Contemporary Family Life

When a group of friends in Mason, Missouri, decide to start a monthly supper club, they get more than they bargained for. The plan for congenial evenings - talking, laughing, and sharing recipes, homemade food, and wine - abruptly changes course one night when one of the women reveals something startlingly intimate. The supper club then becomes Confession Club, and the women gather weekly to share not only dinners but embarrassing misdeeds, deep insecurities, and long-held regrets.

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it's been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply-but that almost seems beside the point now. Maybe that was always beside the point. Two days before they're supposed to visit Neal's family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can't go. She's a TV writer, and something's come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles.

When siblings Dan and Hayley Daley inherit their late grandmother's derelict Victorian farmhouse, it seems like a dream come true. All they have to do is fix the place up and sell it for a tidy profit! Except - as anyone who has renovated an old house knows - things are never that easy. The walls are rapidly crumbling around them, the architect is a certified lunatic, the budget is spiraling...and then there's the disturbingly intelligent cow to worry about.

Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy, the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community.

Rebecca has been catapulted from her home, her marriage, and her children. She has escaped to Pawleys Island to hide herself from herself. But after Miss Olivia pries Rebecca's secrets from her, Huey and especially Abigail are challenged to reenter life outside the dream state their idyllic geography evokes. They will see that Rebecca has her day in court, but they never expect to provoke a national forum for discussion.

Brilliant, idealistic Esme Garland moves to Manhattan armed with a pres­tigious scholarship at Columbia University. When Mitchell van Leuven - a New Yorker with the bluest of blue New York blood - captures her heart with his stunning good looks and a penchant for all things erotic, life seems truly glorious...until a thin blue line signals a wrinkle in Esme’s tidy plan. Before she has a chance to tell Mitchell about her pregnancy, he suddenly declares their sex life is as exciting as a cup of tea, and ends it all. When Mitchell recants his criticism, his passion and promises are hard to resist.

What do an ex-con, a former drug addict, a real estate broker, a college student and a married mother of two have in common? Nothing, or so I thought. Who would have imagined that God would make a prayer group as mismatched as ours the closest of friends? I almost didn’t even go to the Chicago Women’s Conference—after all, being thrown together with five hundred strangers wasn’t exactly my “comfort zone.” But something happened that weekend to make us realize we had to hang together, and the "Yada Yada Prayer Group” was born!

After my marriage crumbles, I run from the scrutiny of my suburban Stepford-wife life to my hometown of Balsam Ridge, Tennessee, with my son to pick up the pieces. The small mountain town offers plenty of opportunities for a fresh start: genuine friendships, reconnecting with my mother, and even finding work with the biggest family in town, the Tuttles. It was only supposed to be for the summer, and catching feelings for someone wasn’t part of the plan, but with his quiet confidence the sexy as sin Graham Tuttle has broken down all my walls.

When Lacey O'Neill finally learns the shattering truth about the mother she's spent a decade emulating, the foundation of her life begins to crumble. Then her close childhood friend dies, leaving her teenage daughter, Mackenzie, in Lacey's care, and Lacey unwillingly finds herself in the role of mother.

The time is now, and Ezekiel Hooper Stark is 38. He's a cultural anthropologist, an ethnographer of family photographs, a wry speculator about images. From childhood, his own family's idiosyncrasies, perversities, and pathologies propel Zeke, until love lost sends him spiraling out of control in Europe. Back in the USA, he finds unexpected solace in the image of a notable 19th-century relative, Clover Hooper Adams. Zeke embarks on a project, Men in Quotes, focusing his anthropological lens on his own kind: the "New Man", born under the sign of feminism.

Alexandra McKnight prefers a life of long workdays and short-term relationships, and she's found it in Hope's Crossing. A sous chef at the local ski resort, she's just been offered her dream job at an exclusive new restaurant being built in town. But when it comes to designing the kitchen, Alex finds herself getting up close and personal with construction foreman Sam Delgado. At first glance, Sam seems perfect for Alex. He's big, tough, gorgeous and in town for only a few weeks.

Anchor House is the coastal home where Naomi and her husband raised their two girls. Now widowed, Naomi is building a new life alone, but the arrival of Ellis next door is bringing some long-awaited fun back too. Naomi’s daughters are very different: Martha is determined and driven like her father, while Willow is a free spirit. The three women have always been close, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have secrets of their own. There are things Naomi has kept from her girls, like the fact that her marriage to their father wasn’t quite what it seemed…

Lasya ‘LJ’ Raghavan is a spectacularly single, unsuccessful playwright with an estranged family, crippling debt, and a dead-end job. When the family matriarch, Chandralekha Chakrapani, dies, LJ has to face the family that considers her an epic failure.... Especially her father, who has taken a vow of silence against her; her cousin sister, Ahalya, who blames LJ for destroying her marriage; and Bridezilla Kiki whose wedding has been cancelled.

As the long, mysterious life of a family matriarch begins to wind down, will she take her secrets with her? Or will her past adventures lead to new ones for the next generation? From a bustling Australian city to the beauty and promise of Granada and a captivating culture, one young woman may dare to find out....

Shay Bastable is the woman in the middle. She is part of the sandwich generation: caring for her parents and her children, supporting her husband Bruce, holding them all together and caring for them as best she can. Then the arrival of a large orange skip on her mother’s estate sets in motion a series of events leading to the collapse of Shay’s world, forcing her to put herself first. But in order to move forward, Shay needs to make sense of her past. And so she returns to the little village she grew up in to uncover the truth about what happened to her when she was younger.

From the outside, anyone would think that Lucy Palmer has it all: loving children, a dashing husband and a gorgeous home. But when her marriage to Michael comes to an abrupt and unexpected end, her life is turned upside down in a flash. As the truth of her marriage threatens to surface, Lucy seizes the opportunity to swap her house in London - and the stories it hides - for a rural escape to her parents' farmhouse in the Chilterns. But Lucy gets more than she bargained for when she moves back to her childhood home.

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.

It's New Year's Eve, and at a house party, three women bond over dodgy cocktails and fortune cookies, and vow to make this year their best one yet. But as the months unfold, Gemma, Saffron, and Caitlin find themselves tested to their limits. Under pressure, they are each forced to rethink their lives. But dare they take a chance on something new?

It is 1944, and Anne Black is making the best of a new life in Somerset, but bringing up her daughters so far from their father; her mother, Peggy; and their real home of Cliffehaven isn't easy. The safety of Somerset makes separation bearable until danger strikes and rocks Anne's world. Back in Cliffehaven Peggy Reilly is running the Beach View Boarding House with her usual love and warmth. The war is taking its toll, however, and Peggy longs to have her scattered family home again.

Inheriting the Magnolia Inn, a Victorian home nestled in the East Texas pines, is a fantasy come true for Jolene Broussard. After living with the guilt of failing to rescue her self-destructive mother, Jolene knows her aunt and uncle’s B&B is the perfect jump start for a new life and a comforting place to call home. There’s just one hitch: stubborn and moody carpenter Tucker Malone. He’s got a half interest in the Magnolia Inn, and he’s planting his dusty cowboy boots squarely in the middle of her dream.