Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

When Lucy Bagshaw's life in Boston falls apart thanks to a scathing editorial written by her famous artist mother, she accepts her half-sister Juliet's invitation to stay with her in Hartley-by-the-Sea, a charming seaside village in Northern England. Lucy is expecting quaint cottages and cream teas but instead finds that her sister is an aloof host; the weather is wet, windy, and cold; and her new boss, Alex Kincaid, is a disapproving widower who hired her only as a favor to Juliet.

For over a hundred years, the Angelini Shoe Company in Greenwich Village has relied on the leather produced by Vechiarelli & Son in Tuscany. This ancient business partnership provides the twist of fate for Valentine Roncalli to fall in love with Gianluca Vechiarelli, a tanner with a complex past...and a secret.

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....

Ten years ago, Jack Everett left his family's ranch without a backward glance. Now, what was supposed to be a quick trip home for his father's funeral has suddenly become more complicated. The ranch Jack can handle - he might be a lawyer, but he still remembers how to work with his hands. But turning around the failing vineyard he's also inherited? That requires working with the one woman he never expected to see again.

Sloane’s world crumbles after receiving the news that her military husband is missing in action. She can barely climb out of bed, much less summon the strength to be the parent her children deserve. Her mother, Ansley, provides a much-needed respite as she puts her personal life on hold to help Sloane and her grandchildren wade through their new grief-stricken lives. But between caring for her own aging mother, her daughters, and her grandchildren, Ansley's private worry is that secrets from her past will come to light.

After hitting her head, Lucy Sparks awakens in the hospital to a shocking revelation: the man she’s known and loved for years - the man she recently married - is not actually her husband. In fact, they haven’t even spoken since their breakup four years earlier. The happily-ever-after she remembers in vivid detail - right down to the dress she wore to their wedding - is only one example of what her doctors call a false memory: recollections Lucy’s mind made up to fill in the blanks from the coma.

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.

The spotlight doesn't only shine. Sometimes, it burns. Being the bad-boy bassist for the world's hottest band has earned Griffin Hancock some perks: A big house, a fast car, and most importantly his incredible wife Anna. The one thing it hasn't brought him is the spotlight. Anna tells him to be patient, that his talent will win out. But Griffin is through waiting for permission to shine. Without warning, Griffin makes a shocking decision and takes the gamble of a lifetime.

Angie Righetti is the daughter of a sprawling but close-knit Italian American family. She's out and they're proud. Jillian Clark's family is the white bread to Angie's olive oil. Stoic and emotionally buttoned up, they don't want to think about Jillian's sexuality. It's 1988 when they move in together, on the brink of starting their careers. Like every couple at the start of their life together, they expect to live happily ever after. And for 23 years life happens.

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.

In Tempting Fate by Jane Green, Gabby and Elliott have been happily married for 18 years. They have two teenaged daughters; they have built a life together. So why does 43-year-old Gabby feel like she has only three more minutes left of youth? Why do her friends so desperately try to hang on to their attractiveness? And why does she ever even look at the handsome guy - 10 years younger - at the other end of the bar one night? Gabby is the last person to have an affair - a physical one, at least.

Charming ladies’ man Rory Randall dies with one last trick up his sleeve: His will includes a calculating clause mandating a summer-long reunion for his daughters, all from different marriages - that is, if they hope to inherit his posh Nantucket house. Relations among the three sisters are sour thanks to long-festering jealousies, resentments, and misunderstandings. Arden, a successful television host in Boston, hasn’t been back to the island since her teenage years, when accusations of serious misbehavior led to her banishment.

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.

The obituaries for Gerald Candless were respectful. He had been, after all, an admired and popular writer, and his sudden death at his home in Devon was a loss to literature as well as to his family and friends. The trouble was, as his daughter Sarah soon discovered, that it seemed that her father had taken on a different identity that he wasn't Gerald Candless at all. But if he wasn't Gerald Candless, who was he?

Eager to cheer up her recently widowed gran, Cassie Fitzgerald, visiting from Canada, persuades Lissbeg Library to set up a Skype book club, linking readers on Ireland's Finfarran Peninsula with the US town of Resolve, home to generations of Finfarran emigrants. But when the club decides to read a detective novel, old conflicts on both sides of the ocean are exposed and hidden love affairs come to light. As secrets emerge, Cassie fears she may have done more harm than good. Will the truths she uncovers about her granny Pat's marriage affect her own hopes of finding love?

Korean immigrant Mina Pak Johnson is clearing out the last of her husband’s things when she finds a picnic basket in his closet—a long-forgotten wedding present from her mother. With it comes decades of memories—of her mother’s wishes for her to be happy and her own shattered hopes for her first child—and regret at never having used it. Pushing her husband’s ashes and a bottle of wine in a rusty old stroller, Mina is determined to re-create the picnic they never had. But with it comes something Mina never expected, illuminating a loving gesture her husband made years ago.

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.

When Frank Woods at number 79 Primrose Square comes home to a surprise birthday party thrown by his wife and adoring children, it is his guests who get the real surprise. Finding himself alone, he befriends the cantankerous Miss Hardcastle, who hasn't left her home for decades, and Emily Dunne - fresh out of rehab and desperate to make amends. As gossip spreads through Primrose Square, every relationship is tested, and nothing in this close-knit community will ever be the same again....

While her humanitarian husband Liam has been digging wells in Africa, Mara Jacobs has been struggling. She knows she's supposed to feel a warm glow that her husband is nine time zones away, caring for widows and orphans. But the reality is that she is exhausted. Then Liam's three-year absence turns into something more, changing everything and plunging her into a sunless grief. As Mara struggles to find her footing, she discovers that even when hope is tenuous, faith is fragile, and the future is unknown, we can be sure we are not forgotten...or unloved.

Susan Napier's family once lived on the success of the high-end restaurants founded by her late grandfather. But bad luck and worse management has brought the business to the edge of financial ruin. Now it's up to Susan to save the last remaining restaurant: Elliot's, the flagship in Edinburgh. But what awaits Susan in the charming city of Auld Reekie is more than she bargained for. Chris Baker, her grandfather's former protégé - and her ex-boyfriend - is also heading to the Scottish capital.