Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

As she cleans up the cottage her mother left behind, Clara Hannigan discovers a locked hope chest. Inside is a book that might have the answers to her questions...if she can connect the dots between her mom and a prominent local. Complicating matters is one of Clara's students: a mean girl who has a bone to pick with the Hannigans.

Once upon a time, the Peacock sisters were little girls who combed each other’s tangled hair. But decades of secrets have led them to separate lives—and to telling lies, to themselves and to one another. Sylvie is getting married. Again. A librarian and widow who soothes her grief by escaping into books (and shelving them perfectly), Sylvie has caught the attention of an unlikely match: Simon Rampling, a mysterious, wealthy man from Northern England. Sylvie allows herself to imagine a life beside him—one filled with the written word, kindness, and companionship.

Being adopted never made Jane Smith feel unloved, just unlike the rest of her family. As her 25th birthday approaches, she is struck by an overwhelming longing to finally find her place in the world. So in a very un-Jane-like move, she books a last-minute ticket to Greece to find her birth father and the real Jane. All she knows about him is it that he was a tour guide named Dimitri. Armed with this knowledge and several surprise boxes of condoms from her mom (not embarrassing at all), Jane takes off.

Liz McGinnis never imagined herself living in a luxurious gated community like The Palms. Ever since she and her family moved in, she's felt like an outsider amongst the Stepford-like wives and their obnoxiously spoiled children. Still, she's determined to make it work - if not for herself, then for her husband, Phil, who landed them this lavish home in the first place, and for her daughter, Danielle, who's about to enter high school.

Rose Wallace’s world revolves around all things Jane Austen, and with the annual festival in Bath - and the arrival of dishy archaeologist Dr. Aiden Trevellyan - just around the corner, all is well with the world. But then a mysterious woman who bears more than a passing resemblance to the great author moves in upstairs, and things take a disastrous turn. Rose’s new neighbour is none other than Jane Austen herself, now trapped in the 21st century after her time-travel adventure was sabotaged by a mischievous dog. Rose’s life is instantly changed.

She's smart, gorgeous, and mysterious. For business executive Nathan Carver, a man with everything, Jessica Bolton is the first woman he can't simply charm, buy, or seduce. And even before Jessica gets a taste of his luxurious lifestyle and irresistible moves, she's determined to eliminate the competition and become this handsome bachelor's one and only. But Jessica's deceptive allure is just the beginning.

Freelance writer Jacqueline Tate arrives in Los Angeles and soon meets brilliant, award-winning scientist Randall Atwater, the man she's come to cover at a conference on trends and technology. He is everything she's read about - brainy, witty, handsome, and cool. And after a week spent with the most fascinating man she's ever known, there's no way she can give him up. There's just one problem: Randall's wife of 20 years. No matter - men like Randall are few and far between.

Thelma is the busy single mum of 12-year-old Louis. When he is hit by a lorry one morning, their lives are changed for ever. Louis falls into a coma, and if he doesn't regain consciousness in the next four weeks, he may never wake up again. At home in Louis' bedroom, a devastated Thelma finds a list of all the things he wants to accomplish in his life and suddenly sees a way to survive: she will fulfil her son's dreams, in the hope that it will bring him back.

Michelle Turner thought she lost everything at 17. Her father, a Hollywood legend, had finally summoned her to his Montana ranch. But when he learned of her affair with Sam McPhee, a hired hand, he had Sam fired and destroyed his family. Michelle, pregnant and alone, fled to Seattle. Now a successful advertising exec, Michelle is safe-safe from love, safe from hurt. But her son is lost to her, a troubled teen on the verge of self-destruction, a boy who blames her for the absence of his father and grandfather.

Henry Harris was living his dream as a staff sergeant in the Marines. When he's killed in action, his devastated family is in for one more shock: he had a daughter they never knew about. Morgan Riley has been raising Etta on her own, and that's always been fine by her - until Henry's brother Trevor arrives on her doorstep, willing to do anything to help and make up for his brother's mistakes. Their attraction feels wrong, but Morgan can't seem to turn him away. Trevor is suddenly in too deep. He has always wanted a family, but Etta and Morgan come with complications.

