Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

For fans of David Sedaris, Tina Fey and Caitlin Moran comes the new book from Jenny Lawson, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Let's Pretend This Never Happened...
In Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson regaled readers with uproarious stories of her bizarre childhood. In her new book, Furiously Happy, she explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. And terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.
As Jenny says: 'You can't experience pain without also experiencing the baffling and ridiculous moments of being fiercely, unapologetically, intensely and (above all) furiously happy.' It's a philosophy that has - quite literally - saved her life.
Jenny's first book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, was ostensibly about family, but deep down it was about celebrating your own weirdness. Furiously Happy is a book about mental illness, but under the surface it's about embracing joy in fantastic and outrageous ways. And who doesn't need a bit more of that?

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Calling all authors!

I currently have a zombie apocalypse anthology that I am gathering submissions for, so if you'd like to be a part of that, please let me know, I would love to have you! Even if it's your first time writing and you want to have a try, I would encourage you to do so...it could be fun!

Here is a list of upcoming horror anthology themes and submission dates, if they interest you as well. The word count for all of them is 500 - 15,000 words:

Twisted Love Stories - March 31st
Cults - April 30th
Curses - May 31st

If you have any questions or wish to submit, please email me at lockdown@writeme.com. 

Living on Borrowed Time

Full story: https://amzn.to/2FyOKn7

This isn't your ordinary love story...

Lara Rogers isn't supposed to be here. She was supposed to die over a year ago from a long-term illness, yet somehow she managed to make a miracle recovery. The only problem is now she has an endless future stretched out in front of her. One that she wasn't expecting, and one that she has no idea what to do with.

After she got the positive diagnosis, she moved to the big city where she knows no one to become another anonymous face, but this life isn't making her happy. In fact, she's more miserable than ever.

An unexpected night out with a girl that seems to want to be her friend leads to all sorts of new experiences, including one that might even be love...

The only problem is Lara has spent so long not knowing who she is, that she doesn't know how to act around all of these new people, and slowly things become increasingly difficult for her. She begins a negative spiral into self-destructive behaviour, sinking deeper and deeper until she isn't sure that she can ever get out.

I shouldn't be here.

No, not here, in the hot, sweaty kitchen of this rundown diner—although, to be honest, I highly doubt I should be here either.

No, I shouldn't be alive.

I was supposed to die eighteen months ago. That was supposed to be it for me.

I was ill for a very long time, so getting that final diagnosis of six months to go was as relieving as it was devastating. To be honest, my emotions about it were completely mixed. I didn't want to die necessarily—not that I think anyone does really—but I was so sick of the constant round of doctors, hospitals, tubes, pills, sickness...it was exhausting, and the thought of escaping that was something of a relief.

I just wanted an end to it.

Of course, not everyone felt the same. At least, not at first, but once my family and friends got used to the idea that I was dying, that I was going to be relieved of my suffering, they were intent on making my final months amazing, and boy did they succeed! I went travelling, I had parties, I did everything that was on my bucket list—except bungee jumping. I bottled that at the last second. It was fabulous, a real whirlwind of fun and excitement. Of course, there was the odd interruption with my health, but somehow we managed to work past that. Sure, we were all acutely aware of where it was heading but it didn't taint the mood. Not really.

"Lara what are you doing just standing there? I pressed the bell about five minutes ago...these burgers aren't going to take themselves to table twelve." The grumpy head chef, Alfie yelled at me. He didn't care about my internal struggle. He had no idea what it was like to know that you should be dead. All he cared about was getting this disgusting, fatty food out as quickly as possible so he could return home, to his sad middle-aged man 'bachelor pad' to smoke and drink his wages away.

I snatched the plates out of his hand and stalked moodily over to the table, where a couple were sat there smiling intently at each other. This could have been their first date, or they could have been married for years—that wasn't what I noticed. It was the light that was shining in their eyes, as they gazed at one another. Happiness. An emotion I couldn't even begin to understand anymore.

I shoved the food on the table in front of them, asking them if there was anything else they needed in the flat, monotone sound that had somehow become my voice. They didn't even acknowledge my existence, they simply waved me away. I was nothing to them, just as I was nothing to everybody.

I'd been that way for a very long time now.

