PRICKLY COMPANY
Life can get a little prickly…
Frances Mathews doesn’t get out much since her husband died, but that doesn’t stop her from jump-starting a campaign to create a hedgehog highway in Hilltop Place—feeding stations, holes at the bottoms of gates and fences, and wild garden areas for hibernation. To Frances’s delight, her neighbours are on board. Mostly.
There are Jess and Michael, whose marriage is cracking under the unanticipated strain of a recent adoption. And Ryan, a wounded war reporter struggling to connect with his son after a divorce and forced to return to an exasperating parental fold. Plus, a very forthright single mum new to the neighbourhood and an exceedingly proper couple not about to upend their picture-perfect garden for prickly nuisances.
As relationships—from the romantic to the nerve-racking—form and secrets are unearthed, Hilltop Place is threatened in ways that affect them all…unaware hedgehogs included. What Frances and her charitable neighbours soon discover about themselves and each other is hardly what any of them expected.
What people are saying:
“Prickly Company has it all: romance, suspense, intrigue, and a community of quirky characters all learning to help each other. As a bonus, there are lots of lovable, prickly hedgehogs that will have you rethinking your landscaping situation. I loved every page of this book!” —Maddie Dawson, bestselling author of Matchmaking for Beginners
“Bursting with witty dialogue and plenty of hilarious moments, Prickly Company will enchant readers from the first page. I adored every quirky character and felt like part of the neighborhood by the end of this smart, funny, and charming novel.” —Kerry Lonsdale, Wall Street Journal bestselling author
“Prickly Company is such an absorbing read, featuring a tangle of fascinating characters and a hedgehog’s-eye-view of the multitudes of things that can go very wrong—and very right—when they begin to cross each other’s paths. Johnson's writing is warm and earthy and the inhabitants of Hilltop Place—human and hedgehog—will stay with me for quite some time.” —Suzy Krause, author of Sorry I Missed You
FIVE WINTERS
Five Winters. Two dreams. One determined woman.
Ever since Beth Bailey was a girl, she’s been in love with her best friend’s older brother, Mark. She’s held out hope ever since that maybe, someday, he’d love her back. But now Beth is thirty-five years old, and on the day of Mark’s wedding to another woman, she finally accepts the wake-up call she needs to move on.
Beth’s dream of marrying her first love may be over, but her biggest dream is still within reach: becoming a mother. Having lost her own parents very young, there’s nothing Beth wants more in life, and nothing she’ll stop at to make it come true.
Over the course of five winters, and with unexpected twists along the way, Beth will come to startling realizations about family, friendship, the meaning of love, and most importantly, herself, on the winding path to happiness and, she hopes, to motherhood.
Winner of the Star Award 2024, awarded by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.
What people are saying:
“Kitty Johnson’s Five Winters features such a warm, relatable protagonist in Beth and is a wonderful story about finding yourself—and love, of course! I very much enjoyed this read.” —Emily Stone, author of Always in December
“This book is such a tonic. Entertaining characters, a heartwarming story line, and an ending guaranteed to make you smile.” —Imogen Clark, bestselling author of Impossible to Forget
“Told in a fresh and original voice, Five Winters is a moving and hopeful study of one woman’s quest for love and motherhood. Readers will adore Beth and cheer for her all the way. Kitty Johnson’s book follows the tradition of all the best Christmas books: it gives you that warm feeling that, if you try hard enough, you can make all your dreams come true.” —Anita Hughes, author of A Magical New York Christmas
Writing as Margaret K Johnson
THE GODDESS WORKSHOP
Four very different women are on a bumpy ride to find sensuality in this funny, moving story about second chances.
When Janet and her friend Gwen sign up for a workshop in the local church hall promising “a garden of earthly delights,” they’re expecting horticulture lessons—not a sexy boudoir with leopard print and a giant illustration from the Kama Sutra. Gwen storms out, expecting Janet to follow. But Janet’s had enough of bossy Gwen—and of using sex with her husband as an opportunity to plan dinner and work out knitting patterns. If she learns to scale the sensual heights her mysterious and charismatic tutor, Jade Gate, is describing, it’ll give her marriage the new lease on life it so badly needs. And maybe she’ll make some new friends along the way.
