Home Fiction

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets 16-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

Since their mama died and their pa left, Ethan, Alice, Simon, and Will Cooper have not known much of a home. But now that the orphan train has taken them to Mr. and Mrs. Rush in Nebraska, their dreams of home may become a reality. The kids discover that life on a farm is full of challenges. Ethan learns how to drive a plow, watch for snakes, and deal with bullies at the country school. Alice learns to slop the hogs and live with a big sister who isn't exactly welcoming. Will seems to be the only one of the four that their new mother likes.

The setting is the beginning of an Amish settlement in colonial America in the forests of eastern Pennsylvania. There, a young Amish couple, Hans and Kate Zug, are in their ninth year of marriage, still waiting to have a child. Then, one April morning, Kate finds a Native infant, wrapped in deerskin and placed next to the spring where she went to fill her water bucket.

It's summer at the Heartwood Hotel, and everyone is in a flurry getting ready for Ms. Prickles's wedding to Mr. Quillson! Meanwhile, a new mouse guest named Strawberry comes to stay. She's sweet and soft-spoken like Mona, and gifted in the kitchen just as Mona's mother was—could Strawberry be a long-lost relative? But when lightning strikes part of Fernwood Forest and starts a fire, all thoughts go to the guests and staff hurrying to leave to make sure their homes and families are safe. Mona works to protect the Heartwood from harm, but as the fire rages on, it's becoming dangerous to stay.

Emma Lewis has a lot on her plate. A single mother of precocious twin boys, the last thing Emma needs is a man in her life, especially a doctor. So when the town's doctor goes on vacation and his handsome nephew takes over, Emma is shocked to find him accusing her of being a neglectful parent. Clint also needed a sense of peace and calm to try to find his passion for medicine burned out by long shifts in an urban hospital's ER. Angered to find two boys in his clinic with broken wrists, sans parent, he's determined to confront their mother, who dispels his belief that she's neglectful.

1987. There’s only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and that’s her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn’s company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June’s world is turned upside down. But Finn’s death brings a surprise acquaintance into June’s life - someone who will help her to heal....

It is 1916, and Roberta Jewett is surprised to find that her hometown of Camden, Maine, considers a divorced woman little more than a prostitute. Condemned by her mother and scorned by neighbors, she nonetheless perseveres in her struggle to forge a good life for her girls and herself. Embittered by her painful marriage to an unfaithful husband, she has no intention of being any man's victim again. So Roberta is taken aback to find the widowed carpenter Gabriel Farley has somehow found his way into her heart.

Rachel Murphy longs for home and family. Since childhood, she's dreamed of owning her own pastry shop, but after being burned by a celebrity chef and losing her lease in Arizona, Rachel's spending the holidays with her brother in Montana. To keep her dream alive, she's creating custom gingerbread houses and selling them around town. All she needs is a bigger kitchen - and to stay away from her brother's handsome boss.

Alison is lucky, and she knows it. She has the life she always craved, including a happy home with Jeff and their brilliant, vivacious teenage daughter, Katherine - the absolute centre of Alison's world. Then a knock at the door ends life as they know it. Fifteen years ago someone else took Alison's baby from the hospital. And now Alison is facing the unthinkable. Her daughter belongs to someone else. What would you do if you discovered your beloved child is not yours?

Against all odds, Morgan Carter and his family have endured despite the deteriorating conditions surrounding them. Armed with survivalist tactics, Morgan's crew, alongside their new friends from the recently-liberated DHS camp, have worked together to build a sustainable community. But not all situations can be prepared for. When a massive wildfire threatens their very existence, they must decide: fight or flight?

When racial tension erupts in the sleepy community of Colleton County, North Carolina, Deborah is caught off guard. She is happily tending her own home fires: her simmering romance with Kidd Chapin, the house she's building on her family's land, and her campaign for reelection as district judge. But then the first black church is burned, and all of Deborah's alarms go off.

It's easy to feel at home in Mitford. In these high, green hills, the air is pure, the village is charming, and the people are generally lovable. Yet Father Tim, the bachelor rector, wants something more. Enter a dog the size of a sofa who moves in and won't go away. Add an attractive neighbor who begins wearing a path through the hedge. Now, stir in a lovable but unloved boy, a mystifying jewel theft, and a secret that's 60 years old.

When Mona the Mouse stumbles across the wondrous world of the Heartwood Hotel in the middle of a storm, she desperately hopes they'll let her stay. As it turns out, Mona is precisely the maid they need at the grandest hotel in Fernwood Forest, where animals come from far and wide for safety, luxury, and comfort. But the Heartwood Hotel is not all acorn souffles and soft moss-lined beds. Danger lurks, and as it approaches, Mona finds that this hotel is more than a warm place to spend the night. It might also be a home.

When a little girl gets a plush stingray for her birthday, it makes friends with some of her other toys as they all try to navigate in the world of real people.

The Indialantic by the Sea Hotel has a 100-year-old history on beautiful Melbourne Beach, Florida, and more than a few guests seem to have been there from the start. When Liz Holt returns home after an intense decade in New York, she's happy to be surrounded by the eccentric clientele and loving relatives that populate her family-run inn. But that patronage decreases by one when a filthy rich guest is discovered dead in her oceanfront suite.

Rumford, Kentucky has glowing fields of bluegrass, a fine selection of bourbons, and now a professional pastry chef. Broken-hearted Sophia Cummings has come home from New York City. She's not there a minute before she's charmed into making her high school friend Charlotte's wedding cake. The kitchen at the Rumford Country Club seems perfect until Chef Emile's body is discovered, sprawled near the stove, a cast iron skillet on the floor close by. With one look at the shiny, new pan, Sophia knows it's not Emile's. She offers her knowledge to Sheriff Carter and her talents to the manager.

When I first meet Sophie, she seems like any normal loving mother, trying desperately to help her teenage daughter. That’s where I come in. The perfect tutor to get Katie’s life back on track. I connect instantly with Katie, and Sophie’s thoughtful husband Scott. But Sophie’s dark eyes are full of jealousy when I talk to Scott or share a smile with Katie. I know I’m helping her daughter, whatever she thinks.

It’s my final season to prove myself before the MLB Draft. The last thing I need is a distraction–and especially not one as tantalizing as Mia di Angelo. She’s the drop-dead gorgeous astrophysicist-in-training who ditched me the moment I wanted to take us from casual to committed. Yeah. Ouch. But when she needs somewhere to stay for the summer… well. I offer her my place. Being roommates shouldn’t be so hard. Not distracting at all. Not the least bit challenging.

Lena Rose Schwartz hadn't planned to leave her Old Order community in Centerville, Michigan. But then, she could not have foreseen the accident that made her and her siblings orphans. After her parents' funeral, her younger brothers and sisters are farmed out to various nearby relatives. But when the deacon in charge of the arrangements tells her there aren't places enough for everyone, she agrees to go live with her father's second cousin and his family in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Beside the fact that Lena has never been more than a few miles from home, she's never met the family she will now be living with. But worse than that is the thought of being separated from her siblings. How will they manage without her to care for them - especially eight-year-old Chris?

A story of homecoming, this engrossing novel opens with a young, city-based lawyer setting out on her first visit to ancestral country. Candice arrives at ‘the place where the rivers meet’, the camp of the Eualeyai where in 1918 her grandmother Garibooli was abducted. As Garibooli takes up the story of Candice’s Aboriginal family, the twentieth century falls away. Garibooli, now renamed Elizabeth, is sent to work as a housemaid, but marriage soon offers escape from the terror of the master’s night-time visits.