The Sunshine Girls is a moving story of love, loss and family by the bestselling author of Falling, Jane Green. It was never easy, being one of Ronni Sunshine's daughters. Publicly, she is the glamorous, successful, dramatic Hollywood actress. Privately, she is self-absorbed, angry, and a disinterested, narcissistic mother. Now in her seventies, Ronni has had strange symptoms for a while, but has refused to believe her diagnosis: she has ALS, a degenerative motor neuron disease. There is no cure. Ronni's three adult daughters - Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy - are largely estranged, both from her, and from each other. All are going through crises of their own. But Ronni is adamant that they must come home, and help her take her own life. As their mother's illness draws them together to confront old jealousies and secret fears, they discover that blood might be thicker than water after all . . .

Life coaching empowers people to make lasting, positive, inspirational change in their working life and life outside work. As such, coaching is a proven highly successful management technique. Many people seek coaches from within their organisation or visit a professional life coach. But many more still feel uncomfortable asking another person to fulfil this role, or don't have access to the right kind of person, with the right kind of time, or simply don't have the disposable income to employ a professional. Imagine the cost effectiveness and convenience of having your life coach on tap 24/7. There whenever you need them. You can - it's you. Based on scientifically validated and tested psychological techniques, this highly practical book will teach you how to make lasting positive, inspirational change in your life. It will help you to identify goals and to reach them. You will learn how to be your own, solution-focussed life coach.

To be successful at work you have to be successful with people. As stress takes an ever bigger toll on people, so the successful organisation is the one that enables its workforce to manage and even harness that stress into productivity and satisfaction. Balance, clear goals and responsibility become more and more important. The bookexamines the challenges that the furious pace of change in today?s world have brought and provides every manager with strategies to facilitate a successful, dynamic, creative, effective workforce. Backed by sound, up-to-the minute psychological theory this book is also highly practical and is packed with validated tools and techniques for enhancing life experience and work performance. This book will equip the reader with usable, effective, proven techniques for improving, communication, collaboration and co-operation at work. It will teach the reader how to become a ?manager coach? and to lead themselves and their team with confidence.

Summer Secrets by Number One bestselling author, Jane Green, is a gripping tale of recovery and redemption. June, 1998. At twenty-seven, Cat Coombs is struggling. She lives in London, works as a journalist, and parties hard. When she discovers the identity of the father she never knew she had, it sends her into a spiral. She makes mistakes that cost her the budding friendship of the only women who have ever welcomed her. And nothing is ever the same after that. June, 2014. Cat's life has come full circle. She wants to make amends to those she has hurt. Her quest takes her to Nantucket, the gorgeous New England island where the women she once called family still live. What Cat doesn't realize is that these women, her real father's daughters, have secrets of their own. As the past collides with the present, Cat must confront the darkest things in her own life and uncover the depths of someone's need for revenge.

This book focuses on education and its relation to professional accountability as viewed from two different, but not unrelated, perspectives. First, the book is about the work of professionals in schools and colleges (teachers, head teachers, leaders, principals, directors and educational managers, etc.) and the detrimental effects which our present system of accountability - and the managerialism which this system creates - have had on education, its practice, its organization, its conduct and its content. It is also about the professional education (the occupational/professional formation and development) of practitioners in communities other than educational ones and how they, too, contend with the effects of this system on their practices. These different perspectives represent two sides of the same problem: that whatever one's metier - whether a teacher, nurse, social worker, community officer, librarian, civil servant, etc - all who now work in institutions designed to serve the public are expected to reorganize their thoughts and practice in accordance with a "performance" management model of accountability which encourages a rigid bureaucracy, one which translates regulation and monitoring procedures, guidelines and advice into inflexible and obligatory compliance. A careful scrutiny of the underlying rationale of this "managerial" model shows how and why it may be expected, paradoxically, to make practices less accountable - and, in the case of education, less educative.

