Contemporary Family Life

As Cynthia Wright’s marriage implodes, she is forced to raise her teenage son, Isaiah, alone. The pressure of providing for them through her salon is a full-time job in itself. When Cynthia sees Isaiah pulling away and escaping into video games, tensions rise and prayers feel unanswered. Angry and hurt, Isaiah starts acting like the father who abandoned him, and Cynthia gives him an ultimatum while turning to her twin sister, Elizabeth Jordan, for support. Elizabeth enlists a seasoned prayer warrior who challenges Cynthia to pray boldly and believe God for the impossible.

The final book in the landmark Cazalet Chronicles, recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It is the 1950s and as the Cazalets' beloved matriarch, the Duchy, passes away, she takes with her the last remnants of a world - of great houses and servants, of class and tradition - in which the Cazalets have thrived. Louise, now divorced, becomes entangled in a painful affair; while Polly and Clary must balance marriage and motherhood with their own ideas and ambitions.

June the first, a bright summer's evening, a Monday.... And into the busy, bustling homes at 66 Star Street slips, unseen, a mysterious visitor. As the couples, flatmates and repentant singletons of No. 66 fall in and out of love, clutch at and drop secrets, laugh, cry and simply try to live, no one suspects the visitor patiently waiting in the wings. For soon, as the light slowly fades to dark, everything is going to change....

When Callie rents a beach cottage in Whitstable, she doesn't expect for its owner to be glamorous influencer Vanessa Lowe. Vanessa has it all. A beautiful home, a loyal husband, three perfect children, and a growing number of adoring online fans. Callie has long admired her world from afar. But when Vanessa invites her in, the closer Callie looks, the more she suspects that there's more to Vanessa than meets the eye. So when Vanessa's son disappears, Callie must question everything she knows.

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.

Lisa Edwards, top London magazine editor, has been fantasizing about promotion to New York. Instead, she's asked to launch a new women's magazine in Dublin. She thinks nothing could be worse - until she meets her new staff. They're friendly, helpful, and enthusiastic - in other words, they wouldn't last two minutes in London!

Miranda Brooks grew up in the stacks of her eccentric uncle Billy’s bookstore, solving the inventive scavenger hunts he created just for her. But on Miranda’s 12th birthday, Billy has a mysterious falling-out with her mother and suddenly disappears from Miranda’s life. She doesn’t hear about him again until 16 years later when she receives unexpected news: Billy has died and left her Prospero Books, which is teetering on bankruptcy, and one final scavenger hunt.

Antonia Adams is the product of a loveless marriage between a beautiful young model and an aristocrat. As a child, she is abandoned in the abyss that yawns between them, blamed by her mother, ignored by her father, and neglected by both. Unprotected and unloved, she learns that the only way to feel safe is to hide from the dangers around her, drawing as little attention as possible to herself, to be "invisible".

In Danielle Steel's remarkable new novel, one of her most memorable characters comes to terms with unfinished business and long-buried truths as the mother of three very different daughters with three singular fathers.

The Marine Corps was everything Landon Donnigan ever wanted in life, until a bullet sent him home with a medical discharge. Teaching a self-defense class at the gym is old-hat for a Marine, but when he meets sexy Ava Rosenthal, his combat skills are useless for protecting his heart. Ava can take care of herself and likes quiet, bookish men - not muscular warriors who think women need to be coddled. But Landon is more than he seems, and when they come together, the results are explosive.

April 5, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, husband and wife, are slowly drifting apart—and both, it seems, are a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, is living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart.

There are few things Jeremy Marsh was sure he'd never do: He'd never leave New York City; never give his heart away again after barely surviving one failed marriage; and most of all, never become a parent. Now, Jeremy is living in the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, married to Lexie Darnell, the love of his life, and anticipating the birth of their daughter. But just as his life seems to be settling into a blissful pattern, an unsettling and mysterious message re-opens old wounds.

Teagan Berkeley is trying her best. A single mom raising a precocious teen, she may have given up on her dreams, but she's accepted her life in her small beachside hometown. Now the one person who abandoned her when she needed him the most has returned, bringing back memories of what might have been. Derek Hartz arrives in town with a teenage daughter - and he's full of guilt over his failed marriage and the way he ended his friendship with Teagan. He's determined to set things right with her, but first he needs to gain her trust, something he's not convinced he deserves.

Romance writer Penelope Banks can write the perfect love story, but when it comes to family, all she’s got is a rough draft. Penny shelved the idea of fitting in with her high-achieving family years ago, but when her new business venture—a romance bookstore—is at risk of closing before its doors have opened, she’s forced to ask for help from the one place she never expected. Home.

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?

A senior partner at a prestigious New York law firm, Kate Morgan couldn't be prouder of her three grown children. Tamara, Anthony, and Claire all went to great schools, chose wonderful career paths, and would have made their father proud. A single mother for years after the death of her husband, Kate keeps a tight rein on her family, her career, and even her own emotions, never once asking herself if she truly knows her children...or if her hopes for them are the right ones, and what they want. She is about to find out.

Eighteen months ago, Autumn Divac's husband went missing. Her desperate search has yielded no answers—she still has no idea where he went or why. After being happily married for twenty years, she can't imagine moving forward without him, but for the sake of their two teenage children, she has to try. Autumn takes her kids home for the summer to the charming beachside town where she was raised. She seeks comfort by working alongside her mother and aunt at their bookshop, only to learn that her daughter is facing a life change and her mother has been hiding a terrible secret.

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....

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has purely obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off. Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush.

In this moving story about losing and finding love again, a woman sets out to find the perfect matches for those closest to her. Forty-eight-year-old Nantucketer Dabney Kimball Beech has always had a gift for matchmaking. Some call her ability mystical, while others, her husband, celebrated economist John Boxmiller Beech, and her daughter, Agnes, who is clearly engaged to the wrong man, call it meddlesome. But there's no arguing with her results: With 42 happy couples to her credit and all of them still together, Dabney has never been wrong about romance.