Showing results by publisher "HarperCollins" in Comedy & Humor

One day, NICK and BEE cross paths over a misdirected email. The connection is instant, electric, they feel like they’ve known each other forever. Nick buys a new suit, gets on a train. Bee steadies her nerves, gets a pep talk from her best friend Leila. This is it. Except it isn’t. Because as they prepare to meet under the clock at Euston station, the universe throws in a twist you’d never see coming . . .

When Dave wakes up in his own personal purgatory (St Ives Youth Hostel circa 1992), he’s shocked to discover he’s dead. And worse – he was murdered. Heaven doesn’t know who did it so with the help of two rogue angels, Dave must uncover the truth. As divine forces from both sides start to play the game, can Dave get out of this alive? Or at the very least, with his soul intact?

Allergic to group activities of any kind, all her life Serenata has run, swum and cycled on her lonesome. But now that she's hit 60, all that physical activity has destroyed her knees. As she contemplates surgery with dread, her previously sedentary husband, Remington, recently and ignominiously redundant, chooses this precise moment to discover exercise. Which should be good for his health, right? Yet as he joins the cult of fitness that seems increasingly to consume the whole of the Western world, her once-modest husband burgeons into an unbearable narcissist.

One year on from the death of her husband, Emma feels no closer to moving forward with her life. Seeking distraction, she quits her job and begins working at the local garden centre. Here, Emma begins to open up and finds herself attending boss Les’ talk on the Titanic. Intrigued, Emma sets out to research who would have arranged the flowers on-board.

William is a lonely young man on the loose in the late 1960s. A disastrous appearance as a stand-up comic in a pub called The Man In the Moon is only the start of his adventures, in which he consorts with theatrical types, frenzied advertising men and accident-prone lodgers. William’s exploits lead him eventually to the consulting rooms of a Harley Street psychiatrist, where his delusions that he is a comic genius can finally be laid bare.

Like all good Chinese children, Andrea Tang is doing her best to fulfil all her mother’s plans for her life: she’s on track to become partner at a top law firm in Singapore, she has a beautiful apartment in the right postcode and a perfect boyfriend who is practically made of husband material. Except that those plans are unravelling fast: there’s an unfairly attractive new lawyer out to steal her promotion, she has credit-card debt up to her eyeballs, her perfect boyfriend is now her perfect ex-boyfriend....

When Marianne’s carefully constructed life and marriage fall apart, she is forced to return to Ancaire, the ramshackle seaside house perched high on a cliff by the Irish Sea. There she must rebuild her relationship with her mother, Rita, a flamboyant artist and recovering alcoholic who lives by her own rules. Marianne left home when she was 15 following a traumatic and tragic incident. She never planned to return, and now she has to face the fact that some plans don’t work out the way you wanted them to.

Greta Gale has played the part of the funny fat one her entire life, hiding her insecurities behind a big smile. But size doesn’t matter when you can laugh at yourself, right? Until Greta realises she’s the only one not laughing. And deep down, she’s not sure if she’ll ever laugh again. But with her world feeling like it’s falling down around her, Greta is about to discover she’s stronger than she feels. And that sometimes the best moments in life come when it’s all gone a bit pear-shaped....

Private McAuslan, J.—the Dirtiest Soldier in the World (alias the Tartan Caliban)—demonstrates his unfitness for military service in this first volume of stories of life in a Scottish regiment. Unkempt, ungainly and unwashed, civilian listeners may regard him with shocked disbelief. But generations of ex-servicemen have hailed him with delight as a familiar friend—because every old soldier can remember a McAuslan!

Vicky Turnbull has never regretted giving up her career for family life in the suburbs. And apart from being outstandingly good at paintball, no one would ever know that in a past life she was an undercover spy and has been trained to kill a man with her bare hands. Not even her husband and certainly not the other mums at the school gate. But beneath the school runs and bake sales, Vicky had never quite said goodbye to the past.

