Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

Quinn Maguire has a stable life, a fiancé, and what she thinks is a clear vision for her future. All of that comes undone by her mother’s deathbed confession - the absentee father Quinn spent thirty years resenting is not her real father at all. With that one revealing whisper, Quinn embarks on a journey to Maui, her mother’s childhood home, a storied paradise that holds the truth about her mother’s past and all its secrets Quinn is determined to uncover.

A gripping, festive novel, Christmas Under the Stars by Karen Swan reveals the devastating power of secrets. Worlds apart. A love without limit. In the snow-topped mountains of the Canadian Rockies, Meg and Mitch are living their dream. Just weeks away from their wedding, they work and play with Tuck and Lucy, their closest and oldest friends. Meg and Lucy are as close as sisters - much to Meg's sister's dismay - and Tuck and Mitch have successfully turned their passion for snowboarding into a booming business.

Emma Laurent has always preferred helping others to asking for help. But now, she’s the one in need. Her stepmother is selling her late father’s candy shop, her grandmother’s assisted-living facility has become a financial burden, and the anniversary of her fiancé’s death is quickly approaching. Rather than face her problems, Emma does what she does best - finds someone else to help by offering a mother and son with nowhere to go somewhere to stay.

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.

A delicious, sharp novel about a woman who jets off to France after her perfect marriage collapses, putting the broken pieces of herself back together while rediscovering her own joie de vivre - a lust for life, art, and steamy sex.

Braxton Monroe’s taking a break from teaching to do some strenuous work on a Civil War-era house, and feeling the strain in every rock-hard muscle. Good thing he has to interview massage therapists for the spa - even if it’s embarrassing to meet a job candidate in his boxers. Cora Buchanan has hands so talented - and a voice so sultry - he wants to hire her before he even lifts his head from the table. But he’s shocked to meet her outside the massage room - with her seeing-eye dog, Heidi the yellow lab.

Josie and Frank Moore are happy...at least Josie thinks they are. As parents of two young girls in the Chicago suburbs, their days can be both busy and monotonous, and sometimes Josie wonders how she became a harried fortysomething mother rather than the driven career woman she once was.

On moving to Brighton, Georgie finds throwing herself into the city's delights fun and exciting, but before she knows it, she's sliding into all kinds of trouble. Charlotte is in the city for a new start, hoping to keep her head down. A terrible revelation sent Rosa running from London, but could her passion for food lead her to more interesting places? As the three tenants find each other, it's as if a whole new chapter of their lives has begun....

Sweeping powers of description transport her listeners to another time and place. Rosanna Ley, author of best-selling The Villa and Return to Mandalay. Some memories can be forgotten.... Others won't ever go away. For renowned actor Sir Mungo, his quiet home village in Devon provides the perfect retreat. Close by are his brother and his wife, and the rural location makes his home the ideal getaway for his old friends in London.

On Big Sawyer island, life is as steady as the routine of the lobstermen who leave with the tide each morning and return with their haul each night. But for 40-year-old New Yorker Julia Bechtel, life and what’s important in it are about to be forever altered when she survives a terrible boat accident en route to the island. Now, in the company of her aunt and daughter, Julia finds herself feeling strangely connected to the tragedy’s other survivors - Noah, a divorced lobsterman, and Kim, a young woman rendered mute since her rescue - and newly outraged at the state of her marriage....

Rachel Keats and Jack McGill were artists, deeply in love when they married, until the rush of life took its toll and they divorced. Six years later, Jack puts aside his career as a leading architect to hold a bedside vigil at his ex-wife's hospital bed. Jack begins to see Rachel, his daughters, and the story of his marriage with new eyes. Coast Road celebrates those things in life that matter most - the companionship of friends and the irreplaceable time spent with children and family.

Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney has never been a devotee of tarot cards or crystal balls. And yet when the fortune-teller at the county fair suggests that it is time for her to “redream” her life, Ave Maria realizes she is wide open to suggestion.

Teresa “Toots” Loudenberry has a knack for finding adventure, even when she’s not looking for it. But ever since Sophie convinced her friends to start holding regular séances, life in Los Angeles is getting a little too dramatic even for Toots’s tastes. When Ida receives a message from the beyond suggesting that her late husband was murdered, a spooked Toots decides it’s time the Godmothers left LA for her hometown of Charleston. Meanwhile, Mavis has been acting suspiciously....

Romance author Dakota Laurens believes that happily-ever-afters exist only between the covers of her sexy novels. But to her surprise, she finds a real-life hero when she meets a handsome emergency room doctor. The outspoken author feels an instant and intense attraction to Dr. Walt Eddy, and the feeling is mutual. When the globetrotting doctor pulls a disappearing act on Dakota, she's prepared to write him off... until fate brings a blindsiding twist to her story.

Rae-Valentine and Howard were childhood sweethearts. They’ve shared twenty-five peaceful years since they were brought together by Dolly, Howard’s larger-than-life sister. But now, on the night of their wedding anniversary, Howard reveals a shocking betrayal that leaves Rae reeling. Heartbroken, she takes Dolly on her would-be anniversary trip to Antigua and the two women drink and dance and talk like they haven’t in years.

Daisy had gone to the Wyoming wilderness in search of inspiration for her art. She found rancher James Tucker, a man with the wilderness inside him. Their life together was close to paradise - until their three-year-old son Jake disappeared and was never found. Her marriage in tatters, Daisy returned home to Connecticut, taking with her from Wyoming two things: her daughter, Jake's twin, and her livelihood, the jewelry she etches with symbols of Indian legend.

When Natalie Seebring announces plans to marry within months of the death of her husband of fifty-eight years, her son and daughter are stunned. In the face of their disapproval, Natalie decides it's time to talk about the past and reveal the secrets she has kept for decades. She hires Olivia Jones to help write her memoir and invites her to spend the summer at the family vineyard. As summer deepens and the vineyard's crop ripens, Natalie's story unfolds and startles one family member after another....

Her life is missing the love… When Katelyn “Katie” Morrison attends her brother’s wedding, the glamorous hotel heiress wonders if she’ll ever find “the one”... especially when she sees her sexy-as-sin ex, Dean Prescott. While attending his best friend’s wedding, Dean can’t stop staring at Katie’s sinful curves. He swore he’d never repeat the mistake of falling for her. Learning that Katie has a newborn, Dean knows there’s more going on than Katie admits.

Two years have done little to ease veterinarian Audra Hughes' grief over her husband's untimely death. Eager for a fresh start, Audra plans to leave Portland for a new job in Philadelphia. Her seven-year-old son, Jack, seems apprehensive about flying - but it's just the beginning of an anxiety that grows to consume him. As Jack's fears continue to surface in recurring and violent nightmares, Audra hardly recognizes the introverted boy he has become.

High on the clifftops, Lettie takes a deep breath of salty air and opens the letter. There is no signature, and the old-fashioned handwriting is faint against the yellowed paper. The message, and the tiny gold key inside, will turn her life upside down. Lettie Starcross makes her way along the cobbled streets of Heaven’s Cove, clutching a little key and searching for answers about her kind, great-aunt Iris, whom she misses terribly. With no job back home, and no one in her family understanding how adrift she feels, Lettie wonders if her aunt was lonely just like her.