Relationships. It all boils down to relationships.Everyone wants strong, positive, mutually beneficial relationships. So why are they so hard to develop? Why do so many spouses have such a hard time communicating with each other? Why would so many employees prefer to pull out their own molar teeth with a pair of rusty pliers than have lunch with their supervisors?

Examines the nature and place of insults in daily life, discussing how insults influence a person's beliefs and impressions about others' character, honor, gender, intentions, conventions, and power.

"There are so many words, insults, labels and boxes for women to be packaged and packed off in. Often, but not always, they're words coined by men." Why that is, is a bigger conversation that is starting to be had by women everywhere. We're slowly, but oh-so-surely, making it clear that there is no man in womxn. We're writing him out and writing us back in, and we deserve a suffix all of our own that is free from patriarchal roots. So from here on in, we are WOMXN. Sticks and Stones is a powerful reclamation of the slurs and insults thrown at women for centuries. It's a righting of wrongs - a rewriting of sexist, belittling and shaming language. It's a tool for breaking free from the stereotypes and impossible standards used to confine women, transforming them into messages of resilience and resolve. And, most importantly, it's a rallying call for change, healing and empowerment. It takes the words, slurs, insults and labels that are used to diminish women every day and breaks them down and tears them apart. It transmutes and rewrites these words - sometimes with all of the pain they trigger, sometimes in the form of positive affirmations, mantras and poems - all told in acrostics. With their underlying meditative rhythms, these acrostics are also a remedy for healing wounds and empowering women to have the confidence to be their true selves. You can dip in and out, or read it cover to cover. You can come back to, and work through, any words that resonate with you. Lexy also offers clearing meditations at the back of the book to help you tackle the words that hurt you most, helping to remove them from your past, present and future. This title is illustrated by the hugely talented illustrator and print maker Margaux Carpentier. Margaux creates pictures using a symbolic language, so each piece has its own unique message for every individual. Her work is inspired by all the incredible colours of the world. She adapts her illustrations in 3D and large-scale murals, the most recent of which is currently on display in Brown Hart Gardens in Mayfair, London.

For Lou it was always Dylan. She loved him from the moment they first met across a cadaver in the dissection room at medical school. The most gorgeous man she'd ever laid eyes on, with more Welsh charm than you could shake a stick at; she was a goner. But Lou, despite her beauty, was just too extrovert to interest Dylan, who was convinced that a quiet, shy girl, like Lou's best friend Frankie, was much more his style. 'Have at it mate but I've got two words for you: high maintenance.' 'Don't think I'd mind putting in the hard yards maintaining that piece of arse, ' one of Dylan's more disgusting rugby mates replied. 'Well good luck to you, ' Dylan returned, looking completely relaxed now that they were discussing Lou and not his precious Frankie. 'I like mine heavy on the sweet and light on the ball-breaking bitch, but each to his own.' After overhearing that exchange, Lou buries her pain and pines for him in private, but she can't give up their friendship. One night, eleven years later, she finally gets what she has been longing for, but the next morning realizes he was too drunk to even remember. For Dylan it was always anyone but Lou. A born surgeon, Dylan resents having to down his orthopaedic power tools for a six-month spell in Elderly Care. He thought that at least working with Lou would make his skiving easier; after all she's always helped him out before. And so what if he's been having these weird dreams about her since he woke up in her flat? It's not like he'd ever actually go there. So when he mistakenly believes that she's put his career in jeopardy he loses control and his vicious insults, publicly made, cut Lou to the bone. It's only after he loses Lou's warm smiles, dry wit, boundless energy and outrageous banter from his life that he realizes the extent of his stupidity. Maybe sticks and stones can break bones, and that's something Dylan's surgical skills can deal with. But when it's a heart he's broken... This book is a full-length contemporary romance/romantic comedy/medical romance of approximately 80,000 words. It involves characters from 'Broken Heart Syndrome', but is a stand-alone novel with its own HEA and no cliffhanger. About The Author Susie Tate is a general practitioner and when she's not working she's looking after her four yummy boys under six (okay well one is actually over thirty-six but it's the mental age that counts!). Maybe it's a bit strange for a doctor to be writing contemporary romance/romantic comedy, but she thought she could use her experience to write what she hopes are funny, occasionally bittersweet stories that give people a behind the scenes look at hospital medicine. She can only apologize to her orthopaedic friends for the way she has brutally stereotyped them in this book but she just couldn't resist!