Contemporary Family Life

It looks like a Merry Christmas is around the corner in Whiskey Springs. Fallon Foster’s ex-girlfriend, Olivia Nolan, has moved to Amsterdam. Fallon is settling into her life with Riley Main and their son, Owen. Andi Maguire has finally found love with Billie Steele. And the town is celebrating the birth of its newest resident, a little girl named Hope. The celebratory mood is cut short when Billie delivers the news that Olivia is dead. Olivia’s death sends shock waves through the small town. And it won’t be the last piece of unexpected news.

In the Irish town of Schancarrig, the young people carve their initials - and those of their loves - into the copper beech tree in front of the schoolhouse. But not even Father Gunn, the parish priest, who knows most of what goes on behind Shancarrig's closed doors, or Dr. Jims, the village doctor, who knows all the rest, realizes that not everything in the placid village is what it seems.

Nineteen-year-old Irma Voth lives in a Mennonite community in northern Mexico, surrounded by desert and both physically and culturally isolated from the surrounding towns and cities. It’s been six years since her family left Canada to escape the prying eyes of the government and preserve their religious freedom, but Irma still misses the minor freedoms she had in their small town.

Hannah and Will Abbott define the American dream: two kids, a home in the suburbs, and a seemingly perfect marriage. But discontent lurks under the surface of their outwardly happy lives. Both Will and Hannah suspect the other of infidelity. When they independently consult divorce attorneys, the conflict escalates and Hannah flees with the children against a court order. This snap decision starts a social media firestorm, and, suddenly, the Abbott divorce is big news.

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.

When Susan Tate's seventeen-year-old daughter, Lily, announces she is pregnant, Susan is stunned. A single mother, she has struggled to do everything right. She sees the pregnancy as an unimaginable tragedy for both Lily and herself. Then comes word of two more pregnancies among high school juniors who happen to be Lily's best friends-and the town turns to talk of a pact. As fingers start pointing, the most ardent criticism is directed at Susan. As principal of the high school, she has always been held up as a role model of hard work and core values.

After years of following her navy officer husband on assignment around the world with their three children, Grace Bennett realizes that she’s left something behind - herself. Steve Bennett can’t understand the unraveling of his wife’s heart. He wants to set things right, but when a secret from his past is revealed just as he’s sent out to sea, their already-strained relationship is pushed to the edge. Now, with plenty of space to ponder the true distance between them, Grace begins to reinvent herself. Just as her new self is coming to terms with her family life, the unthinkable happens.

Lucy lives on the 24th floor. Owen lives in the basement. It's fitting, then, that they meet in the middle - stuck between two floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, Lucy and Owen spend the night wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is back, so is reality. Lucy soon moves abroad with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.

Bailey Moore has an agenda: skiing in the Rockies, exploring castles in Europe, ballroom dancing in Argentina. Now that she has a second lease on life, she's determined not to miss a thing. What she doesn't realize is that item number one comes with a six-foot-one ski god hot enough to melt a polar ice cap. She doesn't want to miss out on him either, but Hudson Kincaid isn't the type of guy to love and let go. And as gorgeous as Cedar Ridge is, she's not planning to stick around.

On her favorite day of the year, Elizabeth Davenport awakens in her cottage on the wild and windy Cornish coast, opens her front door, and discovers a precious gift: the small blue crocus and a note that begins "I Wish". The notes are never signed, but she knows they’ve been left by her first and truest love, Tom Hale. Each of these precious missives convey a simple wish for something they had missed, and the life they might have shared, if circumstances hadn't forced them apart all those years ago. She has kept them all.

