Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

While Doctor Jessica Huntington engages with the inmates at the women's correctional facility where she works, she's always careful to avoid emotional attachments in her personal life. Loss and betrayal taught her that lesson long ago. But when she comes across a set of old love letters in the prison's library and visits the picturesque town of Hartwell to deliver them to their intended recipient, she finds herself unable to resist the town's charm - and her attraction to the sexy owner of a local bar proves equally hard to deny.

Danniella is running from her past, so when she arrives at the beautiful seaside resort of Whitsborough Bay, the last thing on her mind is making friends. Alison is fun, caring and doesn't take herself too seriously. But beneath the front, she is a lost soul. Karen's romance has taken a back seat to her fitness business. But she doesn’t want to give up on love quite yet. When the women meet at their local bootcamp, a deep friendship blossoms. And soon they realise that the secret to happiness is where they least expected to find it....

Since moving to Cedar Cove, Jo Marie Rose has truly started to feel at home, and her neighbors have become her closest friends. Now it's springtime, and Jo Marie is eager to finish the most recent addition to her inn. In memory of her late husband, Paul, she has designed a beautiful rose garden for the property and enlisted handyman Mark Taylor to help realize it. She and Mark don't always see eye-to-eye - and at times he seems far removed - yet deep down, Jo Marie finds great comfort in his company.

In seaside Blueberry Cove, Maine, friends are just another word for family, and big-city politics take a backseat to local pride. But the real treasure on these shores is always love.... When DC lawyer Hannah McCrae heads home for her brother's wedding, she's dragging a lot of baggage along with her - and she doesn't mean suitcases. Betrayed personally and humiliated professionally, the last thing she wants is a new man. That's fine with square-jawed, rugged contractor Calder Blue.

Johanna Walker is used to taking charge. But she’s about to meet someone who will make her lose control....

It has always been up to Johanna to care for her family, particularly her younger brother, Cole. With an absent father and a useless mother, she’s been making decisions based on what’s best for Cole for as long as she can remember. She even determines what men to date by how much they can provide for her brother and her, not on whatever sparks may - or may not - fly. But with Cameron MacCabe, the attraction is undeniable....

Eight years ago, Sophie gave her heart - and her virginity - to Zach Barrett on a night that couldn't have been less romantic or more embarrassing. Zach's stepbrother, a steely-muscled, tattooed biker named Ruger, caught them in the act, getting a peep show of Sophie he's never forgotten. She may have lost her dignity that fateful night, but Sophie also gained something precious - her son Noah. Unfortunately, Zach's a deadbeat dad, leaving Ruger as Noah's only male role model. When he discovers Sophie and his nephew living in near poverty, Ruger takes matters into his own hands.

Best-selling, critically acclaimed author Mark Helprin's work has drawn favorable comparisons to an elite group of literary legends, including James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, and Thomas Mann. Helprin's sheer comic brilliance shines in this ingenious farce.

Josie and Frank Moore are happy...at least Josie thinks they are. As parents of two young girls in the Chicago suburbs, their days can be both busy and monotonous, and sometimes Josie wonders how she became a harried fortysomething mother rather than the driven career woman she once was.

With a little determination and a lot of charm, Rosa Capoletti took a run-down pizza joint and turned it into an award-winning restaurant, voted the “best place to propose” three years in a row. For Rosa, though, there has been no real romance since her teenaged love affair with Alexander Montgomery ended without explanation a decade ago. But guess who’s just come back to town? Reunited at the beach house where they first fell in love, Rosa and Alexander discover that the secrets of the past are not what they seem.

Eric Jerome Dickey strides boldly over the minefield that is modern marriage. The central couple's biggest challenge is timing: He works days; she works nights. Instead of growing together, they're rapidly drifting apart, coexisting on stolen phone calls from work, punctuated by occasional bedroom encounters that leave them both feeling even emptier and more alone. When she finds out about his affair - and starts her own - the delicate fabric of their marriage is torn irrevocably asunder. Or is it?

Twelve years ago Matthew "the Rocket" Rising had it all. Married to his high school sweetheart and one of the winningest quarterbacks in the history of college football, he was the number one NFL draft pick. But on the night of the draft, he plummeted from the pinnacle of esteem. Falsely accused of a heinous crime with irrefutable evidence, it seemed in an instant all was lost—his reputation, his career, his freedom, and most devastatingly, the love of his life.

Chin up, Emily Thorn faces the pain and heartache of love lost and years wasted. At 40, all she has to show for 20 years of marriage is a Federal Express letter from her husband that begins "Dear Emily" - and ends their life together. She had put her own life on hold to pay Ian's way through medical school. She believed him when he told her that one day she'd have everything she ever wanted - children, an education, a career of her own. What she got was overweight, out of shape - and dumped.

Margot's reservoir of romantic feelings for her husband, Drum, is running dry. But while the family is on vacation in Nantucket, Margot finds an opportunity to potentially regain her romantic love for her husband - in the form of Hadley Axelram, his ex-girlfriend. She is counting on jealousy as a relationship defibrillator. But after forcing her surfing-god husband to make plans for a surfing lesson with Hadley and her son, Margot is left to reminisce about the summer she fell in love with Drum, and the unexpected blossoming of their relationship. When she sees Drum and Hadley spending time together, will the spark reignite - and will her marriage be saved?

When Quinn Langston’s her best friend unexpectedly passes away, Quinn knows she'll do anything to protect Brooke’s three-year-old daughter, Lily, and her grandmother Margaret. Not only is Quinn the little girl’s godmother, but they are the family she always wished she had. Now she vows to do whatever it takes to help the three of them heal - even if it means letting a complete stranger into their lives - and into their hearts. Margaret is old-fashioned, and she has no compunction about finding a way to reach Lily’s dad, a sperm donor.

When Gabriel and Julia Emerson first lay eyes on their newborn daughter, Clare, they realize life as they know it will never be the same. Gabriel has vowed to be a good father when he suddenly receives an invitation to give a series of lectures in Edinburgh, Scotland - an opportunity of high prestige - but that would mean leaving his wife and child in Boston. Hesitant to bring it up, he keeps the opportunity from Julia as long as he can, not knowing she has a secret of her own. When a frightening situation arises that threatens their new family, both parents must make sacrifices.

As Darby Dixon sits in a tiny Texas church bathroom on her wedding day holding a positive pregnancy test, she realizes marrying her fiancé would be the worst decision of her life. She's never been very good at standing up for herself, but she'll sure as hell stand up for her baby. With very little cash and a ton of courage, she flees town to take a new name and start a new life.

It’s been 16 years since Caretta “Cara” Rutledge has returned home to the beautiful shores of Charleston, South Carolina. Over those years, she has weathered the tides of deaths and births, struggles and joys. And now, as Cara prepares for her second wedding, her life is about to change yet again.

Elsie Lavender and Homer Hickam (the father of the author) were high school classmates in the West Virginia coalfields, graduating just as the Great Depression began. When Homer asked for her hand, Elsie instead headed to Orlando, where she sparked with a dancing actor named Buddy Ebsen (yes, that Buddy Ebsen). But when Buddy headed for New York, Elsie's dreams of a life with him were crushed, and eventually she found herself back in the coalfields, married to Homer.

Now happily settled with the woman he’s pined after for years, Adam Sutherland is about to find out what their 10 year courtship was like for Ellie, through the journals she kept during their ups and many downs. And though Adam may have Ellie now, he has no idea how close he came to losing her....

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.