This book focuses on education and its relation to professional accountability as viewed from two different, but not unrelated, perspectives. First, the book is about the work of professionals in schools and colleges (teachers, head teachers, leaders, principals, directors and educational managers, etc.) and the detrimental effects which our present system of accountability -- and the managerialism which this system creates -- have had on education, its practice, its organization, its conduct and its content. It is also about the professional education (the occupational/professional formation and development) of practitioners in communities other than educational ones and how they, too, contend with the effects of this system on their practices. These different perspectives represent two sides of the same problem: that whatever one's m tier -- whether a teacher, nurse, social worker, community officer, librarian, civil servant, etc -- all who now work in institutions designed to serve the public are expected to reorganize their thoughts and practice in accordance with a "performance" management model of accountability which encourages a rigid bureaucracy, one which translates regulation and monitoring procedures, guidelines and advice into inflexible and obligatory compliance. A careful scrutiny of the underlying rationale of this "managerial" model shows how and why it may be expected, paradoxically, to make practices less accountable -- and, in the case of education, less educative.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Electoral Shocks: The Volatile Voter in a Turbulent World offers a novel perspective on British elections, focusing on the role of electoral shocks in the context of increasing electoral volatility. It demonstrates and explains the long-term trend in volatility, how shocks have contributed to the level of electoral volatility, and also which parties have benefited from the ensuing volatility. It follows in the tradition of British Election Study books, providing a comprehensive account of specific election outcomes- the General Elections of 2015 and 2017-and a more general and novel approach to understanding electoral change. The authors examine five electoral shocks that affected the elections of 2015 and 2017: the rise in immigration after 2004, particularly from Eastern Europe; the Global Financial Crisis prior to 2010; the coalition government of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015; the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014; and the European Union Referendum in 2016. The focus on electoral shocks offers an overarching explanation for the volatility in British elections, alongside the long-term trends that have led to this point. It offers a way to understand the rise and fall of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Labour's disappointing 2015 performance and its later unexpected gains, the collapse in support for the Liberal Democrats, the dramatic gains of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2015, and the continuing period of tumultuous politics that has followed the EU referendum and the General Election of 2017. It provides a new way of understanding electoral choice in Britain, and also beyond, and a better understanding of the outcomes of recent elections.

The Sunshine Girls is a moving story of love, loss and family by the bestselling author of Falling, Jane Green.

'Jane Green's best yet. I raced through this' Jojo Moyes, bestselling author of Still Me

It was never easy, being one of Ronni Sunshine’s daughters. Publicly, she is the glamorous, successful, dramatic Hollywood actress. Privately, she is self-absorbed, angry, and a disinterested, narcissistic mother. Now in her seventies, Ronni has had strange symptoms for a while, but has refused to believe her diagnosis: she has ALS, a degenerative motor neuron disease. There is no cure.

Ronni’s three adult daughters – Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy – are largely estranged, both from her, and from each other. All are going through crises of their own. But Ronni is adamant that they must come home, and help her take her own life. As their mother’s illness draws them together to confront old jealousies and secret fears, they discover that blood might be thicker than water after all . . .

*NATIONAL BESTSELLER* A PARADE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK POST BEST BOOK OF THE WEEK In her first novel inspired by a true story, Jane Green re-imagines the life of troubled icon Talitha Getty in this transporting story from a forgotten chapter of the Swinging '60s From afar Talitha's life seemed perfect. In her twenties, and already a famous model and actress, she moved from London to a palace in Marrakesh, with her husband Paul Getty, the famous oil heir. There she presided over a swirling ex-pat scene filled with music, art, free love and a counterculture taking root across the world. When Claire arrives in London from her small town, she never expects to cross paths with a woman as magnetic as Talitha Getty. Yearning for the adventure and independence, she's swept off to Marrakesh, where the two become kindred spirits. But beneath Talitha's glamourous facade lurks a darkness few can understand. As their friendship blossoms and the two grow closer, the realities of Talitha's precarious existence set off a chain of dangerous events that could alter Claire's life forever.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Electoral Shocks: The Volatile Voter in a Turbulent World offers a novel perspective on British elections, focusing on the role of electoral shocks in the context of increasing electoral volatility. It demonstrates and explains the long-term trend in volatility, how shocks have contributed to the level of electoral volatility, and also which parties have benefited from the ensuing volatility. It follows in the tradition of British Election Study books, providing a comprehensive account of specific election outcomes- the General Elections of 2015 and 2017-and a more general and novel approach to understanding electoral change. The authors examine five electoral shocks that affected the elections of 2015 and 2017: the rise in immigration after 2004, particularly from Eastern Europe; the Global Financial Crisis prior to 2010; the coalition government of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015; the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014; and the European Union Referendum in 2016. The focus on electoral shocks offers an overarching explanation for the volatility in British elections, alongside the long-term trends that have led to this point. It offers a way to understand the rise and fall of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Labour's disappointing 2015 performance and its later unexpected gains, the collapse in support for the Liberal Democrats, the dramatic gains of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2015, and the continuing period of tumultuous politics that has followed the EU referendum and the General Election of 2017. It provides a new way of understanding electoral choice in Britain, and also beyond, and a better understanding of the outcomes of recent elections.