Once my deadline had passed, and the high started to wear off, I wondered what was happening, why I was still alive. Confused, I took myself to the doctors and after a whole range of invasive tests, they told me something unexpected, something miraculous—that I was actually starting to get better. Against all odds, I was somehow surviving.

I felt numb as he said those words. I know he expected me to celebrate, to be happy with the news that I would get to live longer, but I wasn't. I'd gotten so used to the idea that I was going to die. I'd even adjusted to it, become comfortable with it, that to hear otherwise was utterly overwhelming. I had become so used to living in the moment, not worrying about the future because I was never going to have one, that with a long, black emptiness stretching out in front of me, I felt terrified.

What was I supposed to do? I had no future, no dreams, no plans. I had no idea where I was supposed to go next, how could I? How was I supposed to craft a new beginning out of zilch? It seemed like a ridiculously impossible task, that I couldn't even begin to overcome.

Then again, I still had no prospects, no real education, no interests, no desires...nothing, and I no longer had any excuse for that. A year and a half had passed. There was so much that I could have done with that time, but I hadn't.

I'd done absolutely nothing with it, I'd merely existed.

Every day it hit me how I would have been better off dead. I might as well have died, because since my positive diagnosis I was just living on autopilot, going through the motions aimlessly.

My friends and family couldn't understand how I just seemed empty after I got the good news, and as I continued to improve, to get better, they got more and more frustrated by my increasingly negative attitude. One-by-one they became annoyed by me. I did something to piss all of them off and now, none of them bother with me anymore.

Not that I bother with them either. I feel like too much has passed; there's too much negative water under the bridge to even think about repairing those fractured relationships.

When my mum eventually asked me to move out because I was putting too much pressure on everyone else in the family, I left quickly and got an apartment in the nearby city. I couldn't stay in that little, suffocating town anymore, where everyone knew absolutely everything about me. I had no excuse to remain there anyway; it didn't hold anything for me anymore, except for memories and bad feeling. I desired to be anonymous so I could wallow in my own misery in peace, without anyone trying to cheer me up. I didn't want anyone else to feel responsible for my own happiness, when it was so clear that nothing could be done about it.

So I upped and left, without even glancing backwards.

I got everything that I ever wanted—a tiny, albeit grotty apartment that was just for me, a job in a diner where no one bothers to try and find out more about my life, and no one to speak to. Perfect.

Yet, of course, I still wasn't happy.

"Got much planned over the weekend? You have tomorrow night off, don't you?" Amy, the eighteen-year-old waitress, who was constantly chewing gum and nosing about in other people's business, asked me in her typical over-the-top fashion.

She didn't care about me of course, not at all. To her I was just another loser waitress, but she always tried to rile me up for some reason, and she quickly discovered that my non-social life was a sore point for me. I don't know whether I was just a game to her, if she really wanted to piss me off, or if she just wanted to make herself feel better by commenting on my sad existence. Either way, it drove me crazy.

"I dunno...not really." I kept my eyes fixated on the floor as I spoke, praying that she would take the hint and leave me alone.

"Why are you so boring? You never seem to do anything!" She laughed, genuinely thinking she was joking.

I looked up and smiled blandly at her, hoping that she would assume I took the joke in light humour, but the look she was giving me suggested that she might just be able to see the vulnerable weakling behind the cold exterior mask I gave myself.

The thought of anyone seeing any of the real me filled me with an intense fear that gripped tightly onto my heart, so I instinctively turned away from her, trying to discretely wipe the frustrated tears from my eyes before they fell onto my cheeks.

Idiot! I thought to myself. What the hell are you doing?

Hiding emotion was something I thought I'd become particularly good at, but with one look, Amy—a girl I barely knew—had managed to revert me back into a blubbering mess.

"I'm going out to that new club tomorrow night with a group of friends. Do you...would you maybe want to come?" She asked, with a kindness to her tone that I hadn't ever noticed before.

Pity. It had to be.

Normally, I would have shot her down right away. Even the thought of going to a club filled me with fear—the drinking, the dancing, the socialising...it all felt a little too much for some like me. I'd never really done anything like that before, and it was intimidating as hell. Even at all the parties that had been held for me, I'd avoided alcohol due to the medication, I'd been too tired for dancing, and socialising hadn't been too much of an issue because it was with people I'd known my whole life. Plus, my best friend Daphne had always been there to protect me if things got too much.

