Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

Henry Harris was living his dream as a staff sergeant in the Marines. When he's killed in action, his devastated family is in for one more shock: he had a daughter they never knew about. Morgan Riley has been raising Etta on her own, and that's always been fine by her - until Henry's brother Trevor arrives on her doorstep, willing to do anything to help and make up for his brother's mistakes. Their attraction feels wrong, but Morgan can't seem to turn him away. Trevor is suddenly in too deep. He has always wanted a family, but Etta and Morgan come with complications.

When Meghan DeFord is forced to take a six-week leave-of-absence after a traffic accident, she chooses to spend the time with her grandmother. Meghan has wonderful memories of childhood summers with her Grandma Hazel and anticipates a time of relaxation and filling a scrapbook with pictures of their time together. Meghan's mother arrives unexpectedly and brings her long resentment towards Hazel for her overprotectiveness and near paranoia. During their time together, Hazel confesses her long-held secret....

What goes better with mistletoe and merriment than the sweet beginnings of romance?

For as long as she can remember, they were Cam and Lilly - happily married, totally in love with each other, parents of a beautiful family, and partners in life. Then, after decades of marriage, it ended as every great love story does...in loss. After Cam's death, Lilly takes a lone road trip to her and Cam's favorite spot on the remote coast of Maine.

One year after her mother’s death, a woman prepares to celebrate her fortieth birthday. Digging through a trunk in the attic, looking for keepsakes for the occasion, she discovers photographs that call into question everything she believed about her life. The truth is a different story—one of a little girl in danger, a lie, and a mother’s love so fierce it led her to do the unimaginable.

After seven years of misery and abuse, it's all over—Hannah O'Malley is officially divorced. Hallelujah. It's like every Christmas in her life all rolled up into one glorious day. Not only does Hannah get to keep her grandmother's spacious old house, but she has full custody of her sparky five-year-old daughter. All Hannah has to do now is put the past behind her.

In the five years since Julia last visited her aunt and uncle’s home in Malibu, her life has been turned upside down by her daughter’s death. She expects to find nothing more than peace and solitude as she house-sits with only her dog, Bonnie, for company. But she finds herself drawn to the handsome man who oversees the lemon orchard. Roberto expertly tends the trees, using the money to support his extended Mexican family. What connection could these two people share? The answer comes as Roberto reveals the heartbreaking story of his own loss – a pain Julia knows all too well, but for one striking difference: Roberto’s daughter was lost but never found. And despite the odds he cannot bear to give up hope.

The Mackay cousins - Natches, Rowdy, and Dawg - would do anything for family, so when former DHS agent Timothy Cranston drops off four sisters that Dawg never knew he had, there is no question: The cousins will protect and care for the girls, and their mother, because they’re family.... Five years later, Eve Mackay, the eldest sister, has graduated from college and settled in to life as a Mackay in Pulaski County, Kentucky. She works hard as a cocktail waitress and helps out at the bed-and-breakfast that Dawg bought for her mother.

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.

Dear Reader,You’ve probably heard that my wife has left me. Rachel’s pregnant, and she says she can’t handle the stress in our household anymore. My 13-year-old daughter, Jolene, is jealous of her. Maybe it’s my fault. As a widower I spoiled her - Jolene was reading over my shoulder just now and says that’s not true. She claims Rachel ruined everything. But that’s not true. The real question is: How can I get my wife back? I don’t even know where she is. She’s not with Teri Polgar or any of her other friends from the salon.

Nestled on the Maine coast, Blueberry Cove is a peaceful retreat compared to the excitement of exotic cities and foreign lands. But it's also the best place in the world for one woman to find her heart's true home. Kerry McCrae's wanderlust has taken her to parts of the globe most people have only glimpsed in pictures. So why is tending bar at the family pub in Blueberry Cove after her Uncle Fergus's stroke an easier adjustment than she expected? And why hasn't she left once Fergus is back on his feet?

For Sabrina Monroe, moving back home to the Wisconsin Dells - the self-described Waterpark Capital of the World - means returning to the Monroe family curse: The women in her family can see spirits who come to them for help with unfinished business. But Sabrina's always redirected the needy spirits to her mom, who's much better suited for the job. The one exception has always been Molly, a bubbly rom-com loving ghost, who stuck by Sabrina's side all through her lonely childhood.

One day, sitting in traffic, Stella Sweeney attempts a good deed. The resulting car crash changes her life. But in this event is born the seed of something which will take Stella thousands of miles from her old life, turning an ordinary woman into a superstar, wrenching her whole family apart. For the first time real, honest-to-goodness happiness is just within her reach. But is Stella Sweeney, Dublin housewife, ready to grasp it?

Hilton Head, a South Carolina retirement heaven - at least it's supposed to be, but for Big Al and Connie Russo, the move from New Jersey to this Southern paradise has been fraught with just a few complications. Especially for their daughter, Grace. Well, that's what she likes to be called. Her family insists on Maria Graziella. Seriously, enough with the Neapolitan. That might have been okay in New Jersey, but now it's just plain silly, and Grace, at 32 is - horror of horrors - still unmarried.

Ginger isn't spending her 30th the way she would have planned. Tonight might be the first night of the rest of her life - or a total disaster. Sam is finally pregnant after years of trying. When her waters break on the morning of her 40th birthday, she panics: forget labour, how is she going to be a mother? Callie is celebrating her 50th at a big party in her Dublin home. Then a knock at the door midparty changes everything....

Cassie Madison has it all: A high-powered advertising career; a stylish Manhattan apartment; and a sophisticated, rich, and gorgeous fiancé. It's a far cry from her childhood in Walton, Georgia, home of the annual Kudzu Festival and hot, sticky summers. And then there are all the bad memories, the heartache. When Cassie's estranged sister calls to say that her father is dying, Cassie knows it's time to set aside her feelings and go home and face the sister she hasn't seen in 15 years.

As a book editor, Julia Morse lived and breathed stories. Whether with her pen to a manuscript or curled up with a book while at her beloved Fire Island cottage, her imagination alight with a good tale, she could anticipate practically any ending. The ending she’d never imagined was her own. To be fair, no one expects to die at thirty-seven. So when the unthinkable happens to Julia, rather than following the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, she chooses to spend one last summer near those she loves most.

Ford Maddox was running from his past when he came back to Blueberry Cove, Maine, where he'd tasted both heartache and comfort. With feisty Delia O'Reilly there to cheer him on, he couldn't have picked a better place to start over--even if he's determined to do it alone in his island tree house, working to save endangered seabirds...and himself. But when he finds Delia fighting to hold on to her local diner, and all that's best about their little seaside town, Ford has to lend a hand.

There's always time to help out a stranger...isn't there? Supermarket delivery driver Charlie enjoys his new job, because he doesn't have to spend too long with people, who, he's found, are nothing but trouble. But when he's assigned the Hope Row street, he realises there are a lot of lonely people out there - and for some, he's their only interaction. The supermarket boss tells Charlie he's a driver, not a social worker - but Charlie can't abandon the Hope Row residents and he sets about trying to draw them out of their shells and back into the world.

Bruce Peyton wonders where he went wrong. A widower, he worries that he has spoiled his 13-year-old daughter Jolene, and in doing so, caused so much tension and hostility in his home that his new - and pregnant - wife, Rachel, has left him. He struggles to regain her trust and to raise a daughter he can be proud of, because in Cedar Cove, nothing is more important than family.