Contemporary Family Life

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.

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?

Seventeen-year-old Rory McShane has signed on to be a summer errand girl for the Rules, a wealthy family. Feeling claustrophobic in her country-club world, the youngest Rule child, 17-year-old Isabel, embarks on a summer romance her family would never approve of. Isabel has decided that this is the summer for taking chances, and she's bringing Rory along for the ride. The girls forge a true friendship, but when secrets start to surface and Rory reveals that she has feelings for someone, too - Connor Rule, Isabel's older brother - their relationship is put to the test.

Luke is the perfect boyfriend. He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider. Theo's sophisticated, exciting, and, best of all, he thinks Emaline is much too smart for Colby. Emaline's mostly-absentee father, too, thinks Emaline should have a bigger life, and he's convinced that an Ivy League education is the only route to realizing her potential. Emaline wants the moon and more, but how can she balance where she comes from with where she's going?

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.

After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded Long Island mansion of her new fiancé, Max Winter - a wealthy politician and recent widower - and a life of luxury she’s never known. But all is not as it appears at the Asherley estate. The house is steeped in the memory of Max’s beautiful first wife, Rebekah, who haunts the young woman’s imagination and feeds her uncertainties, while his very alive teenage daughter, Dani, makes her life a living hell.

Hawaii was the last place Grace Christiansen ever imagined she'd vacation, much less fall in love. But when her family surprises her with a cooking retreat in paradise, she is pulled - or maybe yanked - away from her predictable, safe life and thrown headfirst into the adventure of a lifetime.

It looks like a Merry Christmas is around the corner in Whiskey Springs. Fallon Foster’s ex-girlfriend, Olivia Nolan, has moved to Amsterdam. Fallon is settling into her life with Riley Main and their son, Owen. Andi Maguire has finally found love with Billie Steele. And the town is celebrating the birth of its newest resident, a little girl named Hope. The celebratory mood is cut short when Billie delivers the news that Olivia is dead. Olivia’s death sends shock waves through the small town. And it won’t be the last piece of unexpected news.

When Katie Doyle moves across the country to the Hamptons, she is hoping for summer employment, new friends for her young son, and a chance to explore a new love affair with a dazzling investor. What she finds is a strange cocktail of classes, where society's 1 percenters vacation alongside local hardworking people who've lived in the Hamptons for generations. The more Katie becomes immersed, the more she learns the secrets of both the upstairs and downstairs, the upper crust and middle of the road.

For over a hundred years, the Angelini Shoe Company in Greenwich Village has relied on the leather produced by Vechiarelli & Son in Tuscany. This ancient business partnership provides the twist of fate for Valentine Roncalli to fall in love with Gianluca Vechiarelli, a tanner with a complex past...and a secret.

Kyle Parker never expected to see her again, and now he’s standing on her front porch with a foreclosure notice in his hand. Jenna can’t believe her eyes. Her life is a mess, her daughter is depending on her, and the one person who can wreck the rest of her day is standing there with a pink slip of paper in his hand.

Maria and Emma have not seen each other since their mother's funeral two years before. Now, Emma has come to visit Maria at her house in Spain, and her presence is an unsettling intrusion on Maria's quiet and solitary life. Over six days in the seaside town together, the sisters cautiously sink into conversations recounting the years of their separate adult lives. Their walks through the quiet town and evening talks on the terrace reveal almost more than Maria can deal with, until finally, the sisters confront the unspeakable....

Clendenin Hughes first kissed Dabney Kimball during a Nantucket snowstorm freshman year of high school. Ever since that moment - God, the rush, the chemistry! - Dabney has known that she and Clen are an unsplittable unit - essentially the same person in two different bodies. Of course, with Dabney now at Harvard and Clen at Yale, those bodies are 140 miles apart. A stirring portrait of young love at a crossroads, The Tailgate introduces two irresistible characters and invites us into a world we don't want to leave.

Meet Eve, who has departed from her 30-year career to become a Free Spirit, Sally, who has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children, and Anastasia: defiantly independent narrow-boat-dweller, suddenly vulnerable as she awaits a life-saving operation. Inexperienced and ill-equipped, Sally and Eve embark upon a journey through the canals of England, guided by the remote and unsympathetic Anastasia.

In the Irish town of Schancarrig, the young people carve their initials - and those of their loves - into the copper beech tree in front of the schoolhouse. But not even Father Gunn, the parish priest, who knows most of what goes on behind Shancarrig's closed doors, or Dr. Jims, the village doctor, who knows all the rest, realizes that not everything in the placid village is what it seems.

Since opening the Rose Harbor Inn, Jo Marie Rose has grown close to her handyman, Mark Taylor. Jo Marie and Mark are good friends - and are becoming something more - yet he still won't reveal anything about his past. When Mark tells her that he's moving out of town, Jo Marie is baffled. Just when she is starting to open herself up again to love, she feels once more that she is losing the man she cares about. And as she discovers the secret behind Mark's decision to leave, she welcomes two visitors also seeking their own answers.

Charlotte Hamner lost her beloved husband Jason three years ago. His death nearly destroyed her—but with the help of her dearest sisters and cousins in the Montgomery and Sheridan clans, she was able to find hope once more, and ultimately build her wedding planning business back to new heights. And against all odds, she found love again with the dashing photographer, Everett.

When Rachel Mowbray left behind her family farm in North Yorkshire at eighteen, she never planned on returning. But when her ex-childhood sweetheart calls and insists she returns due to her father's declining health, she travels north. Every moment home reminds Rachel why she left—her sister Harriet is both hostile and cold, her father barely communicates with anyone, and the house feels stuck in time. Plus, her old neighbor and ex, sheep farmer Ben Mackey, still has the power to make her pulse race…a decidedly unwelcome realization!

Carolyn Mackler's Printz Honor book - starring the unforgettably funny, body-conscious Virginia Shreves - returns in this 15th anniversary edition featuring text updates and never-before-heard material from the author. Fifteen-year-old Virginia feels like a plus-sized black sheep in her family, especially next to her perfect big brother Byron. Not to mention her best friend has moved, leaving Virginia to navigate an awkward relationship with a boy alone. In order to survive, Virginia decides to follow a "Fat Girl Code of Conduct", which works, until the unthinkable causes her family's facade to crumble.

Callie has taken multiple jobs to make the money she desperately needs. Her favourite is being the new guide for Lerwick Manor's alpaca walks. But her troublesome past is making it difficult to prove to others that she's learned from her mistakes. Heather has been content breeding Sheltie sheepdogs and taking care of her grownup daughters. But now she feels that something is missing. Taking the leap into online dating, she makes an unexpected connection to which her daughters react very differently.