Small Life

In this heartfelt sequel, Ruby McGavin returns to Cardinal, California, with her brother Nash, hoping the fresh start will help him kick a debilitating drinking habit. And Ruby’s not the only one with renewed hope, as saddlemaker Lucas McGavin redoubles his efforts to win her heart - even if Ruby is his brother’s widow. Soon, all three learn that building a better future means first making peace with the past.

Two wonderful new chapters are unfolding for Maura Beth Mayhew, Cherico's librarian. Thanks to her persistence, a new, cutting-edge library is being built on the shores of beautiful Lake Cherico. And come September, Maura Beth will marry Jeremy McShay at his aunt and uncle's stunning home. Yet in life, as in fiction, happy endings are hard won....

Long before Hank Crawford arrived in the waters of Ketchikan, his partners and compatriots were already in love with its shores. Following the final, crushing moments of World War II, Japanese officer Kiyoshi Tsurifune, Sergeant Jones Henry, and Resistance fighter Swede Scorden struggle to regain normalcy and any contact with the shimmering, fish-filled sea. Lost honor, fallen friends, their cultural identities gone in the wake of a nuclear blast - these fishermen-turned-soldiers have a long way to go till they regain the waters in which they feel most at home.

Charlene Ann Baumbich—award-winning journalist and best-selling author of the Dearest Dorothy novels—launches a series of heartwarming stories linked by the swirling flakes of one special snowglobe. In this charming tale of second chances, renewed faith, and forgiveness, a captivating heirloom triggers inexplicable changes.

Tola lives in an apartment in the busy city of Lagos, Nigeria, with her sister, Moji, who is very clever; her brother, Dapo, who is very fast; and Grandmommy, who is very bossy. Tola may be small, but she’s strong enough to carry a basket brimming with groceries home from the market, and she’s clever enough to count out Grandmommy’s change. When the faucets in the apartment break, it’s Tola who brings water from the well.

It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that she must make peace with the past. Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair.

It’s the eve of her 25th wedding anniversary and Mary Gooch is waiting for her husband, Jimmy, to come home. But Mary isn’t just waiting for Jimmy. She is waiting for a mother who accepts her, children she is unable to have, a life beyond the well-worn path from her bedroom to the refrigerator. Mary is waiting for her life to start. As she waits for Jimmy, the night passes into day and it becomes clear that he isn’t coming home. A letter left in the mailbox confirms her worst fears and Mary is left alone to make a difficult decision.

Entrepreneur, bestselling author, and business coach Jadah Sellner knows what it’s like to be burned out, in debt, and just barely holding on to a new business. In the process of launching and building multiple companies, she realized today’s aggressive 24/7 hustle culture wasn’t working for her—or for her clients. In She Builds, Sellner shares a new entrepreneurial model for women, centered on sustainable leadership—a practical framework they can use to create a business on their own terms, prioritize their well-being, and break free from the toxic culture that leads to burnout.

Here’s what’s happened...you’ve become the bottleneck in your business, wondering why it isn’t growing and why you’re not making the money you want to make, working too many hours with no freedom. Overwhelmed at six figures, you wonder whether it’s even worth it to keep going, let alone try to grow to seven figures. It doesn’t have to be this way! By following these proven strategies that leverage all aspects of your business, you can remove yourself from the day-to-day grind and experience the freedom and joy you set out to create when you first opened your company.

In The Multi-Hyphen Life award-winning British author-podcaster Emma Gannon explains that it doesn't matter if you're a part-time PA with a blog, or an accountant who runs an online store in the evenings—whatever your ratio, whatever your mixture, we can all channel our own entrepreneurial spirit to live more fulfilled and financially healthy lives.

For twelve-year-old Martha "Sonny" Creech, there is no place more beautiful than her family's cotton farm. She, her two brothers, and her parents work hard on their land - hoeing, planting, picking - but only Sonny loves the rich, dark earth the way her father does. When a tragic accident claims his life, her stricken family struggles to fend off ruin - until their rich, reclusive neighbor offers to help finance that year's cotton crop.

When a car carrying five teenagers home from a party crashes into a brick wall, the consequences are devastating - not just for the young people directly involved, but also for their families, their friends and the wider community. By 2:30 a.m. the whereabouts of most of the kids were known. Most - but not all. Because, for a small handful of parents, there was no response to their frantic calls and messages.

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 Tallulah Jones was 13, her grandmother plucked her from the dank Oakland apartment she shared with her unreliable mom and brought her to the family ostrich ranch in the Mojave Desert. After 11 years caring for the curious, graceful birds, Tallulah accepts a job in Montana and prepares to leave home. But when Grandma Helen dies under strange circumstances, Tallulah inherits everything - just days before the birds inexplicably stop laying eggs.

Vera Violet O'Neel's home is in the Pacific Northwest - not the glamorous scene of coffee bars and craft beers, but the hardscrabble region of busted pickups and broken dreams. Vera's mother has left, her father is unstable, and her brother is deeply troubled. Against this gritty background, Vera struggles to establish a life of her own, a life fortified by her friends and her hard-won love. But the relentless poverty coupled with the twin lures of crystal meth and easy money soon shatter fragile alliances. Her world violently torn apart, Vera flees to St. Louis, Missouri.

Daniel Green makes crop circles. As a member of a secret organization, he travels across the country creating strange works of art that leave communities mystified. He's always been alone; in fact, he prefers it. But when a dying farmer hires him in a last-ditch effort to bring publicity to a small Vermont town, Daniel finds himself at odds with his heart. It isn't long before he gets drawn into a family struggling to stitch itself back together, and the consequences will change his life forever.

An unlikely criminal, Andy Durant is robbing gas stations to buy back land once connected to his wife's farm in upstate New York. But when he's shot and killed during a robbery, he leaves his wife, Grady, and their three children to fend for themselves. Moving back to the debt-laden farm, Grady ignites a plan that involves getting in the middle of an adjoining neighbor's marriage. Meanwhile, one by one the whole family is charmed by Royal Provo, a young and charismatic orphan working on the property.

The tight-knit residents of Blue Moon Mountain, nestled high in the Colorado Mountains, form an interconnected community of those living off the land, stunned by the beauty and isolation all around them. So when, at the onset of winter, the town veterinarian commits a violent act, the repercussions of that tragedy will be felt all across the mountainside, upending their lives and causing their paths to twist and collide in unexpected ways.

For young couple Taz and Marnie, their fixer-upper is the symbol of their new life together: a work in progress, the beginning of something grand, all the more so when they learn that a baby is on the way. But the blueprint for the perfect life eludes Taz when Marnie dies in childbirth, plummeting the taciturn carpenter headfirst into the new, strange world of fatherhood alone, a landscape of contradictions, of great joy and sorrow.

In Trinidad, in 1796, teenage Rosa Rendon quietly but purposefully rebels against typical female roles and behavior. Bright, competitive, and opinionated, Rosa sees no reason she should learn to cook and keep house - it is obvious her talents lie in running the farm she expects to be her birthright, despite her two older siblings. But as her homeland goes from Spanish to British rule, it becomes increasingly unclear whether its free black property owners - Rosa's family among them - will be allowed to keep their assets, their land, and ultimately, their freedom.