What's Eating Me, was Elaine's first novel which tells the story of Eileen Holloway, a forty-four year-old mother of two, stroppy, demanding teenage boys. She works hard to give them a good home life while holding down a very stressful full job and keeping her overbearing mother happy. The way she does this is by overeating. And then one day Eileen gets the chance of a lifetime; she is chosen to appear on the reality TV show Barbara’s Beautiful Bodies – a show that promises to change her life for better and for ever...

Elaine Spires' second novel was Single's Holiday, set on her beloved Antigua... the Caribbean at its most luscious, its most beautiful... silver sand, cobalt sky, warm, turquoise sea... and a bunch of complete strangers who only have one thing in common: they’re single! Some are looking for romance and some for something more... but they've all chosen to spend their holiday with people they have never met before. And pretty soon some become great friends, some enemies and some lovers, but it is perhaps their tour leader Eve who has the biggest shock of all. Glorious days on the beach, boozy, balmy nights and a pending tropical storm combine in a story to make you laugh and cry with just the right number of twists to keep you turning the pages as you get to know all the members of the group as they, in turn, get to know each other.

Elaine Spires' third novel, Sweet Lady, has arrived! When celebrity artist Eleanor West and her daughter Victoria take a winter holiday in Antigua it's with the idea of recharging their batteries before Eleanor's upcoming exhibition. But when beach boy Tyrone walks into their lives, nothing will ever be the same again...

A singles' holiday to India's Golden Triangle - Taj Mahal, the pink city of Jaipur, tiger-spotting in Ranthambore, the noisy, crowded streets of Delhi - all go to make up a trip that is hot, humid and spicy. Eve Mitchell, Travel Together's tour manager extraordinaire has a couple of familiar faces in her little group of travellers and others that she hasn't met before; sexy man-eating pensioners, a compulsive over-eater, a constant whiner and a man with a personal problem.

And there's a big surprise awaiting someone -and Eve - early one morning. By the end of the tour, which sees our group travelling by coach, rickshaw, train and elephant, she will know rather more about some of their innermost secrets than she'd like. But Eve deals with all the twists and turns the trip throws at her as we come to understand what makes people travel the world with a bunch of complete strangers and appreciate the success that is a singles' holiday...

Holiday Reads

Short stories for your sun-lounger - or wherever! Seven women, each with a different holiday problem. Meet, Olivia, who wishes she wasn't on a tennis holiday; Estelle, alone on a cruise; Fiona who's flying too close for comfort; Shelley, who shouldn't have got involved with a foreigner; Alison who finds our her husband's off on a cruise - but not with her!; Eloise who's having a rotten time in Ibiza and Karla who's desperate for her family holiday in Corfu to go well

Holiday Reads 2

More quirky stories with holiday connections for reading on the plane, on the beach or by the pool, your back garden on a sunny afternoon or curled up on the sofa if it's raining.

Travel Together Tour Manager Eve Mitchell is planning a quiet Christmas at home to rest and relax before a special New Year. But she soon, very unexpectedly, finds herself in the depths of the Essex countryside looking after a singles' group which contains some old, familiar faces and some pleasant - and not so pleasant - new ones. With its country walks, quizzes, disco and black-tie ball, the Christmas and Twixmas Break passes quickly, but just as they think it's all over the plot takes a twist and we learn some dark secrets...

It's 1952 and Britain is slowly climbing out of the austerity of the immediate post-war years when Dolly White gets the letter she and her husband Jack have been yearning for: they are going to live in a brand new, five-roomed house on the Heath Park Estate, Dagenham. A home in Cromwell Close is beyond the wildest dreams of the Whites and the other seven families whose fortunes, dramas, losses, dreams and lives we share while they all rub along together in neighbourly harmony in The Banjo...

On a sunny afternoon at the end of July The Viking Queen sets sail in all her splendour from the London Cruise Centre at Tilbury, down the River Thames towards the sea at the start of a cruise to Amsterdam and the Norwegian Fjords with some Travel Together singles on-board. As the group is only twelve strong and she already knows three of them, tour manager extraordinaire Eve Mitchell naively asks herself 'What could possibly go wrong?' Before long she finds out. Eccentric twins; a grieving young widow; a pensioner with a very risqué part-time job; a myopic millionaire looking for love; a recovering alcoholic and someone who's not quite what they seem, form the motley crew of shipmates who make Eve rue her words. Professional and polished as always, as she weaves her tour manager magic against a backdrop of the majestic, magnificent mountains of the silent, resplendent Fjords, Eve's personal life starts to unravel. This fourth book in the Singles' Series will have you hooked from start to finish.

The fifth and final book in the Singles’ Series takes us to the Ibiza, the sparkling jewel of the Mediterranean then back to the vibrant, sultry Caribbean island of Antigua, where it all began.

After making a hard decision two years earlier Eve Mitchell has moved on with the hand that life has dealt her and she finds herself on the White Island working a tennis holiday. While it isn’t a job she would have chosen, in her typical pragmatic way Eve gets on with it, working hard to ensure that her diverse group of singles, with their hopes, expectations character flaws and baggage, have the best time possible. And as she binds together tennis sessions, social gatherings, meals and trips Eve hears some tragic personal news that brings her to another crossroads in her life. Will she and her soulmate Melv finally make a life together and have their happily ever after?

Almost four years have passed since Eve answered the door to find Melv had followed her from Antigua refusing to throw away their chance of lasting love and happiness. Much has happened in that time. No longer a tour manager for Travel Together, Eve is enjoying success and celebrity as a self-published author. But was she able to be open and honest with Melv about her own secret? And could she forgive him for hurting her so deeply? Is loving someone simply enough?

Provoking smiles and tears this glimpse into Eve’s future brings the Singles’ Series to its final conclusion.

The 1970s. Zany fashions brought the Decade That Taste Forgot. Change is in the air. Decimal currency; the Common Market; widespread strikes; the Winter of Discontent; IRA bombings; the sale of Council houses and quickie divorces make their mark on the whole country including the community of the Banjo. The eight households who live in Cromwell Close experience births, deaths, marriages, shocks and surprises but as the 70s become the 80s and beyond Dagenham undergoes great transformation. The once close-knit Community is changing.

Change is in the air.

It’s November 1918 and the whole nation comes together to give thanks for the end of a bloody world war that has left few families unscathed. More than seven hundred thousand men have perished; those fortunate enough to return are mere shadows of the men who left. Women who have kept the country going by working in munitions factories and picking fruit and vegetables on farms and in market gardens are expected to give up their jobs to the men returning home. In the peaceful Essex village of Dagenham Milly Brightwell is among the women who are not happy at having to take a step back in peacetime as she dreams and makes plans of becoming her own boss.

But just as life returns to post-war normal, the London County Council announces its plans to build more than twenty-five thousand Homes for Heroes on the farmland and countryside surrounding Dagenham. Within the space of ten years the population will rocket to a hundred thousand people and the quiet country village will morph into the largest housing estate in Europe. For the families in Dagenham Village looking forward to better times in the 1920s, life will never be the same again.

The year is 1935 and Dagenham is a thriving town. Milly Brightwell’s shop and factory are going from strength to strength and her home-life with her husband Viking and niece Ethel is idyllic until a secret from the past irreparably splits the family in two. Newcomers, Hetty Sears and her son Bill, the Pitfields and the O’Reillys have settled into the town, making friends, working hard and enjoying the social life the town has to offer. Then suddenly, Dagenham and its people find themselves under the shadow of World War II and life will once again change for the tight-knit working community. As bombs rain down on them and their young men are sent off to war those left fighting on the home front refuse to be cowed by Hitler or the Luftwaffe.