Daphne.

I instantly forced myself to shake the image of her from my mind, in the way I always did when she cropped up. Daphne was a no-go now, there was no point in even giving her a seconds thought. I didn't want to upset myself over nothing.

"Sure." I eventually replied, distractedly. I wasn't really thinking about my answer, I just wanted the conversation done, and it was a shortcut way to achieve that.

"Oh..." Amy sounded incredibly shocked—understandably so. "Okay cool. We're meeting up at about eight-ish so..." She looked at me strangely, as if she was wondering what the hell was going through my mind. "I'll see you there I guess."

As she wandered off, a sinking feeling set in. Why the hell had I agreed to that? I didn't want to go out to a club! Keeping my existence simple and straightforward was the only way I managed to get through everyday life. Now, I'd just agreed to something that threatened to send me into an anxiety meltdown, just to shut her up.

I was an idiot!

No, I would have to phone Amy tomorrow with a plausible excuse. I needed to get out of going. Disrupting my routine with something so terrifying could only have negative results. 

Lottie Loves

Full story: http://amzn.to/2gZRGCR

"Will you marry me?"

It's the four words that Lottie has been wanting to hear her entire life-especially from her extremely gorgeous, rock star boyfriend Danny.

But when she hears that he's going to propose, she heads into an emotional tailspin, one that leads her to the past that she wanted to leave behind. She ends up looking backwards, and wondering what might have been...which is a very dangerous question to ask, because it takes her right to her childhood sweetheart, Joe.

Should the past be left exactly where it is, or will Lottie regret it forever if she doesn't explore the path that her life should have taken, if things had gone to plan?

"Will you marry me?"

It was the words that I'd wanted to hear my entire life. Didn't every girl fantasise over the perfect man going to buy the perfect ring and getting down on one knee in the most romantic way possible, before telling them that they loved them so much, they wanted to spend the rest of their life with them?

I knew that I certainly had.

Me and my best friend Cici used to talk about it all the time. We used to plan our dresses, the music, the flowers—every part of the ceremony down to the very last detail. Of course, the man didn't really matter. We were young enough and naive enough to believe that we would magically meet the perfect man without even trying.

And I really thought that I had. I really, truly believed that my dream had come true.

Me and Danny had begun our love story in a very typical fashion—our eyes had met across a bar, where we'd had long, lingering eye contact, sparking all kinds of emotions within me. The only difference between my story, and that of every other rom-com ever, was that Danny was a genuine up-and-coming rock star, playing on a fairly big stage, and I was a fan who already felt a lot of love for this man. I'd been admiring him from afar ever since I first heard their album a year or so before.

I certainly hadn't expected it to ever go any further than that moment, so when he came and joined me at the bar later on for a drink, despite being mobbed by other members of the audience, I felt like my entire life had been leading me up to that moment. I felt like everything that I'd experienced was all drawing me closer to Danny, the love of my life. Here was a gorgeous man who was destined to be famous, and who could have any girl in the world hanging off of his arm, talking to me, asking me questions, and actually showing me interest.

It seemed like a dream—one that I was terrified to wake up from.

As he flicked his messy auburn hair from his warm, chocolaty eyes and he gave me that smile that had already melted the hearts of the nation, I thought for a dreaded, wonderful second that he was going to kiss me in front of all of those people. But after a few beats of pure terror, he didn't. Instead he handed me his phone number, and he asked if I would like to go on a date with him.

Me—boring old Charlotte (Lottie) Jones—on a date with Danny Boreom, bassist of the (now very) famous band Jax. It didn't seem real.

Yet, it was real, and it did happen.

It was the start of my real life.

After a night out on the town where he well and truly wined and dined me, he walked me home to my tiny flat which must have looked ridiculous compared to the mansion that I now know he lived in with the rest of the band at the time, and he finally kissed me. As his lips met mine, I felt myself flying on top of the world—he was an amazing kisser, and there seemed to be an endless chemistry between us. One that I never wanted to end.

Breathless and turned on by the power of his mouth, I invited him inside. Although he coolly and calmly turned me down, it was still the best night of my entire life, made even better by a phone call the next day to say that he only didn't come inside with me because he wanted to be something real. He didn't want our love to end at a one-night stand, he actually wanted us to develop and for him to become my boyfriend.

