pushed her landlady into giving her notice. She, and her little baking business Queen of Tarts, would soon be homeless.Queenie's luck changed when her dad's odd cousin found her a rent-free home for three months. The Belfry was a converted church, and Queenie was soon embroiled with the attractive but married landlord, and a man she knew as the Fixer. The Fixer helped her whenever she needed... but Halloween was coming, Caledonia was calling, and it was so the wrong time be starting on a new romance.

Queenie's new life is full of complications. Is three months in a converted church enough time to sort herself out? Her romance with Mitch is a mess, James has turned up again, and now there are bats in the belfry Queenie knew starting a new romance in late September was a bad idea, but without Mitch Kingsolver, her fledgeling business, Queen of Tarts, would never have been so successful. When October comes, Queenie's life is swallowed up in what she knows as the Caledonian Curse, when a cranky Scotswoman persona takes her over all the way to Halloween. Hiding away is the only way Queenie knows to deal with the Curse, but she had hoped Mitch would support her. Instead, Mitch has vanished, and Queenie has to deal with a not-quite-stranger. When she first met James Stuart, she thought he was her ideal man, but James and Mitch are inextricably entwined. It's up to Queenie, burdened as she is, to get James to the Halloween Ball and hope she can unravel the mess. Dressed as the Queen of Tarts, Queenie has just one chance to make it work for them all.

After a performance career spanning half a century, Tiny Pippin Pearmain is settled in a good routine, living in a fairy-tale cottage with the original cat and the back-up, and working on her bucket list. A chance reminder of her past might drag her out of the fantasy... or push her farther in.Eccentricity is Pippin Pearmain's lifelong stock-in-trade. She used to be a niche-market performer, but at sixty-six, she hasn't worked in a decade. That doesn't matter to Pip. She has her cosy life at Lemonwood Cottage, an interesting friendship with Mister Clancy next door, walks on the beach and occasional stoushes with the officious and the annoying. She enjoys her regular ballet practice and her daily battle with the bad-tempered lemon tree in the garden.Pip has two cat companions, and if they choose to communicate with her in Cat-Morse about things no cat should be concerned with, well-no one else needs to know. Above all, she has her green-penned bucket list. That is unique.An impulsive trip to her old hometown stirs memories for Pip when she meets her cousins Juniper and Lupin at the Delmsford Flower Show. Over a nostalgic afternoon tea provided by the Lilac Ladies in their retro-pinnies, Pip shares a long-held secret with her cousins and is given their secrets in return. Jan's secret is fun. Lupin's secret will be turning Pip's life upside down... but not quite yet.First, she has to negotiate the flower show... shuffle her place in the family pack and accept the unexpected gift of Lupin's cat.

Until a couple of months ago, Tiny Pippin Pearmain lived a quiet life with two cats in Jellico Bay. Now Cousin Lupin is dead, Cousin Jan is grieving, and Pip's calm is soon to be doubly disrupted. A new film part is on offer, but before she considers that, she has to deal with Lupin's legacy.Pip hasn't worked in a decade when her new agent calls unexpectedly. A movie role is on offer, and Magda Quest Saxer wants an answer in less than a week. She gives Pip an implied ultimatum. Take it and fly to Sydney for a screen test. Turn it down it and never work again. With no one else to advise her, Pip consults the cats. Kittisack and Amberjill are probably real. Lupin's cat is made of pottery. All of them think she ought to take the role.This disruption is bad enough, but Cousin Lupin's legacy is confusing. Pip risks a call to ask what it's all about, and within the hour she's off on a magical mystery tour on a yacht crewed by people she doesn't know.It's bewildering stuff, especially when one of the crew goes missing and the other two don't seem to care. Pip cares, but dialling triple zero has its complications when someone nearby can make the phone jump right out of her hand.

Tiny Pippin Pearmain got the shock of her life when the handsome Tane jumped overboard from the yacht Tulpenmanie with her in his arms. After not drowning, she discovered the shocks were only just beginning.Pippin Pearmain has a screen test-the first in several years. Before flying to Sydney to meet her new agent, the director, and the rest of the cast of Half-Life of the Lost, she cashes in the mystery holiday voucher that was a gift from her recently deceased Cousin Lupin. Sailing on the yacht Tulpenmanie was fun... until one of the crewmen went missing. That was bad, but now he's turned up and jumped into the sea with Pip in his arms.Well... she did agree to meet his family Skinny dipping under a waterfall, swimming into a cave, dancing on the chalk and meeting an extended family takes Pip's mind off the impending return to film work, but even holidays in fairyland have to end. Pip knows she needs to be back at Lemonwood Cottage in time to take her agent's call. She has to organise a sitter for the cats who seemed curiously willing to let her go and leave them with a stranger.Pippin Pearmain has led an interesting life, but it had been winding down. Now, at the age of sixty-six, that life has gone utterly nuts.She wouldn't change that for the world.