Using decades of public opinion data from the US, UK, Australia, Germany and Canada, and distinguishing between three concepts - issue ownership, performance and generalised competence - Green and Jennings show how political parties come to gain or lose 'ownership' of issues, how they are judged on their performance in government across policy issues and how they develop a reputation for competence (or incompetence) over a period in office. Their analysis tracks the major events causing people to re-evaluate party reputations and the costs of governing which cause electorates to punish parties in power. They reveal why, when and how these movements in public opinion matter to elections. The implications are important for long-standing debates about performance and partisanship, and reveal that public opinion about party and governing competence is, to a great extent, the product of major shocks and predictable dynamics.

Using decades of public opinion data from the US, UK, Australia, Germany and Canada, and distinguishing between three concepts - issue ownership, performance and generalised competence - Green and Jennings show how political parties come to gain or lose 'ownership' of issues, how they are judged on their performance in government across policy issues and how they develop a reputation for competence (or incompetence) over a period in office. Their analysis tracks the major events causing people to re-evaluate party reputations and the costs of governing which cause electorates to punish parties in power. They reveal why, when and how these movements in public opinion matter to elections. The implications are important for long-standing debates about performance and partisanship, and reveal that public opinion about party and governing competence is, to a great extent, the product of major shocks and predictable dynamics.

Number one best-seller Jane Green - author of The Love Verb and Spellbound - examines the dynamics of family life and relationships in her novel The Patchwork Marriage. When he asked her to be his wife, he also wanted a mother for his children . . . When Andi marries Ethan she gets a ready-made family in the shape of his daughters Emily and Sophia. Unable to have a child of her own, and crazy in love with Ethan, she has a chance to make the perfect family. But teenager Emily's hostility leaves Andi feeling hated in her own home. And worse, Ethan, blinded by love for his daughter, cannot see that her behaviour is driving a wedge through their marriage. So when Andi and Ethan's world is rocked by an act of recklessness, Andi knows that their whole future is in doubt. Can Andi and Ethan heal the rift in their relationship? Can each of them find enough love to go around? And how strong can a patchwork marriage ever be? 'A heartbreaking tale of love and family, truly compelling' Closer 'Green is women's fiction royalty . . . a compelling family drama' Heat 'A compulsive and moving read' Good Housekeeping Jane Green's internationally best-selling novels, including The Other Woman, Jemima J., Babyville, Girl Friday (published as Dune Road in the USA), Life Swap (Swapping Lives), Spellbound (To Have and to Hold), The Beach House, Second Chance, Straight Talking, Mr. Maybe, and Bookends, are moving and extremely relatable. The Patchwork Marriage is published as Another Piece of My Heart in the USA.

