Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

Arianna Banks never committed to anything, whether a relationship, a job, or her education. Carrying a damaged reputation because of an atrocious childhood incident, Arianna’s poor self-image has been her downfall. When her parents die unexpectedly, awash with grief, she wonders what her purpose is. She makes several changes, including quitting beauty school to work at a charity call center. Convinced she is doing important work, Arianna isn’t prepared when a coworker named Marc Arnold challenges her to achieve her dreams through her suppressed passion for writing.

Friendship and inner strength bind four women together. Whenever one struggles, the others are there to lift them up. They know they’ll come out of these trials stronger, better, and happier—and with lifelong friendships to treasure.

1976. Rushing out of the University Library, undergraduate Alice Kenzie bumps straight into PhD student Tristan Somers. There begins a whirlwind romance, and Alice falls pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl. Then Tristan is killed in a car accident. Unable to cope, Alice takes her baby to Summer House, Tristan's family home in Suffolk, leaves her there and disappears. 2018. Olivia Somers has always been told that her mother died in the same accident as her father. When she finds old letters in Summer House, everything she ever believed about her mother is called into question.

The Morgan sisters spent many blissful summers at their family’s lake house growing up, but as they grew older, their lives took very different paths. Hope adores her twin girls, but she doesn’t love being a stay-at-home mom. When her workaholic husband doesn’t support her career aspirations, she packs up the kids and goes to Sunset Cottage, thinking that some time apart will help her decide what she really wants. But when the life she dreamed of becomes a possibility, she is more torn than ever.

After tragically losing her husband, Nicola Jacques and her teenage son, Oliver, relocate to his father’s family's Olive Farm in the hills above the French Riviera. Due to a family feud, Oliver has never known his fathers’ side of the family, and Grandpapa Henri is intent that Oliver will take over the reins of the ancestral farm and his rightful inheritance. Determined to keep her independence from a rather controlling grandpapa, Nicola buys a run-down cottage on the edge of the family's Olive Farm and sets to work renovating their new home and providing an income.

Few authors have understood the tender intricacies of relationships better than the incomparable Belva Plain. For three decades her deeply moving epics have captivated the hearts and imaginations of readers everywhere. Now, in her final novel, she comes full circle with the themes she took up in...

Abby Rhodes is just starting to get her life on track. After her fiance's unexpected death, she returned with her young son to the small village where she grew up and threw herself into helping her ailing grandmother run the town's beach cafe. Then one evening, her mother, Laura, shows up in Hartley-by-the-Sea and announces her plan to stay. After twenty years away, she now wants to focus on the future-and has no intention, it seems, of revisiting the painful past.

After a blizzard roared across the island in February, Lola Sheridan was forced to postpone her wedding to Tommy Gasbarro, the handsome Italian sailor who stole her heart two summers back. Their June wedding approaches—and the Sheridan women have a surprise party up their sleeves, one that will shock all involved and make Lola question her allegiances.

Mom is barely in the grave and the prodigal child is here to pick the bones clean. I don’t want her here. My sister’s defection is a wound that won’t heal, and her return simply rubs at the scabs covering my heart. I’ve managed just fine without her. She can go back to her fancy college and forget about us—that’s what she does best anyway. If only I didn’t need her help. Or miss her so much.

Alessandra è una biologa che insegna a Parigi, dove abita con Pierre. Da anni non va nel Salento, il luogo in cui è nata e che ha lasciato dopo un evento drammatico, perché non riesce a fare i conti con le ombre della sua famiglia. Quando Annie, l'anziana madre di Pierre, è ricoverata in una clinica perché sta progressivamente perdendo la memoria, Alessandra è costretta a rimettere tutto in discussione. Chi siamo quando pezzi interi della nostra vita scivolano via? Che cosa resta di noi?

Since Ginevra Innocenti’s death, the cottage has lain empty and abandoned in the woods. Until the day Ginevra’s granddaughter, Sara, sees a dragonfly in the depths of winter. Intrigued, she follows it and discovers the forgotten cottage. When Sara learns that her grandmother was once a healer, a series of events is set in motion which could lead to the end of the family legacy. As long-hidden secrets are revealed, Sara starts to doubt everything she once believed in. Her mind in turmoil, she no longer knows whether she can follow in the footsteps of her ancestors.

Things are looking up for Anaya Goode after the deaths of her brother and mother. She is the youngest (and highest paid) executive in Alameda County. She is in an adoring relationship with the love of her life, her natural twists are on point, and she runs a six-minute mile. What else matters? When Anaya is tasked with leading negotiations for the most significant development agreement in County history, her world unravels.

Matthew was my biggest regret. For years he was my best friend, but I never told him how I really felt. That I loved him. When all the words should have been said, I said nothing at all. For fifteen years I kept him in my dreams, letting my life coast along and pass me by. Until he came back. But Matthew wasn't the man I remembered. Cold and aloof, his hatred of me burned little holes into my heart. We had just fifteen days to reconnect. Probably too short a time to bridge the gap to the past. Could we get back to who we used to be, when we were young?

Happily ever after comes at a steep price as past relationships and betrayal threaten to destroy a marriage. Newlywed Casi Roberts struggles to find a balance between her career as a model, a failing business deal, and living between the quaint town of Blackberry Falls and the chaos in Los Angeles. Kyle Jensen questions his choice to follow his heart when everything he values is threatened and his new wife becomes a stranger. Devastation, jealousy, and lies, force Casi and Kyle to focus on what they cherish and believe in each other.

With her deceased sister’s Route 66 bucket list in hand, California girl Joy Evers sets out on a cross-country road trip to meet up with her fiancé, checking off the bullets along the way. Singer-songwriter Dylan Westfield has a serious case of wanderlust and a broken-down car. Stuck at a diner between LA and Flagstaff, he meets Joy, his complete opposite. She’s energetic. He’s moody. She’s by the book. He’s spontaneous. She believes in love at first sight. He thinks love is a complicated mess. But Joy has a brand-new convertible.

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.

Jessica Wood is an aspiring photographer living in London. She’s had her heart broken, and her friends have pieced it back together again. But across the neon lights of Soho, in the smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke, on every night bus, in every song, every time she tries to forget: she remembers him. Now, in a battle between the past and the future, choosing between having a life and making a living, finding her feet or spreading her wings, Jessica must ask herself: who is she really living for?

Cassie and Erin are sisters. They are close - in age, looks and personality - but there is one crucial difference: Cassie is adopted. At 17, Cassie sets out to find her birth mother. She is hungry for the truth, but she discovers her adoption was far more complicated than even she could have imagined. In uncovering her real identity Cassie learns her adoptive parents have kept a terrible secret from her her whole life, which now threatens to destroy everything she has ever held dear.

Daisy meets Adam on their first day of university. Immediately, they become friends. But when tongues wag and their relationship is questioned, Adam shares his secret with Daisy, who promises to stand by him. When their grandmother dies, Adam’s older brother Ryan returns from abroad, and Daisy quickly falls for him. After a troubled upbringing at the hands of a drunken mother and jailbird father, Adam and Ryan have only each other. In adulthood, their bond holds firm, glued together by Daisy with whom they are now both in love.

They’ve had the white dresses and the fancy receptions. But now that the honeymoon’s over, Stella, Casey, and Erin have each had to face some hard truths about the men they’ve married and the lives they’ve chosen. So when the news breaks that the pastor who presided over their weddings failed to file a few critical pieces of paper, none of these newlyweds is rushing down to the courthouse to legalize her vows. Instead, the brides share their hopes, disappointments, and secrets while grappling with that pivotal question: Should they stay or should they go?