Standalone Novellas
Fresh starts, small rebellions & second chances...
Midlife Magic & Money (A Fun Paranormal Novella)
When Ava reaches forty in 2000, she realises she’s been trapped under her wealthy husband’s thumb. Is it time for a divorce?
To help her decide, she visits a therapist who seems stuck in the 1970s. It turns out that she is, and when Ava wishes to revisit her, she must use a time-travelling car - a humble Morris Minor.
To complicate matters, an inheritance from her late grandmother takes a chilling turn when Ava stumbles upon a dead body, a grim obstacle barring the rose-adorned entrance to her new cottage.
With the aid of a magical talking cat and the Morris Minor, she embarks on a time-travel journey. Her mission is to stop the murder and liberate herself and others from the clutches of an oppressive force. Failure doesn’t bear thinking about.
If you enjoy humorous women’s fiction with a hefty dose of magic, a dash of mystery, and a light kiss of romance, you’ll love Janet Butler Male’s Midlife Magic and Murder.
Lady Adelia's Secret (A coming-0f-age romcom novella)
Lady Adelia Audley lives a repressed life, ruled with a rod of iron by a strict father and a prim governess. But she's a sunny girl who rises above the gloom, helped by a few illicit romance novels.
One day she overhears her parents discussing her future husband in a planned marriage -- Cyril.
A starry-eyed soul, 'Cyril' sounds unromantic to Adelia. So she focuses her dreams onto a beautiful gipsy she meets in the woods.
What will happen when Adelia has her Come Out in London?
Will she succumb to her parents' plans, or will true love win the day?
Don't miss out on the yesteryear fun...
No Bunting Required (A Later-Life Novella)
At sixty-eight, Margaret is recently widowed and not interested in reinvention. She still dresses in the sensible clothes her late husband preferred and ignores the expectations of gentle grieving and hobby-filled recovery.
Instead, she throws a pastel self-help novel in the bin and buys red lipstick. Widowhood, she discovers, feels less like collapse and more like… space.
Space to choose for herself, space to stop apologising and space to notice things.
Like the charming man who seems unusually attentive to more than one affluent widow.
With the help of a dry-witted former classmate and a charity shop called Protect the Newts, Margaret begins to look more closely. What she finds isn’t romance, but something quieter and potentially dangerous.
No Bunting Required is a warm, sharp story about late-life clarity, small rebellions, and the power of a woman who has finally stopped waiting for approval.
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