Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

It's a beautiful day in Manchester, and four friends are meeting for a birthday lunch. But then they witness a shocking accident just metres away which acts as a catalyst for each of them. For Laura, it's a wake-up call to heed the ticking of her biological clock. Sensible Jo finds herself throwing caution to the wind in a new relationship. Eve, who has been trying to ignore the worrying lump in her breast, feels helpless and out of control. And happy-go-lucky India is drawn to one of the victims of the accident, causing long-buried secrets to rise to the surface.

Die Hochzeit mit ihrer großen Jugendliebe sollte der schönste Tag in Aimees Leben werden. Aber statt mit James vor dem Altar steht sie nun allein an seinem Grab. Von einer Reise nach Mexiko ist er nicht zu ihr zurückgekehrt. Er galt nach einem Bootsunfall als verschollen, bis seine sterblichen Überreste angespült wurden. Jeder Moment ohne ihn schmerzt und die Vergangenheit gibt keine Ruhe. Eine geheimnisvolle Fremde behauptet, James würde noch leben.

Walking with Elephants, a lighthearted slice-of-life story, brings to the table the serious work/family issues facing women today. It explores the modern dichotomy of a workplace that is filled with homemakers who still must cook, clean, carpool on nights and weekends, shop for prom dresses, and create the holidays -- such as Suze. But it also is filled with women who have the same drive as men, have no family responsibilities, and will do what ever it takes to get ahead.

Betting on the city of Detroit's eventual comeback, cousins Addie and Samantha decide to risk it all on an affordable new house and a culinary career that starts with renovating a vintage diner in a depressed area of town. There's just one little snag in their vision.

Linda Davis’s local fabric shop is a place where women gather to share their creations: quilts commemorating important events in their lives. Wedding quilts, baby quilts, memorial quilts - each is bound tight with dreams, hopes, and yearnings.Now, as her only child readies for college, Linda is torn between excitement for Molly and heartache for herself. Who will she be when she is no longer needed in her role as mom? Mother and daughter decide to share one last adventure together.

The last thing Cleopatra Knight expects on her business trip to Tokyo is to fall into bed with her arrogant, irresistibly hot boss, Dante Damaso. It's a mistake - a steamy, mind-blowingly satisfying mistake. But a few nights of passion with the superwealthy bad boy prove to have long-term effects when Cleo's world is unexpectedly turned upside down.

Ella's life has been completely upended. She's young, beautiful, and deeply in love - until her husband dies in a tragic sailing accident while trying save her. Or so she'll have everyone believe. Screenwriter Hunter needs a hit, but crippling writers' block and a serious lack of motivation are getting him nowhere. He's on the look-out for a love story. It doesn't matter who it belongs to.

No matter how many years Dakota Keller has spent trying, he can't outrun his past, so when a private investigator tells him his sister needs him, he travels to the small Texas town of Hope Springs to start a new life with the support of his siblings. When he arrives to do a routine construction job at the town's new espresso bar, he's shocked to discover that the owner is Thea Clark - the girl he couldn't resist in high school and whose memory kept him sane in prison.

When Beth Michaels hightailed it out of the hole-in-the-road town she grew up in, she only had two goals. One - get as far away as quickly as possible, and two -never set foot in her parent's home again. But when she receives a heart breaking call from her childhood best friend, Jen, she has no choice but to turn her '56 Ford pickup back in the direction of Salem, Missouri to attend a funeral. There's a new local in town when Beth arrives, and suddenly, it ain't all that easy for her to remember her rules for dating.

Eight years have passed since Ave Maria Mulligan married Jack Mac, moved up into the hills, and dug in her roots even deeper. But Ave Maria soon discovers that the mountains cannot shelter her from the painful lessons of the heart. As her life reaches a crossroads, almost everybody in town has advice to offer—including the Bookmobile’s self-appointed sexpert Iva Lou Wade, savvy pharmacy owner Pearl Grimes, crusty chain-smoking cashier Fleeta, and of course, the always-wise band director Theodore Tipton.

