Small Life

Every day, there are multiple things vying for our attention - people, businesses, technologies, apps. But many of us don’t realize that our attention is our property. It belongs to us just like any other resource we own. And when we choose what we give our attention to, we can focus fully on our own purpose and on what’s best for us. When you take a step back and think about your thinking, you can take control of your attention, as well as your time and your purpose, rather than allowing others to be in control. It’s up to you.

Shaken by her parents’ divorce and discouraged by the growing chasm between herself and her serious boyfriend, Nikki Werner seeks solace at her uncle’s farm in a small Missouri hamlet. She’ll spend the summer there, picking up the pieces of her shattered present so she can plan a better future. But what awaits her at the ancestral farm is the past—one she barely knows.

When Marina Moore decides to expand her farmers market and pop-up dinner business, the next step is a cafe on the shores of Summer Beach. But challenges loom, and Marina must quickly become more creative than ever, especially when her children need help. Her sister Kai's position with a musical theater troupe forces more changes. Their sister Brooke is having marital challenges, while grandmother Ginger continues to contribute her advice on the life well-lived—if only her granddaughters will listen.

Charlene Ann Baumbich—award-winning journalist and best-selling author of the Dearest Dorothy novels—launches a series of heartwarming stories linked by the swirling flakes of one special snowglobe. In this charming tale of second chances, renewed faith, and forgiveness, a captivating heirloom triggers inexplicable changes.

Margot Hart travels to Ireland to write a biography of the famous Deverill family. She knows she must speak to the current Lord Deverill - JP - if she is to uncover the secrets of the past. A notorious recluse, JP won’t be an easy man to crack. But Margot is determined - and she is not a woman who is easily put off. What she never expected was to form a close bond with JP and be drawn into his family disputes. Shouldering the blame for running up debts that forced him to sell the family castle, JP is isolated and vulnerable.

Faced with uncontrollable circumstances, from a change in market demand to a global pandemic, being self-employed can sometimes feel less like you're running the show, and more like the show is running you. But it doesn't need to be that way. Small business consultant, entrepreneur coach, and acclaimed portrait photographer Jeffrey Shaw - TEDx speaker and host of the popular The Self-Employed Life podcast - offers the essential manual on everything you need to be successful as a self-employed business owner.

At the Coral Cottage, this summer is as busy as ever. Marina’s sister Kai moved up her wedding, but she won’t say why, and her new theater production is shrouded in secrecy. Frankly, the timing couldn’t be worse. Still, Marina is determined to expand her Coral Cafe with a new food truck and staff. As for Marina’s relationship with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Jack, she’s unsure if her grown children will accept a new marriage and a younger stepbrother. Or will this summer spell an end to their romance?

Do you have a hobby or passion that has nothing to do with your nine-to-five job? Do you craft vintage jewelry, make handmade furniture, or offer expert negotiating advice to family and friends in your spare time? Then you, too, could join the one-third of Americans who turn their talents into a lucrative side hustle. In What If It Does Work Out? life coach and professional side-hustler Susie Moore offers expert tips and guidance to help you earn an extra source of income by doing something you love.

When the McPheron brothers see Victoria Roubideaux, the single mother they’d taken in, move from their ranch to begin college, an emptiness opens before them—and for many other townspeople it also promises to be a long, hard winter. A young boy living alone with his grandfather helps out a neighbor whose husband, off in Alaska, suddenly isn’t coming home, leaving her to raise their two daughters.

At only ten years old, Katherine Forrester has already experienced her fair share of upheaval. It has been three years since she last saw her mother, a concert pianist whose career was cut short by a terrible accident. After a brief reunion, tragedy strikes once more, forcing Katherine from the familiarity of New York City to a foreign Swiss boarding school. Far from home, she struggles with the challenges of growing up. Stifled by her daily routine and the pettiness of her classmates, Katherine’s piano lessons with a gifted young teacher provide an anchor in the storm.

Long before Dr. Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly made most listeners’ acquaintance in Patrick Taylor's best-selling novel An Irish Country Doctor, he appeared in a series of humorous columns originally published in Stitches: The Journal of Medical Humour. These warm and wryly amusing vignettes provide an early glimpse at the redoubtable Dr. O’Reilly as he tends to the colourful and eccentric residents of Ballybucklebo, a cozy Ulster village nestled in the bygone years of the early '60s.

MaryRuth’s brand embodies her core mission—to help others feel and perform their best. Liquids Till Lunch encapsulates her philosophy, and is a roadmap anyone can follow to substantially improve their health, happiness, and psychological well-being. From the importance of portion control to positivity, from fasting to stressing less, each chapter is packed with life-changing anecdotes from her clients, and scientifically backed research.

The sheriff's deputy at the front door brings hard news to Ree Dolly. Her father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date. Ree's father has disappeared before. The Dolly clan has worked the shadowy side of the law for generations, and arrests (and attempts to avoid them) are part of life in Rathlin Valley.

I've spent the last twenty years reinventing myself. Shaking off the snotty rich girl facade for law school at Tulane University, only to pivot and obtain a Master's in Social Work, much to my parents' dismay. I settled in New Orleans and embedded myself in local politics, fighting for the people with the least representation. That is until my mother's illness called me home.

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.

Joan Didion's electrifying first novel is a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California. Everett McClellan and his wife, Lily, are the great-grandchildren of pioneers, and what happens to them is a tragic epilogue to the pioneer experience, a story of murder and betrayal that only Didion could tell with such nuance, sympathy, and suspense.

Marina and her sister Kai, entrusted with managing Summer Beach's one-hundred-year celebration, navigate treacherous waters. Age-old grudges and family secrets soon resurface. Their grandmother's hidden past casts a shadow, forcing them to confront dangerous truths. While Marina's daughter Heather grapples with boyfriend troubles, she discovers her new husband Jack is harboring secrets of his own. As tensions rise and love is tested, the bonds of family and friendship will be stretched to their limits.

On Ichabod Island, a jagged strip of land 13 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, 10-year-old Sky becomes an orphan for the second time after a tragic accident claims the lives of her adoptive parents. Grieving the death of his best friends, Leo’s life is turned upside down when he finds himself the guardian of young Sky. Back on the island and struggling to balance his new responsibilities and his marriage to his husband, Leo is supported by a powerful community of neighbors, many of them harboring secrets of their own.

Nora, the owner of a diner, is happy serving up apple cider donuts. But her life is soon shaken when she discovers she and her younger sister Kit stand to inherit the home and land of the town's beloved cake lady, Peggy Johnson. Kit, an aspiring - and broke - filmmaker thinks her problems are solved when she and Nora find out Peggy was in the process of selling the land to a big-box developer.

Harley Altmyer should be in college drinking Rolling Rock and chasing girls. He should be freed from his closed-minded, stricken coal town, with its lack of jobs and no sense of humor. Instead, he's constantly reminded of just how messed up his life is. With his mother in jail for killing his abusive father, Harley is an orphan with the responsibilities of an adult and the fiery, aggressive libido of a teenager.