Fast forward three and a half years and we were blissfully living together, grazing by every day happily and easily. Although he was away for a lot of the year touring, it didn't seem to bother us. We were so strong and so solid with what we had, that nothing would get in our way.

It was perfect, still a dream come true and that intense chemistry hadn't burned down one bit.

Which made it even weirder that my reaction to Cici telling me that Baz—another member of the band—had just told her that he'd been engagement ring shopping with Danny, wasn't one of pure joy.

"What...what do you mean?" I asked, my heart racing frantically in my chest. I could tell that my voice was breathless and kind of terrified, but my mind was spinning too fast for me to be able to do anything about it.

"Aren't you happy?" She giggled, "I thought that you'd be over the moon to finally be Mrs. Boreom."

"No, no, I am," I half lied. The idea had always been at the edge of my thoughts. I knew that Danny was the one for me, and despite all the car crash relationships around us, we'd even managed to survive the fallout of him becoming mega famous. It helped that I had no interest in the spotlight and that I did everything I could to avoid it, but even despite all of that, I felt like it proved that we could go the distance, and be together forever. So why wasn't I excited for us to take the next step? "It's just a bit of a shock, that's all."

But that was normal, right? Everyone freaked out at first when they learned that they were going to become someone's wife...didn't they?

Of course, I already knew that wasn't true. I'd already been proposed to once in my life before, and that time, I didn't hesitate one bit. Panic didn't even come into the equation, I was happy, over the moon at the thought of becoming his wife. This was nothing like that had been. I felt completely different.

For the first time in a very long time, I allowed myself to think about Joe again, and almost the second that I allowed that vault to open in my mind, I felt myself fall into a tailspin. As his face filled my brain once more, it was almost as if the last five years hadn't happened at all, and that I was still his proud girlfriend, waiting to be his wife.

As the wound reopened, I could barely hear what Cici was saying to me. I felt like I was gaping, exposed, and extremely vulnerable all over again, and I did what I'd always done when I was younger, when things got too difficult for me. I started to talk to Joe in my mind.

Where are you now?

What became of you?

What happened to your life?

It was so strange to have gone from the closest people in the world, to absolutely nothing, and I struggled to imagine that he'd changed one bit. Of course I had, my life was completely different, but I couldn't think of Joe without viewing him as the other half of me. The boy that I'd adored, and the one that I never thought would leave my side.

"I...I've got to go," I finally announced to my friend. "I'll speak to you later, okay?" And then I hung up the phone, without even waiting for her to answer. I knew that I was being rude, acting more than a little strange, but I needed some time. I needed to be alone with my thoughts to try and process all of this.

So quite how I found myself sitting at my computer with my fingers running along the keys, I wasn't quite sure.

Don't press anything, I willed myself. As soon as you do, everything will change.

Since we had gone our separate ways, I hadn't contacted Joe once, and with the uprising of social media I hadn't looked him up either. I just couldn't face it. He was like an imaginary fantasy in my mind now, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to ruin that with reality. What if he was married now? Or into drugs or something? His life could have gone in any direction, and I wasn't sure that I really wanted to find out which one.

Plus, my life really was amazing now. Why would I want to even consider risking that? I had a gorgeous, passionate man who actually wanted to be with me forever, even though he was about ten leagues above me, I had a teaching job that I loved, and friends that would do anything for me. That was a hell of a lot more than most people had!

In the end I forced myself to stand up and to move away from the computer screen before it lured me in. I couldn't do it; I just wasn't willing to take that step into the unknown. It terrified me far too much. But as I wandered aimlessly from room to room, I realised that I couldn't just do nothing either. I needed to calm this beast within me, which meant delving into my past whether I liked it or not.

I stood at the bottom of the attic ladder, wondering what awaited me up there. When me and Danny decided to buy a place together—well, he put the most money in of course, but we still classed it as 'ours'—I shoved everything related to my old life away, not wanting to even consider it. But it was always a comfort, knowing that it was there, knowing that I could access it at any moment if I really wanted to.

And I could feel myself finally taking that step.

I creaked up the ladder, feeling my heart thump and my palms sweat with nerves. This was a mistake, I knew it was, but at the same time I couldn't stop.