Pippin Pearmain was back from her Experience over there in the place she thought of as fairyland. The lull in excitement was short-lived, because she was due at a film studio for a screen test. Two days at the guesthouse brought new acquaintances, a reunion with her friend, Jane, and an extraordinary offer from a part-time spaniel.Pippin Pearmain leaves her beloved Lemonwood Cottage in the care of the cats and Cousin Clarkia while she flies to Sydney for her first screen test in decades. A new role, a new agent and a new challenge await, but Pip is sixty-six and she's not sure a comeback is what she wants. Behind her lies a comfortable but eccentric life of performing in offbeat roles, and a decade of living alone. She's short of family and friends, but she has the surprisingly conversational cats, the cottage, and her memories. She has her bucket list and plans for an interesting personal project involving an album and decoupage. Is that enough? Or should she jump feet-first into her new role and see where a comeback takes her?Pip's few days in Sydney teem with new possibilities, none of which involve decoupage. Mind you, she'll get to that sometime, once she's sorted out two ballets, a film, and a festival.

Pip had been away from the acting world for over a decade, and her quiet life in Jellico Bay ill-prepared her for a festival disconcertingly full of fairies. Filming Half-Life of the Lost while working on her ballet, Delphine, raised challenges and brought her into contact with a very old friend.Fresh from her magical holiday at the fossmere and her first screen test in over a decade, Pippin Pearmain travels from Sydney to Delphinium Island to attend a dance festival and to appear in an indie film. From her arrival at the festival it's all go, dancing to new tunes, meeting the other performers, and taking a chance to have her ballet, Delphine, workshopped with a real dance troupe. Filming the first scenes of Half-Life of the Lost is another challenge, as Pip has to perform unscripted.While indulging in a bit of peace in a supposedly empty barn, Pip unexpectedly encounters someone she knew many years ago. Their connection dates from their shared love of the book Grandmother's Sunshine, the mysterious family treasure that even the knowledgeable Jonquil from The Orange Grove bookshop believes does not exist. Pip has a new dilemma. Is a treasure shared a treasure diminished?

A death in the family shook the foundations of Pippin Pearmain's life. Filming Half-Life of the Lost while working on her ballet, Delphine, raised extra challenges but Pip had her lists... and they would never let her down.Pippin Pearmain is filming a part in an indie film while also attending a music festival and working on her ballet, Delphine. Mysteries surround her, but she hasn't much time to sort them out. She has the offer of a puppy, a reunion with an old friend, a new agent to deal with, and a new plan for a family heirloom. With all this going on, she still has to consider her dwindling family, her very strange cats, and what, if anything, is going to change in her future.A few weeks ago, her cottage, the cats, and her bucket list were enough. Now she's making a comeback, but where will it take her? She can go home to her reclusive existence, but there's so much more to life than wrestling with cranky lemon trees. Pip thinks she might be up to it, but what if she's wrong? Yet... not so long ago she went overboard from the yacht Tulpenmanie. She survived the Experience and thrived in the aftermath, so maybe the challenges ahead will be navigable after all.

Pippin Pearmain's busy year wasn't over yet. She demonstrated her small ballet, Queen of the Clowder, then she encountered trolls, a cake called Clouds of Heaven, and got her hands on a new dress and the ultimate bucket. Could life be better?Pippin Pearmain has traded her placid existence in Lemonwood Cottage for a flurry of activity. There's a ballet to demonstrate, and a crowded visit to Sydney where she makes an agreement with a man who can turn into a dog. She facilitates a proposal and fossicks on the beach for a special gift for her oldest friend. Her newest friend is on the horizon, and a book from the past will soon be making a comeback.The decade-long lull in Pip's life ended when she reconnected with her cousins, only to lose Cousin Lupin all over again. Since then, Lupin's legacy continues to bring forth wonders.Her lack of family still troubles her, but now there is a way to leave a legacy for the future anyway. A return to Delphinium Island brings reunions all over again. Mysteries abound, and some of them will slowly unwind to reveal a story that's been generations in the making.Pip learns that not every question has a clear answer for now. Maybe that's a good thing. As Pip herself says, everyone should have some magic and mystery in their lives.