It's just too bad the other workshop participants have their own agendas. Estelle’s a high-powered company director who only cares about adding sensual pleasure to her list of accomplishments so she can quit faking it with her married lover. Reenie’s at the class because her husband of four decades, who’s become more of a roommate than a bed mate, suggested it. Trouble is, Reenie’s still grieving for her son, and she’d rather wear carpet slippers than risqué lingerie. As for Kate, she’s still fizzing with anger following her divorce from her cheating ex-husband and is only taking the course because she lost a drunken bet with her drinking buddy, Geoff.
To locate their “inner goddesses,” Jade expects the women to speak frankly about their sexual relationships—but their differences and defensiveness stand in the way of true connection. Yet Jade’s just persuasive enough to keep them showing up to class, and the four slowly begin to open up to each other. But just when fulfilment and friendship feel like real possibilities, their personal lives—and the outraged vicar’s discovery of what’s really going on in his church hall—puts their futures in jeopardy. With reality calling, can the women harness their newfound confidence to face up to personal challenges and move forward on their own terms?
THE DARE CLUB
Four newly single people are on a mission to scare themselves into forgetting their problems. But will it work?
When Nick, Colette, Alysha, and Emma meet at a course to help newly separated people deal with a break up, they don’t seem to have much in common apart from their relationship statuses. Single-parent Nick’s been struggling to take care of his kids ever since his wife packed her bags and headed off to Australia to ‘find herself.’ Primary school teacher Colette’s still dealing with the health problems that caused her selfish husband to walk out on her. And 22-year-old Aleysha’s in denial that her seven-month marriage to Matt is really over at all—after a little taste of freedom, surely he’ll come running back. Meanwhile, although she’s hesitant to admit it to the others, youthful grandmother Emma has just dumped her perfectly kind, reliable partner because she was bored out of her mind. Her daughter thinks she’s crazy. In the middle of the night, when she feels most alone, Emma’s inclined to agree.
As far as friendships go, it's not a very promising beginning. But as the weeks pass, the unlikely foursome begin to bond—by feeling foolish during course role-play sessions and resisting their tutors’ request that they analyse what went wrong in their relationships. When Colette’s suggests that they form a dare club, it seems like a good idea. If they challenge their comfort zones and do things they find scary—like gate-crashing parties or completing a tree-top assault course— it’s bound to help them to forget about their troubles, isn’t it? At the very least, they’ll have some fun, and who knows … it might just change their lives forever.
But as the four plunge themselves into their challenges (with varying levels of success), they haven’t taken into account how their growth will affect those closest to them … or that it’s possible for friendships to deepen into something more. And that, sometimes, telling someone how you feel about them, can be the scariest thing of all.
PERFECT RESPONSES
How do you respond when things go wrong?
If you’re anything like Janet, Debbie or Kate, then maybe you panic, lash out or hide yourself away from the world. But what if someone’s entire future depended on you making the perfect response in a crisis? What would you do then?
The mysterious and straight-talking Nessa is about to crash into the three women’s lives. She’s so down-to-earth with her advice, she couldn’t possibly be anything as other-worldly as an angel, could she?
FOR HANNAH, WITH LOVE
Jen's partner Michael has never been in a relationship for more than four years, so with their fourth anniversary coming up, she's getting understandably nervous. Especially as she's just discovered she's pregnant.
She means to tell him about the baby straight away, but when Michael appears to be having an early mid-life crisis, she decides to take some drastic action. Aided and abetted by her two very different best friends, Jen embarks on some detective work that takes her as far afield as Cuba and North Norfolk. If she can find out why all Michael's other relationships failed, maybe she can stop the same thing from happening to her. But will her quest to provide a happy family unit for her unborn child work?