There would be no way for me to get married without taking this step anyway. Right now, things were comfortable, but if I was ever going to have a future with Danny, I needed to consult my past first. At least, that was my excuse and I was sticking to it.

Danny knew about Joe anyway. Well, he'd been told some of it, the very basics, so I supposed that I was probably going to have to confess all before we finally took the plunge. With that thought in mind, I tore open the first box I stumbled across, and I ended up looking at the few photographs that I had of me and Joe when we were very young, when we very first met...

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
A NATIONAL INDIEBOUND BESTSELLER

From the author of The Guest Room, a powerful story about the ways an entire life can change in one night: A flight attendant wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man - and no idea what happened.

Cassandra Bowden is no stranger to hungover mornings. She's a binge drinker, her job with the airline making it easy to find adventure, and the occasional blackouts seem to be inevitable. She lives with them, and the accompanying self-loathing. When she awakes in a Dubai hotel room, she tries to piece the previous night back together, counting the minutes until she has to catch her crew shuttle to the airport. She quietly slides out of bed, careful not to aggravate her already pounding head, and looks at the man she spent the night with. She sees his dark hair. His utter stillness. And blood, a slick, still wet pool on the crisp white sheets. Afraid to call the police - she's a single woman alone in a hotel room far from home - Cassie begins to lie. She lies as she joins the other flight attendants and pilots in the van. She lies on the way to Paris as she works the first class cabin. She lies to the FBI agents in New York who meet her at the gate. Soon it's too late to come clean-or face the truth about what really happened back in Dubai. Could she have killed him? If not, who did?

Set amid the captivating world of those whose lives unfold at forty thousand feet, The Flight Attendant unveils a spellbinding story of memory, of the giddy pleasures of alcohol and the devastating consequences of addiction, and of murder far from home.

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The Billionaire's Virgin Book One: A Curvy Woman, Alpha Billionaire Romance by Nikki Steele

I let him kiss me, marveling at the emotions zipping through my body. Hesitation, at first, then fear—that somehow, I would get this all wrong. I’d never been kissed like this before—at least, not outside my imagination.

But that warm touch—his hand in my hair, the other sliding under my coat—it melted the fear away. My lips began working back against his. My hands cautiously roamed his body. I pressed against him, just a little, in excitement.

Claire has never been kissed. She hides her curvy figure behind a lab coat and is resigned to the fact that she’ll never meet a man.

But then Austin walks into her life. He’s the rich, powerful, arrogant CEO of the pharmaceutical company she works for—and the most handsome man she’s ever met. When they get locked together for the night, sparks will fly… and by the time morning comes, they’ll both have discovered something neither of them has had before.

The Billionaire's Virgin Book One: First Kiss is a short, steamy romance that follows the relationship between a plus size scientist and her handsome billionaire boss, including a raunchy first time scene which is for adults only.

This is the first book in The Billionaire's Virgin Series by Nikki Steele, the mistress of billionaire romance sagas.

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The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

THE SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From the bestselling author of Richard and Judy pick In A Dark, Dark Wood comes Ruth Ware's new compulsive page-turner.
'Agatha Christie meets The Girl on the Train'
The Sun

This was meant to be the perfect trip. The Northern Lights. A luxury press launch on a boutique cruise ship.
A chance for travel journalist Lo Blacklock to recover from a traumatic break-in that has left her on the verge of collapse.
Except things don't go as planned.
Woken in the night by screams, Lo rushes to her window to see a body thrown overboard from the next door cabin. But the records show that no-one ever checked into that cabin, and no passengers are missing from the boat.
Exhausted and emotional, Lo has to face the fact that she may have made a mistake – either that, or she is now trapped on a boat with a murderer...
'Agatha Christie meets The Girl on the Train in this stupendously good read… Scary and unsettling, it’s' edge-of-your-seat stuff' The Sun
'A rollicking page-turner that reads like Agatha Christie got together with Paula Hawkins to crowdsource a really fun thriller' Stylist

'A tense, moody drama set on a press trip that goes horribly wrong… Ware has produced a fantastic variation on the woman-in-peril theme, with a plucky protagonist and a brilliantly claustrophobic setting' Sunday Times
Now available for pre-order: Ruth Ware’s brand new psychological thriller, The Death of Mrs Westaway. Coming June 2018.

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