Mareike Fallwickls neuer Roman über die Last, die auf den ­Frauen ­abgeladen wird, und das Aufbegehren: ­radikal, wachrüttelnd, empowernd. Helene, Mutter von drei Kindern, steht beim Abendessen auf, geht zum Balkon und stürzt sich ohne ein Wort in den Tod. Die Familie ist im Schockzustand. Plötzlich fehlt ihnen alles, was sie bisher zusammengehalten hat: Liebe, Fürsorge, Sicherheit. Helenes beste Freundin Sarah, die ­Helene ­ihrer Familie wegen zugleich beneidet und bemitleidet hat, wird in den Strudel der ­Trauer und des Chaos gezogen.

Alexandra McKnight prefers a life of long workdays and short-term relationships, and she's found it in Hope's Crossing. A sous chef at the local ski resort, she's just been offered her dream job at an exclusive new restaurant being built in town. But when it comes to designing the kitchen, Alex finds herself getting up close and personal with construction foreman Sam Delgado. At first glance, Sam seems perfect for Alex. He's big, tough, gorgeous and in town for only a few weeks.

Hope Nichols has never felt as if she belonged anywhere except her hometown of Pine Gulch. So when she hears that her family's property, Christmas Ranch, is set to be shut down forever, a determined Hope heads home. She refuses to let the Grinch steal her holiday - this will be the most memorable ranch Christmas ever! And, thanks to hunky former navy SEAL Rafe Santiago and his adorable nephew, she might just pull off that miracle.

Hardened rancher Ridge Bowman has long told himself he has no need for love - just work and his little girl are enough to get him through. But when his cleaning lady, Sarah Whitmore, gets injured on his staircase, well, of course he has to invite her to spend the holidays with him. It's only the responsible thing to do. Only, Sarah isn't really there to work on his house. She came bearing precious artwork belonging to Ridge's late mother, and possibly a secret that could devastate them both. But as Christmas draws closer, so does Ridge - and Sarah convinces herself that she will tell him what she knows as soon as the holiday is over.

The born rancher who stole her heart, her ex-husband, the tough, tender father of her child. Tori Tyler can't let Will Tyler go to prison for a crime that was a simple accident. But she can't deny that her feelings for the man run much deeper than loyalty, and her desire for his strong, sure embrace has never died. Protecting him is second nature until an unexpected terror threatens to shatter them both - and Tori needs Will's fierce love more than ever before.

Barbara Taylor Bradford delivers an evocative new novel of family secrets and betrayals that stretch from the streets of World War II Berlin to the winding alleys of Istanbul to the present day. Justine Nolan is a documentary film maker who lost her beloved grandmother a decade ago. Her own mother, Deborah, had always been distant and uninvolved. But when Justine inadvertently opens a letter addressed to her mother, she discovers that not only is her grandmother alive, but that Deborah has deliberately estranged the family from her for all these years.

The warm and wonderful new novel from the natural heir to Maeve Binchy.... Tess used to be happy with her lot: she lives in the idyllic Irish coastal village, Avalon, with her teenage son, Zach, and nine-year-old Kitty, and works in the local antiques shop. Her only regret in life is that everything went so horribly wrong with her first love. Then her marriage falls apart and her first love returns to Avalon.

Bonnie Martin fled her Oklahoma home years ago, leaving behind her abusive father and Rohn, the lost love she never forgot. Now she's back to settle her father's estate, but she has no idea that she's about to bump into Rohn or that they'll fall for each other all over again.

Love alone isn’t enough to overcome some obstacles. Lena Kauffman is a young Old Order Amish schoolteacher who has dealt all her life with attention raised by a noticeable birthmark on her cheek. Having learned to move past the stares and whispers, Lena channels her zest for living into her love of teaching. But tensions mount as she is challenged to work with a rebellious young man and deal with several crises at the schoolhouse that threaten her other students.

Pay It Forward, is the moving story of Trevor McKinney, a 12-year-old boy who accepts his social studies teacher’s challenge to come up with a plan to change the world. Trevor’s idea is simple: Do a good deed for three people and ask them to "pay it forward" to three others who need help. He envisions a vast movement of kindness and goodwill spreading beyond his small California town and across the world.