Bel Mooney

Like mother, like daughter? Not necessarily! Fourteen superb stories explore the mother-daughter relationship in a variety of different ways in this fantastic collection. Bel Mooney has chosen stories by the very best contemporary writers from the UK and US, including Adele Geras, Candice Ransom, Linda Newbery, Jean Ure, Cathy Hopkins and Shirley Klock. Heartwarming, funny, challenging and tragic, the stories in this collection reflect the complexity of the mother-daughter relationship. Some will make you laugh, others will make you cry. But whether you are a daughter or the mother of one, you will find much to recognise, think about and enjoy in all fourteen.

Like Mother, Like Daughter?

Thirteen-year-old Flora Popescu and her family find themselves caught up in events leading to the overthrow of the repressive regime of Nicholae Ceausescu in Romania in 1989.

The Voices of Silence

Margaret Chamberlain

Taqṣīr-i man nīst!

Man mī tarsīm!

Fikrʹhā-yi bikr-i Kītī

This is the fourth book in the Kitty series. Kitty is tired of everyone making promises they can't keep Rosie promised she'd always pick Kitty as her partner, she even crossed her heart, so why has she chosen Tom? Mum said Kitty could have a dog, but now she's changed her mind Dad gave his word the injection wouldn't hurt - but it did Kitty soon discovers for herself that promises are sometimes very hard to keep, and sometimes 'I promise' really means 'I hope'

But You Promised!

It's not fair! is Kitty's plaintive cry. Why is she the shortest in her class? Why can't she go to bed as late as the boy next door? When one day Kitty's mother echoes Kitty's cry of It's not fair Kitty thinks up a brilliant idea. This audio cassette contains the complete and unabridged story.

It's Not Fair!

I'm Scared!

This is the eighth book in a series featuring Kitty. Here, Kitty wishes for a variety of things: that her brother's bike was hers; that her brother would go away; that she was pretty and grown-up; and, above all, that her wishes would come true.

I Wish!

When her beloved small dog died, Bel Mooney was astonished at the depth of her ongoing sorrow. Sharing her loss online and in a newspaper article brought a deluge of responses, spurring Bel to explore these feelings further. Why do humans mourn pets? Can animals themselves grieve - and do they have souls? In Goodbye, Pet & See You in Heaven, Bel sets off on an emotional journey to learn more about pet bereavement. She is astounded by inexplicable 'signs' of her dog's spirit, watches Bonnie's ashes being turned into glass, talks to experts and discusses the mysterious enduring energy of love. She discovers why Ancient Egyptians mummified animals and what different faiths, myths, writers and scientists have to say about animals and the afterlife. She also looks back over her own life and reflects on lessons learned from companion animals - and from wildlife too. As informative as it is deeply moving, Goodbye, Pet is an intensely personal, uplifting look at the love we share with pets, both in life and afterwards. Enriched by heartfelt stories and inspirational words, it is a book to be treasured by anyone who has ever loved an animal.

A Memoir of Animals, Love and Loss

Goodbye Pet & See You in Heaven

"I want to visit Dad," said Harry, "but I'm not going without Bonnie." Harry's dad lives in London now and he wants Harry to come and visit. But Harry can't go without Bonnie - who else will help him to be brave when he sees Dad's new life in the big city? But Bonnie's about to have an adventure of her own - one which will show everybody that you don't have to be big to be brave.

Brave Dog Bonnie

Why does Kitty always get the blame? Well, in the nicest way possible, Kitty shows that she can solve problems no one else can.

It's Not My Fault!

Promise You Won't Be Cross

Blue Banana: I Don't Want to Say Yes

For over forty years, Bel Mooney has been one of this country's best-loved journalists. Readers who value this writer's wisdom on issues of the human heart - from marital breakup, through grief, to family problems - also keenly follow the short 'opinion' column in which, as an adjunct to her problem page, she shares her thoughts on a wide variety of issues affecting the human condition. Called simply 'And Finally', this column makes her unique among agony aunts in that she gives of herself to her readers in return for their confidances. Readers regularly write to say that this is the first thing they turn to in the newspaper. Here, these columns have been revised, updated, and collected in a bedside book packed with insight from a writer whose own life experiences have taught her much about the workings of the human heart.

Words to Help You Through

Bel Mooney's Lifelines

The Stove Haunting

First published in 1989, in Bel Mooney's Somerset she sets the tone of this delightfully personal account of her 'adopted county'. Brought up in Liverpool, she writes of Somerset with the rapture of the late convert, travelling through its towns and villages in all seasons, observing sights as various as the Minehead Raft Race or rare beakhead moulding at All Saints, Lullington; the mysterious Glastonbury Tor and the magnificence of Wells Cathedral. She begins with Exmoor, with Lorna Doone, prize sheep at the county show, St. Bueno, the smallest parish church in England, moving on to the Quantock Hills, dotted with Bronze Age barrows and cairns. She describes the vale of Taunton Deane with it's rich red soil, and Cadbury Hill and the Somerset lore of King Arthur. We learn of the flat sodden world of the Wetlands, the dramatic beauty of the Mendips - wild, windblown trees and the 'gruffy ground' of abandoned mines. We can envisage the mud of Stert Flats, visit Burnham-on-Sea and Weston-super-Mare - a little melancholy out of season - and the accommodating, quiet, green fields and watery sky of the Eastern edge of the county. Somerset writers such as Parson Woodeforde, Coleridge and T.S.Eliot are introduced; so are characters from history - Judge Jeffries and the doomed Duke of Monmouth. The book is designed to be read as a narrative, and covers the whole of the old county of Somerset, dismissing the boundry changes of 1974, and including, therefore, the elegant spa town of Bath. Bel Mooney's enticing observations, her thoughts, idiosyncracies and passions, will be shared and enjoyed by anyone who plans even to pass through one of Britain's most beautiful counties.

Bel Mooney's Somerset

A story of survival, transformation and love.

A Small Dog Saved My Life

Why Me?

For over forty years, Bel Mooney has been one of this country's best-loved journalists and authors, and her hugely popular Daily Mail advice column reaches six million people every week. Far from being a detached and abstract figure, Bel doesn't shy away from sharing her own life experiences of grief, forgiveness and joy with her devoted readers, making her column at once both distinctly personal and thoroughly universal in relevance. A lifeline for many, some of her wise, compassionate and unflinchingly honest words of good counsel are gathered together here for the first time. This selection includes problems, responses and some of the wide-ranging mini essays that appear in the Mail as 'And Finally'. Punctuated by some of Bel's favourite uplifting quotations, this collection also includes 'what happened next' with some of those who received Bel's wisdom - be it about love, loss, break-ups or breakdowns. A heartfelt and inspirational collection, full of valuable insights and prefixed by a wide-ranging and candid introduction reflecting on what being an advice columnist has taught her, Bel Mooney's Lifelines is a book readers will return to again and again, each time discovering something new in the process.

Bel Mooney

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