Set in Trinidad, and told with wry humour and irresistible wit, One Year of Ugly is a story of family, first love and finding home. When their beloved Aunt Celia dies, Yola and her family discover she had been keeping a huge secret – she was seriously in debt to local criminal, Ugly, and they must do his bidding until the debt is cleared. So far, so ugly. And then Ugly’s distracting gorgeous right-hand man Román arrives on the scene, and Yola just can't help herself. Could this wildly inappropriate (and very messy) romance be the perfect antidote?

Tara Gallagher is knackered. She used to dream of being Beyoncé, but suddenly she’s 36—with three kids, a loving husband, a very boring job—and instead of headlining Glastonbury, she’s in her pyjamas on a Friday night, watching Gogglebox. It’s time for a mammy makeover. She’s going to show her teenage daughter she’s still cool. She’s going to show her husband she’s still an absolute ride. She’s going to show her colleagues she’s still a boss bish.

A love letter to the small but mighty dachshund or, as it’s more affectionally known, the Sausage Dog. This audiobook - almost as adorable as its namesake - proves that sausage dogs are not just sweet, soft and a little bit silly to look at. They can be an example to us all. Despite having the odds stacked against it, this little pooch can turn any situation to its advantage. It’s the underdog that always comes out on top, displaying remarkable resilience, tenacity and bravery at every turn.

The British comedian of Nigerian heritage and co-executive producer and writer of the CBS hit series Bob Hearts Abishola chronicles her odyssey to get to America and break into Hollywood in this lively and humorous memoir. According to family superstition, Gina Yashere was born to fulfill the dreams of her grandmother Patience. The powerful first wife of a wealthy businessman, Patience was poisoned by her jealous sister-wives and marked with a spot on her neck. From birth, Gina carried a similar birthmark - a sign that she was her grandmother’s chosen heir.

How much of your life do you review? Books, TV, film, music – the reviewable things? Ever tried going a little further, reviewing the intangibles, the abstract, the ‘weird’: a houseplant; the sunlight on the pavement on a crisp spring day; being embarrassed; that strange wave you do at cars when they slow down at zebra crossings. A dead houseplant. From almond croissants to the concept of life itself, Joel Golby embarks on a journey through modern living, leaving no stone unturned – no one thing unreviewed – to consider what it all really means.

Chiltern boards the 23:50 sleeper train from London to Edinburgh with two pork pies, six beers and a packet of chocolate digestives. At 23:55 he sends a message to all 158 people in his contacts, telling them that he plans to end his life in the morning. He then switches his phone to flight mode. He’s said goodbye. To him, it’s the end of his story - and time to crack open the biscuits. But across the world, 158 phones are lighting up with a notification.

Danny Byrne has grown up on a sprawling council estate in Pimlico. He knows every stone of it, and until now, his life has followed the same pattern as all his friends. Danny is heading for A-levels and then university. Dodds is following his dad into the family butcher’s business, Crockett will sail on opportunity’s wings as it comes his way, and Nobby is flirting with drugs, and disaster. As the long summer unfolds, the boys focus on girls, trade banter and test their friendships to the limit. When things take a darker turn, Danny must wrestle with his conscience.

Harry Silver has it all. A successful job in TV, a gorgeous wife, a lovely child. But in one moment of madness, he chucks it all away. A modern classic, Man and Boy is a hilarious and touching novel about how Harry comes to terms with his life, brings up his son alone and, gradually, learns what words like love and family really mean.

Dr Kate English has it all. Not only is she heiress to a large fortune, she has a gorgeous husband and daughter, a high-flying career and a beautiful mansion anyone would be jealous of. But all that is about to change. One night, Kate’s mother is found dead, murdered in her own home. And then Kate receives a message: You think you’re sad now, just wait. Evidently, all is not as it seems in Baltimore high society, and as scandals, infidelities and betrayals are exposed, tensions rise to boiling point.

Peyton Marcus is the woman New York wakes up to, anchor of the most-watched morning show in the city. With a husband who adores her and a daughter who’s headed to one of the best Ivy League schools, Peyton Marcus is that woman, and she’s damn good at it. Skye, her sister, is a stay-at-home mom in Paradise, the idyllic NY suburb that’s home to designer boutiques and people who fly private. She has a knack for helicopter-parenting with the best of them. But she’s not like them. She’s looking for something real, and it’s within touching distance.