Gil McNeil – författare

Newly divorced and struggling to find a way to support her three boys, Molly Taylor is stunned when she inherits Harrington Hall, her late aunt''s beloved yet dilapidated bed and breakfast. But does she really want to take over a three-hundred-year-old manor house on the Devon coast where the only thing that doesn''t need urgent attention is the beautiful rose garden?Once she gets over the initial shock, Molly is ready dive right in, but the universe has other plans: she must first overcome the needs of her eccentric uncle (and his pet parrot), the ambitions of her conniving brother, and the disquiet of her three sons. Not to mention an unexpected chance at new love. Nothing is going according to plan - and then Harrington begins to work its magic and the roses start to bloom . . . Charming, uplifting and highly entertaining, A Good Year for the Roses is a story for anyone who has ever dreamed of starting over. Wonderfully warm and witty, it will have you smiling until you turn the very last page.

Life just keeps getting more complicated for Annie Baker. Her sister Lizzie''s pregnant and wants Annie to be her birth-partner - she''s planning an active labour, in water, with lots of candles and music. Her partner Matt isn''t too sure, although he''s bought some new swimming trunks just in case. Annie''s friend Leila has got a new man, Tor, and she''s getting heavily into yoga, while Kate from the village has somehow ended up having an affair with her own ex-husband.

And as for the men in Annie''s own life, it just gets worse. Her seven-year-old son Charlie is now officially Pagan, and desperate for his own pet pheasant. Boss Barney is building a bit of a reputation for TV commercials involving stunts, so if she''s not lurching around the North Sea in a trawler, she''s stuck up a crane. Then there''s Uncle Monty to keep an eye on, a retired mole-catcher who collects bric-a-brac. He''s eighty-three and a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and has just threatened the Meals on Wheels lady with a shotgun and refuses to leave the farm where he''s lived all his life. And as if all that wasn''t difficult enough, Mack comes back from New York, just when Annie was beginning to think she might be able to cope without him ...

For everyone who fell in love with Annie Baker and her Only Boy for Me, here''s what happened next. And for anyone who''s ever wondered how to combine motherhood, the country life and a career in town, and why pheasants make that weird clicking noise, this is essential reading.

Is it better to forgive and forget, or should you just get even?  Is it possible to live in the country and not lose your mind completely?  Do chickens really make good pets? And what exactly is a hardy perennial?

Alice Mayhew, part-time architect and full-time mother to Alfie, is to gardening what Alan Titchmarsh is to deep-sea fishing. So finding she''s been volunteered to design a new garden for the village comes as a bit of a shock, because apart from anything else she''s far too busy trying to convince Alfie that wearing green trousers doesn''t make you Peter Pan, and that flying is best left to the experts. Molly O''Brien is finding it hard enough coping with Lily (aged four and likes washing up) and Matt (aged thirty two and doesn''t) before she discovers she''s pregnant. And then there''s Lola Barker, who causes havoc wherever she goes, and brings a whole new meaning to the word high-maintenance.

Toddlers, jelly, bad behaviour, romance and gardening tips all loom large in Gil McNeil''s hilarious and heartbreaking new novel. Stand By Your Man turns prejudices and assumptions upside down with humour and passion, telling it like it really is. Sometimes it''s hard to be a woman...