"I love you." Ten years ago rancher Cliff Martin said those three little words to Holly Heflin. But all she said was "goodbye." She ran from Conard County fast as a jackrabbit, leaving Cliff with a broken heart. But Cliff never forgot the one that got away. Now Holly has returned to settle her aunt's estate - and Cliff is the executor. Her matchmaking aunt and his jealous ex-wife are the least of Holly's problems. Everywhere there are memories…and Cliff.

Rocky’s husband Bob was just 42 when she discovered him lying cold and lifeless on the bathroom floor…and Rocky’s world changed forever. Quitting her job, chopping off all her hair, she leaves Massachusetts – reinventing her past and taking a job as Animal Control Warden on Peak’s Island, a tiny speck off the coast of Maine and a million miles away from everything she’s lost....

All systems are go! Ovulation cycle? Check. Estrogen level? Check. Nothing can stop Ellie Sterling's baby-making attempt at the fertility clinic. Nothing but her CEO boss - and good friend - who offers her an alternative to leaving their island headquarters: Let's make a baby the old-fashioned way.

Julia Berkwith's daughter has moved to Alaska, her beloved mother-in-law is in a nursing home, and her ex-husband is in Hawaii - with a younger woman. In her late 40s, Julia is now used to being invisible. But even if she has to do it alone, she's determined to celebrate her victory over breast cancer by hiking Italy's Cinque Terre. Invigorated by the beauty of the Italian countryside, Julia seems unstoppable, until she's injured by a rock - one that happens to belong to 30-something stone mason Vitale DeLuca.

Inheriting her grandparents' island estate on Florida's Gulf coast is a special kind of homecoming for thirty-one-year-old Charity Baxter. Raised by a narcissistic single mother, Charity's only sense of a loving home comes from childhood summers spent with Gramps and Grandma. But piercing her fondest memories is her sharpest grief - the death of her beloved grandmother, when Charity stopped believing in the magical healing power of the weeping willow that still casts a shadow on their property.

Two years after her husband's death, kindergarten teacher Brooklyn Harvey is leaving Hope Springs for her in-laws' vineyard in Italy - with no plans of coming back. That is, until she meets a disarmingly sexy biker-turned-chocolatier. He might be the man of her dreams, but he's also the father of one of her students; as such, he's strictly off-limits.

Gus Hollister owes all his success to his feisty grandmother, Rose, and he knows it. It was Rose and her two sisters, Iris and Violet, who raised Gus, sent him to the best schools, and helped him start his own accounting business. Rose even bought the house Gus lives in with his wife, Elaine. But now, Gus stands to lose everything - his home, his car, and his business. Worse, he’s alienated his beloved grandma, who tried to warn him about Elaine’s greedy, gold-digging ways.

Finding refuge from her ex-husband at her friend's house was her best option, Kelly McNeil thought - until Matt Noble answered the door. She'd had a huge, unrequited crush on him as a teenager! But as adults, he'd never even given her a second look. Then she got married and left town and, well, now here they are again…Matt had never mustered up the courage to ask Kelly out, and now fate has literally knocked on his door and given him a second chance. But Kelly is afraid to risk her independence and her children with a man who could only hurt them again.

To build a future, sometimes you have to tear down the past... Chicago event planner Libby Hamilton can turn any bland setting into a dramatic venue - but when she abruptly loses her job, and her fair-weather boyfriend moves to another state, Libby suddenly finds herself back in the tiny town she grew up in. Worse than that, her father wants help transforming an old schoolhouse into a vintage ice cream parlor and Libby must trade in her power suits for power tools.

The rich atmosphere of South Carolina, both Hilton Head and Charleston, is brought vividly to life by Dorothea Benton Frank, a South Carolina native who, with her exquisitely evocative prose, makes you smell the sea air, see the palmettos, and savor the sweet tea, but this time it comes with a side of antipasti.