Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

As the snowstorm of the century rages toward Newfoundland, twenty-one-year-old Xavier is beaten and stabbed in a vicious attack. His mother, Jules, must fight her way through the shuttered streets of St John’s to reach the hospital where Xavier lies unconscious. When a video of the attack surfaces, Jules struggles to make sense of what she sees in the footage—and of what she can’t quite make out. While Xavier’s story unfolds, so, too, do the stories that brought him there.

When the unthinkable happens, and Claire Thompson's husband dies suddenly, she's left wondering how to go on. Being a wife and mother is all she's ever known. Grieving and lost, she decides to take her family for one last trip to their beach house before she's forced to put it up for sale. The house is filled with happy memories, and it seems like a great way to remember Bryan.

Workaholic, career-obsessed Francesca is fiercely independent and successful in all areas of life except one: family. She struggles to make time for her relationship with her teenage daughter, Allegra, and the two have become practically strangers to each other. When Allegra hangs out with a new crowd and is arrested for drug possession, Francesca gives in to her mother's wish that they take one epic summer vacation to trace their family roots in Italy. What she never expected was to be faced with the choice of a lifetime....

A gripping, festive novel, Christmas Under the Stars by Karen Swan reveals the devastating power of secrets. Worlds apart. A love without limit. In the snow-topped mountains of the Canadian Rockies, Meg and Mitch are living their dream. Just weeks away from their wedding, they work and play with Tuck and Lucy, their closest and oldest friends. Meg and Lucy are as close as sisters - much to Meg's sister's dismay - and Tuck and Mitch have successfully turned their passion for snowboarding into a booming business.

After her cat toy empire goes up in flames, Sophie Lane returns to Blackberry Island, determined to rebuild. Until small-town life reveals a big problem: She can’t grow unless she learns to let go. If Sophie relaxes her grip even a little, she might lose everything. Or she might finally be free to reach for the happiness and love that have eluded her for so long. Kristine has become defined by her relationship to others. She’s a wife, a mom. As much as she adores her husband and sons, she wants something for herself - a sweet little bakery just off the waterfront.

The PS, I Love You Club. These are the six words written on a card handed to Holly Kennedy. They’re words that are engraved on her heart - because PS, I Love You is how her husband, Gerry, signed his last letters to her, letters that mark a year she will never forget. Now, the mysterious club wants something from her. And if Holly can find the courage meet them, she’ll learn what it really means to live life to the full. Because every love story has one last thing to say....

Annie Adams is days away from her 32nd birthday and thinks she has finally found some happiness. She visits the world's most interesting places for her syndicated travel column and she's happily cohabiting with her movie director boyfriend Nick in Los Angeles. But when Nick comes home from a meeting with his therapist (aka "futures counselor") and announces that he's taking a break from their relationship so he can pursue a woman from his past, the place Annie had come to call home is shattered.

The Chemin, also known as the Camino de Santiago, is a centuries-old pilgrim route that ends in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Every year, thousands of walkers - some devout, many not - follow the route that wends through quaint small villages and along busy highways alike, a journey unlike any other. Zoe, an artist from California who’s still reeling from her husband’s sudden death, has impulsively decided to walk the Camino, hoping to find solace and direction. Martin, an engineer from England, is road-testing a cart of his own design…and recovering from a messy divorce.

Single mom Heather Donovan’s dreams of home and family are tantalizingly within reach when she settles in Chesapeake Shores. The welcoming arms of the boisterous, loving O’Brien clan embrace her and her son. But accepting their support seems to further alienate her son’s father, Connor O’Brien. His parents’ divorce and his career as a high-powered divorce attorney have left him jaded about marriage. Then everything changes. Will the possibility of a future without Heather make Connor look at love and his career differently?

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?

Single mom Kiera Malone struggled for years to raise her three children in a small town on the coast of Ireland. Just when she's let down her guard and allowed herself to love again, her fiancé suffers a fatal heart attack. Overwhelmed by her loss, she's persuaded to visit her father, Dillon O'Malley, and her daughter, Moira O'Brien, in Chesapeake Shores. With the promise of family ties and a job at her son-in-law's Irish pub, she takes what seems like the biggest risk of her life. As it turns out, crossing the ocean is nothing compared to moving right next door to Bryan Laramie.

When Toots Loudenberry relocated to Los Angeles to be near her daughter, Abby, she expected to bump into the occasional celebrity. She just never expected them to be dead. Meanwhile, Toots, Sophie, and Mavis are concerned that the prestigious Dr. Sameer’s budding romance with Ida may have something to do with his ailing bank balance. And Abby’s attempted makeover of the celebrity magazine The Informer into the most talked-about tabloid in town could end more than just her career.

In downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Lou works tirelessly to build her beloved yet struggling French restaurant, Luella's, into a success. She cheerfully balances her demanding business and even more demanding fiancé...until the morning she discovers him in the buff - with an intern.

In a novel that is as compelling as it is compassionate, Danielle Steel weaves a story of courage in the face of unimaginable loss. With the grace of a master storyteller, she explores the strength it takes to conquer our greatest fears, showing us how the toughest choices can yield the most unexpected rewards...and how the longest, most winding journeys can begin with a single kiss.

When reporter Phoebe Adams loses her job and her fiancé on the same day, it never occurs to her that she’ll also have to support her mother, Ruth, through her divorce from Phoebe’s father after thirty-five years of marriage. They both need a safe haven, and Phoebe knows just the place—Summer Island where Grandma Alice still rules the roost from the big New England beach house Phoebe and Ruth once called home.

When a massive hurricane severs all power and cell service to Little Bridge Island - as well as its connection to the mainland - 25-year-old Bree Beckham isn’t worried...at first. She’s already escaped one storm - her emotionally abusive ex - so a hurricane seems like it will be a piece of cake. But animal-loving Bree does become alarmed when she realizes how many islanders have been cut off from their beloved pets. Now it’s up to her to save as many of Little Bridge’s cats and dogs as she can, but to do so, she’s going to need help.

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.

French-born American chef Sophie Valroux had one dream: To be part of the 1% of female chefs running a Michelin-starred restaurant. From spending summers with her grandmother, who taught her the power of cooking and food, to attending the Culinary Institute of America, Sophie finds herself on the cusp of getting everything she's dreamed of.

Life was good for Liz and Jack Sutherland. In eighteen years of marriage, they had built a family, a successful law practice, and a warm, happy home near San Francisco, in a house on Hope Street. Then, in an instant, it all fell apart. It began like any other Christmas morning, with joy and children's laughter. But for Jack Sutherland, a five-minute errand ends in tragedy. And suddenly, Liz is alone, facing painful questions in the wake of an unbearable loss.

After the sudden death of her estranged husband, Clare is shocked to discover she has inherited a dog and a small fortune. Convinced by her adult children to finally do something for herself, Clare embarks on a coast-to-coast adventure - until she stumbles upon an unmarked location on the fringes of South Devon. When Clare finds herself driving down a narrow road to the tiny village of Little Sorrell, she is met with distant, cold and rude locals. But as she falls in love with a cottage she wishes to call home, can Little Sorrell truly be the place of second chances?