Contemporary Family Life

Nathalie's plan: to announce her pregnancy now that she's finally made it past 12 weeks! But just as she's about to deliver (so to speak) the big news to her family, her scene-stealing sister barfs all over the Thanksgiving centerpiece. Yup, Lyndi's pregnant too, swiping the spotlight once more.... Lyndi's plan: finally get her life together! She's got a new apartment, new promotion, new boyfriend. What she didn't count on - a new baby! She can barely afford her rent, much less a state-of-the-art stroller....

Seventeen-year-old Jonah Daniels has lived in Verona Cove, California, his whole life, and only one thing has ever changed: His father used to be alive, and now he is not. With a mother lost in a deep bout of depression, Jonah and his five siblings struggle to keep up their home and the restaurant their dad left behind. But at the start of summer, a second change rolls in: Vivi Alexander, the new girl in town.

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.

Chas. Johnson & Sons has been a family operation for three generations - grandfather, father, and son. But when it comes time for Gabe Johnson to take the reins of the business, the world of books has changed, and the combination of the internet and inner city rents forces the store to close. But instead of folding his hand, Gabe decides to risk everything he has and reopen the shop - and, in a sense restart his life - in a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan.

New York Times best-selling author Mary Monroe presents a heartwarming, uplifting novel about two long-time co-workers who seem unlucky in love. But this Christmas may give them a surprising chance to find themselves - and each other.

Shelley Anderson is trying to provide fun for her two young children when she rents the first floor of Sea View House a year after a painful divorce. The kids haven't been adjusting well, and the house is perfect. Daniel Stone, the man who's renting the top floor of the house, is trying to find his balance after losing his wife. He definitely wants to be left alone. He's less than thrilled by the instant rapport between his beautiful golden retriever and her two active kids. And he's definitely shaken by the rapport that springs up between himself and Shelley.

Laura McCloud has a bright future but needs a place to pick up the pieces of her life and career after losing her mom and her boyfriend and surviving a battle with breast cancer. A script that doesn't play well for a single woman. Happy childhood summers in Pilgrim Cove pull her back to town and a stay in Sea View House. Matthew Parker, his two young sons, and his dad have shared a home since both men were widowed several years ago. And now, no women are needed in the Parker domain. But when Matt meets Laura, he discovers that his home might be missing something vital.

To keep their family ties strong, the five Reeves sisters meet regularly to give each other a reality check. But explosive family secrets begin to pour out like molten lava and forever change all they treasure most.

Twenty-eight-year-old psychologist Alisha Dimarchi is abducted by an obsessed client and imprisoned in his Pakistani compound for over two years. Forced to change her name and live as his second wife, her life is filled with trauma and heartbreak. Thrust into a world of violence and oppression, Ally must fight not only to keep herself alive, but to protect the lives of the people she now considers family. At night, she retreats into her memories of the only man she has ever loved - a man she believes no longer loves her.

At 72, Johnny Ribkins shouldn't have such problems: he's got one week to come up with the money he stole from his mobster boss or it's curtains. What may or may not be useful to Johnny as he flees is that he comes from an African American family that has been gifted with superpowers that are a bit, well, odd. Okay, very odd. For example, Johnny's father could see colors no one else could see. His brother could scale perfectly flat walls. His cousin belches fire. And Johnny himself can make precise maps of any space you name, whether he's been there or not.

Sex, love, and forgiveness - can they coexist, and can romance author Sarah write them into her life? Although best-selling author Sarah O’Malley is sure her next erotic-romance novel will be another hit, she finds it near to impossible to replicate the same results in her personal life. At 45 years old, Sarah now finds herself divorced and a single mother of two. Sarah journeys back to her childhood home to nurse her mother who is suffering from Alzheimer's, and she inevitably encounters the ghosts of her past.

In the first flush of love, Jonty promised to buy Lydie a ruby necklace when his art career took off. But the ruby never materialised and Lydie is left heartbroken when the relationship ends. Nearly 30 years later, Lydie still thinks of Jonty, stuck in a marriage to a man she never loved. And then he comes back into the picture, changing her life beyond anything she could have imagined.

Meryl Becker is living a mother's dream. Meg, the oldest of her three beautiful daughters, is engaged to a wonderful man from one of the country's most prominent families. Of course, Meryl wants to give Meg the perfect wedding - who wouldn't? But when her two younger daughters, Amy and Jo, also become engaged to celebrated bachelors, Meryl has to admit that three weddings is more than she and her husband, Hugh, can realistically afford. The solution? A triple wedding!

Pilgrim Cove native Rachel Goodman has come home to prove to the town and her family that she's not a loser. She's the new assistant principal for academic studies at Pilgrim Cove High. Marine biologist Jack Levine has a woman in every port and his boat, The Wanderer, is his most prized possession. When he winds up teaching science in Pilgrim Cove, he finds he likes the small town very much. So what if his boss finds him difficult to work with? But sparks fly whenever they're together. And then Jack and his boat go missing....

High school sweethearts Sarah and Caleb Linwood have always been a sure thing. For the past seventeen years, they have had each other’s backs through all of life’s ups and downs. But Sarah has begun to wonder . . . who is she without her other half? When she decides to take on a project of her own, a fundraising gala in memory of her late mother, Sarah wants nothing more than to prove to herself—and to everyone else—that she doesn’t need Caleb’s help to succeed. She’s still her mother’s daughter after all, independent and capable.

While her humanitarian husband Liam has been digging wells in Africa, Mara Jacobs has been struggling. She knows she's supposed to feel a warm glow that her husband is nine time zones away, caring for widows and orphans. But the reality is that she is exhausted. Then Liam's three-year absence turns into something more, changing everything and plunging her into a sunless grief. As Mara struggles to find her footing, she discovers that even when hope is tenuous, faith is fragile, and the future is unknown, we can be sure we are not forgotten...or unloved.

After tragically losing her husband, Nicola Jacques and her teenage son, Oliver, relocate to his father’s family's Olive Farm in the hills above the French Riviera. Due to a family feud, Oliver has never known his fathers’ side of the family, and Grandpapa Henri is intent that Oliver will take over the reins of the ancestral farm and his rightful inheritance. Determined to keep her independence from a rather controlling grandpapa, Nicola buys a run-down cottage on the edge of the family's Olive Farm and sets to work renovating their new home and providing an income.

Is there any difference between memory and invention? That is the question that fuels this stunning novel, written with the depth of character, the clarifying lyricism, and the heart-wrenching humor that have marked all of John Banville's extraordinary works. And it is the question that haunts Alexander Cleave as he plumbs the memories of his first - and perhaps only - love (he, just 15, the woman more than twice his age, the mother of his best friend; the situation impossible, thrilling, devouring, and finally devastating).

Outside the gates of a California prison, Peter Morgan is released after four long years and vows to redeem himself in the eyes of the young daughters he left behind. Simultaneously, Carl Waters, a convicted murderer, is set on the path of freedom with him. That night, three hundred miles south in San Francisco, police detective Ted Lee comes home to a silent house; for twenty-nine years, he has been living for his job, and slowly falling out of love with his wife.

College graduate Judy stands ready to conquer the world…if she can get a job. Hoping to transition from aspiring architect to famous architect as quickly as possible, the dark-haired beauty moves to LA, staying in the home of her celebrity brother, Michael Wolfe. But it’s hard for Judy to focus on work when the sexy bodyguard she fell for last summer keeps showing up in her life and leaving her breathless. With his hard body, green eyes, and easy smile, Rick could have any woman he wants. But the Marine-turned- bodyguard only has eyes for Judy and her spitfire attitude.