Elsie Lavender and Homer Hickam (the father of the author) were high school classmates in the West Virginia coalfields, graduating just as the Great Depression began. When Homer asked for her hand, Elsie instead headed to Orlando, where she sparked with a dancing actor named Buddy Ebsen (yes, that Buddy Ebsen). But when Buddy headed for New York, Elsie's dreams of a life with him were crushed, and eventually she found herself back in the coalfields, married to Homer.

Can a sexy pilot's dazzling smile melt the Ice Queen? Monica Mann has made it her life's work to save lives. After an earthquake and tsunami hit the shores of Jamaica, she volunteers her trauma skills with Borderless Nurses. Calculating and methodical, she creates order out of whatever chaos she finds…. Until she finds the perpetually barefoot, impossibly masculine Trent Fairchild.

Erin has had a crush on her brother’s best friend Ward for as long as she can remember. But eleven years ago he disappeared from their lives—breaking Erin’s trust, and her heart. When the person they both love most—Erin’s brother Tommy—is nearly killed in a terrible crash, she and Ward are thrown back together for the first time. Their lives couldn’t be further apart. Erin still lives at home, working two jobs and dealing with a series of family disasters. Ward, now a multibillionaire entrepreneur and a household name, seems determined to make amends. But is it too late?

In the fading town of Rooster, Texas, all that's really left is a service station, a church…and the Banty House, a long-ago Depression-era brothel. For more than seventy-five years, Betsy, Connie, and Kate Carson have called their mama's house a home. The three eccentric sisters get by just fine with their homemade jams and jellies, a little moonshine on the side, and big hearts always open to strangers. Like Ginger Andrews.

With her mother dying and her marriage falling apart, Euly Winger returns to her birth place in order to uncover a dark secret about her parent's divorce. Something that has haunted their family since Euly was a young adult. But when Euly meets up with an old acquaintance, her time back home turns nightmarish when he angrily reveals everything he knows about her parents.

Clendenin Hughes first kissed Dabney Kimball during a Nantucket snowstorm freshman year of high school. Ever since that moment - God, the rush, the chemistry! - Dabney has known that she and Clen are an unsplittable unit - essentially the same person in two different bodies. Of course, with Dabney now at Harvard and Clen at Yale, those bodies are 140 miles apart. A stirring portrait of young love at a crossroads, The Tailgate introduces two irresistible characters and invites us into a world we don't want to leave.

Lucy Houston and Mickey Chandler probably shouldn't have fallen in love, let alone gotten married. They're both plagued with faulty genes - he has bipolar disorder and she has a ravaging family history of breast cancer. But when their paths cross on the night of Lucy's 21st birthday, sparks fly, and there's no denying their chemistry. Cautious every step of the way, they are determined to make their relationship work-and they put it all in writing. Mickey promises to take his medication. Lucy promises not to blame him for what is beyond his control. He promises honesty.

Waitress and single mom Jessica “Jessie” Mann is practical to a fault. Even if she had time to date, which she doesn’t, she’d be determined to provide her son with a more secure upbringing than the one she had - and that would mean a husband with big bucks. When Jack Morrison - a sexy-as-sin, seemingly broke customer with a cowboy hat and a seductive grin - tries to flirt with her, she shoots him down.

Rachel Lear lives in a dream world with her head in the clouds - and it’s starting to show. There’s the dissertation she can’t quite finish, the ex-boyfriend whom she has yet to kick to the curb, and those pesky 20 pounds she keeps meaning to lose. But when her overbearing father finally runs out of patience and cuts her off from the family fortune, Rachel finds herself thrust into the real world. She never could have guessed that’s where she would finally meet a knight in shining armor.

School teacher Julie Barlow and her two best friends, Beth and Aggie, are looking forward to an adults only beach vacation. Julie also plans to use the time to figure out why her perfectly planned life has gone terribly amiss. They’ve barely hit the road when a frantic call from Julie’s mother hijacks their best laid plans. Uncle Tony “Lucky” Costa is missing. Always entertaining, often irresponsible, never reliable, Uncle Lucky was a favorite with her friends. For Julie, for whom he’d been a sometimes surrogate father, not so much.