Number one best-seller Jane Green - author of The Beach House and Spellbound - explores changes in relationships when a family member is struck with illness in her heartbreaking novel The Love Verb. Love means being there - through everything. Everyone in Callie's family is busy; her sister is a free-spirited Manhattan chef, her best friend Lila is coping with the vitriol of her new man's ex-wife, and her parents, Walter and Honor, have rich though separate lives. But when Callie discovers the breast cancer she thought she'd beaten has returned, they all find that their lives shift to focus on caring for Callie. 'A beautifully written and intensely sad lesson in what it really means to love someone you know you're going to lose' Daily Telegraph 'Stylish, wickedly insightful . . . family, friends and love is truly, heartwrenchingly tested' Mirror 'A moving account of a family faced with a heartbreaking situation. I defy anyone to get through to the end without crying' Sunday Express Jane Green's internationally best-selling novels, including The Other Woman, Jemima J., Babyville, The Patchwork Marriage (published as Another Piece of My Heart in the USA) Girl Friday (Dune Road), Life Swap (Swapping Lives), Second Chance, Straight Talking, Mr. Maybe, and Bookends, are moving and true to life. The Love Verb is published as Promises to Keep in the USA.

The joyously funny, heartwarming and uplifting novel of two women swapping their lives for a month, from No. 1 bestseller Jane Green 'Compelling, funny, like sitting down with a good friend who is telling you a story' 5***** Reader Review 'One of the best books I have read' 5***** Reader Review 'A fantastic novel! I couldn't help but devour every page' 5***** Reader Review ______ Vicky Townsley, a magazine Features Director, lives in London alone, single, and seriously successful. But she'd give it all up in a heartbeat for marriage, children, and a house in the country. Amber Winslow has exactly what Vicky wants; a huge stone mansion in Highfield Connecticut, children, and a busy charitable commitment for the local Women's League. But Amber isn't happy either. So when she spots a double page spread in Poise! magazine asking married readers to life swap with a glamorous, single journalist in London, she sits down and writes a letter. But she never expected to be picked . . . Life Swap is the story of the grass not being as green as you might think, and of discovering that happiness is not always where you expect it to be. ______ Praise for Jane Green: 'Jane Green writes with such honesty and zing' Sophie Kinsella 'Green is women's fiction royalty' Glamour 'I'm in AWE of Jane Green' Marian Keyes

Ellie and Dan are living proof that opposites attract.;He always follows instructions and she throws the manual away.;He loves sports whereas Ellie's allergic to any form of exercise.;Ellie doesn't have a mother. And Dan does - a mother who wants to take over EVERYTHING.;At first Ellie is thrilled to have Linda as her adopted'mother and to be a part of the close, loving Cooper family. But when she and Dan decide to get married and wedding plans progress, she starts to wonder: is it normal for Linda and Dan to speak on the phone twice a day? How on earth do they come to be having a reception with Chilean bloody seabass and humongous bloody white ribbons tied everywhere when all she wanted was a quiet registry office?;In fact, is she marrying Dan OR HIS MOTHER?;And Ellie's problems have just begun. When she discovers she's pregnant she realises that Linda's only been rehearsing for the real takeover. She seems to want to live her life through Ellie and in the words of the immortal Princess Diana, there are three of them in the marriage

Jemima Jones is overweight. About seven stone overweight.

Treated like a slave by her thin and bitchy flatmates, lorded over at the Kilburn Herald by the beautiful Geraldine (less talented, but better paid), her only consolation is food. What with that and her passion for her charming, sexy colleague Ben, she knows her life needs changing.

But can Jemima reinvent herself? Should she?

A brilliantly funny, honest novel from the author of Straight Talking, about ugly ducklings and swans, about attraction, addiction and the meaning of true love.

Detective Michael, recently discharged from the Metropolitan police starts up a small detective agency to start his life anew. His office though in a small town at the edge of a city, still teams with mystery and crime as any major city would. Animals, de-boned with surgical skill are found abandoned in public places, a man with the bearing of a monster stalks the night carrying a shovel and a med box, then a well paying case lands on Michael's lap, the son of the wealthy Gias family has been murdered, his bones removed, Michael then finds himself hunting for the bone thief, taking him down into the dark world of killers, their madness, their goals. Michael's insight and experience puts him in hot pursuit of the killer, but there is more than meets the eye, what is the med student up to, and their are whispers of a cult, known only as the BRC.