If you've ever wanted to try your hand at fiction, started a novel or short story, or completed a manuscript - but think it lacks a certain something, this is the book for you. 'How To Write Fiction Without The Fuss' takes you through all aspects of the craft of fiction writing and gives you a clear understanding of the fundamentals, along with tools and tips to enhance your writing skills. This easy-to-read handbook for creative writers will teach you how to: * Structure a classic plotline to keep your readers gripped * Create believable characters with original voices * Use settings and themes to give your story depth * Understand your genre and integrate your research * Write like a professional and lose the amateurish gaffes * Edit and format your manuscript to attract agents and publishers

Mo Mozart has struggled as a single mother to bring up her first two children. Now they've flown the nest, she's concentrating on maintaining a career while being a good wife to her second, younger husband, Jack, and mother to their little daughter. Mo feels she's at last getting the balance of her life right. Until, that is, Jack's twin sister asks her to help trace their birth mother. The search triggers turmoil in Mo's life: Jack becomes involved with someone else and an old vagrant woman unleashes apparently supernatural encounters. Blood and Water is the first Mo Mozart book; the second is Kindred Spirits "This easy-to-read novel belies its complex content and clever plotting that serves as a framework for an intriguing human interest story...it works as social commentary on the minestrone soup that family life is today and the women holding it together. I loved Mo's ruminations on how sex education, even private education, affects teenage pregnancies and also the adoption angle of the plot. I loved the group of female friends who are sometimes bitchy, but mostly very supportive of each other's complex lives. It becomes a page turner as you follow Mo's determination to find out the truth in several plot strands." Cate Sweeney, author, Selfish Jean

Mo Mozart, with her GP husband Jack and two young children, moves from Crystal Palace to rural Norfolk in pursuit of the perfectly balanced lifestyle. Their idyllic farmhouse, though, holds dark family secrets that date back decades - to when Dottie Hammond moved from London to become a World War Two Land Girl on a farm surrounded by Norfolk's RAF/USA Airbases. Mo's happy country life starts to unravel when Jack is accused of abusing a young patient and her daughter, Lily, develops an imaginary friend from the 1940s. With help from both town and country friends, experiences of past and present and Dottie's wartime diary, Mo exposes the unresolved events that have haunted the village of Great Haddeston for seventy years. In the process she sorts out complex family issues that revolve around Jack's adoption and his glamorous birth mother. Kindred Spirits is the second Mo Mozart book; the first is Blood and Water. "Hugely impressed by Lucy McCarraher's prose, and by the diligence and erudition of both the plotting and research. There's a strong sense throughout of a writer who has truly engaged with her characters and with the period. It was a pleasure to re-enter Mo's world - she's a very sympathetic character." Will Atkins, Macmillan New Writing

Mr Mikey is middle-aged, gay - and sick of being a hairdresser. He married his Aussie lover's sister to gain legal residency Down Under, but then lover Bryan died and wife Dolly got knocked up on a one night stand - leaving him a gay, but far from merry, widow with a wife and child to support. His Ladies, clients of his boutique Sydney salon, sustain him with their friendship and confidences, though sometimes the salacious details of their sex lives are almost more than his refined sensibilities can take. But as he listens to their tales of love and loss, pain and pleasure, Mr Mikey decides to weave them into a musical masterpiece - his escape route to fame and fortune. "A truly remarkable, brilliantly written book. Everyone should read it, whether or not they approve!" Jo Holloway, Sunpenny Publishing "Written with her usual fluency and panache: very funny in parts, very sexy in others...a very entertaining book." Mike Barnard, Macmillan "This is great fun - very Mama Mia! Gloriously camp in places and most entertaining with its idiosyncrasies and sheer originality." Maxine Hitchcock, Harper Collins "This reminded me just how stylish - and funny - a writer Lucy McCarraher is. It did make me laugh. I liked the clarity of the voice, the humour, the setting." Will Atkins, Macmillan New Writing

You can't get rich and happy just by sending out positive vibes, but you can...* Learn Happiness Habits from Positive Psychology * Tame your Fear with Cutting Edge Neuroscience * Control your Time and Money like an Entrepreneur * Build Better Relationships through one Tested Technique THE REAL SECRET takes the best of what really works to raise your levels of happiness, satisfaction and success. Lucy McCarraher and Annabel Shaw debunk the empty promises of many recent self help books with their simple, sensible approach to real life fulfilment. Annabel is a social psy-chologist and radiotherapist; Lucy is a work-life balance expert, writer and coach. They have combined their personal and professional experience with research from positive and social psychology, the latest neuroscience and therapeutic techniques to create a transformative 12-step programme. Following THE REAL SECRET's scientifically supported model really can raise your happiness set point and bring your life under control.