Contemporary Family Life

Erin De Laney came to Mystic Creek hoping that the slower pace might rekindle her enthusiasm for law enforcement. Instead she feels as frustrated as she did in the city and when her disillusionment with the job increases, she takes a position on her uncle's ranch. Her life has enough complications without her attraction to handsome, deaf cowboy, Wyatt Fitzgerald, the foreman on the ranch. Wyatt has sworn off dating, and Erin fears that nothing she does will ever change his mind. Yet while working with an abused horse under Wyatt's guidance, Erin comes to better understand herself.

Robert Harlan has three loves: his wife, his daughter, and his writing. But when his thirst for success causes him to lose focus on his happy family life, ambition begins to consume him. When a stranger appears with a mysterious message about the brevity of his future, he discovers the truth about himself: who he has become, what he has lost, and what it will take to find love again.

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.

In seaside Blueberry Cove, Maine, friends are just another word for family, and big-city politics take a backseat to local pride. But the real treasure on these shores is always love.... When DC lawyer Hannah McCrae heads home for her brother's wedding, she's dragging a lot of baggage along with her - and she doesn't mean suitcases. Betrayed personally and humiliated professionally, the last thing she wants is a new man. That's fine with square-jawed, rugged contractor Calder Blue.

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

After 30 years, Wilson Lewis is forced to face a painful truth: the romance has gone out of his marriage. His wife, Jane, has fallen out of love with him, and it is entirely his fault. Despite the shining example of his in-laws, Noah and Allie Calhoun, and their 50-year love affair, Wilson himself is a man unable to express his true feelings. He has spent too little time at home and too much at the office, leaving the responsibility of raising their children to Jane. Now his daughter is about to marry, and his wife is thinking about leaving him.

Almost ten years have passed since Julia Win came back from Burma, her father's native country. Though she is a successful Manhattan lawyer, her private life is at a crossroads; her boyfriend recently left her, she has suffered a miscarriage, and she is, despite her wealth, unhappy with her professional life. Julia is lost and exhausted. One day, in the middle of an important business meeting, she hears a stranger's voice in her head that causes her to leave the office without explanation.

"Il me reste quelques rêves à réaliser et le moment est venu de m'y atteler. Je vous aime très fort. À très bientôt ! Maman." Léna n'en revient pas. Comment sa mère, qui l'a convoquée pour passer Noël dans la maison de son enfance, a-t-elle pu disparaître en ne lui laissant que ce message sibyllin ? La voilà donc coincée dans le petit village de Vallenot au cœur des Alpes de Haute-Provence et condamnée à passer la fête qu'elle hait plus que tout, entourée de sa famille pour le moins... haute en couleur ! Mais les fêtes de famille ont le don de faire rejaillir les secrets enfouis.

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?

Twenty-one-year-old Jenilee Lane's dreams are as narrow as the sky is wide. She doesn't imagine any good could come out of the tornado that has ripped across the Missouri farmland where she's made her home. But some inner spark compels her to take action. To rescue her elderly neighbor, Eudora Gibson, from the cellar in which she's been trapped. To make her way to the nearby town of Poetry, where the townspeople have begun to gather in the only building left standing. To collect from the devastated landscape fragments of life that lie strewn about in the tornado's wake.

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.

Ten years ago, Jack Everett left his family's ranch without a backward glance. Now, what was supposed to be a quick trip home for his father's funeral has suddenly become more complicated. The ranch Jack can handle - he might be a lawyer, but he still remembers how to work with his hands. But turning around the failing vineyard he's also inherited? That requires working with the one woman he never expected to see again.

Colin Hancock is giving his second chance his best shot. With a history of violence and bad decisions behind him and the threat of prison dogging his every step, he's determined to walk a straight line. To Colin, that means applying himself single-mindedly toward his teaching degree and avoiding everything that proved destructive in his earlier life. Reminding himself daily of his hard-earned lessons, the last thing he is looking for is a serious relationship.e exact narration as the traditional audiobook available, with the addition of music throughout.

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.

Some kids inherit a family business; Jo Ward inherited a badge. Once voted Most Likely to End Up in Jail, the town wild child has become sheriff - hell-bent on uncovering the truth about her father’s mysterious death. Life is quiet in rustic River Bend, but Jo longs for something beyond her small hometown and the painful memories it holds. All that keeps her sane is the support of her best friends, Melanie and Zoe.

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.

Teague O'Malley hates pretty much everything associated with his family's name. And when his father orders him to marry Callista Sheridan to create a "business" alliance, Teague's ready to tell his dad exactly where he can stuff his millions. But then Teague actually meets his new fiancée, sees the bruises on her neck and the fight still left in her big blue eyes, and vows he will do everything in his power to protect her.

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.

Liz Lewis has tried everything to be what people want. But she’s always been labeled different from everyone else in the world of wilderness expeditions—that is, if anyone notices her at all. Her marriage to popular adventure guide Tobin Renner-Lewis is a sinkhole of toxic positivity where she’s the only one saying no. In a mountain resort town built around excitement, introverted Liz gets…spreadsheets. When she gets mistaken for a server at her own thirtieth birthday party and her last line of communication with Tobin finally snaps, Liz vows to stop playing a minor character in her own life.

Can a sexy pilot's dazzling smile melt the Ice Queen? Monica Mann has made it her life's work to save lives. After an earthquake and tsunami hit the shores of Jamaica, she volunteers her trauma skills with Borderless Nurses. Calculating and methodical, she creates order out of whatever chaos she finds…. Until she finds the perpetually barefoot, impossibly masculine Trent Fairchild.