Contemporary Family Life Women Fiction

Tracy Briggs has finally gotten her act together. She’s focusing on her own life and helping her hearing-impaired son learn to talk. With her sister married and exploring a new career, Tracy has begun to run the family’s magazine business and feels her life is pretty much perfect. That is, until her son’s deadbeat dad shows up in Magnolia Grove asking for a second chance. Now that her son is getting the help he needs and a promising new romance with his teacher is in bloom, Tracy wants to keep her life just as it is. But her ex isn’t taking no for an answer.

Lieutenant Ethan Hendricks’ greatest nightmare just also happens to be his grandfather’s newest business venture. Logan Hendricks is thrilled about his brand new detective agency’s first case, but things weren’t turning out the way they were supposed to, including the attempted murder of one of his brand new employees. But he figures their next case, which involves finding a missing sister, should go a lot smoother. How dangerous could it be? Ethan Hendricks wasn’t quite as confident about his grandfather’s new hobby, or that the supposedly straight-forward case of a missing ...

Despite having jobs and men that they love, each knows that something is missing: the closeness that once sustained them. Carmen is a successful actress in New York, engaged to be married, but misses her friends. Lena finds solace in her art, teaching in Rhode Island, but still thinks of Kostos and the road she didn’t take. Bridget lives with her longtime boyfriend, Eric, in San Francisco, and though a part of her wants to settle down, a bigger part can’t seem to shed her old restlessness. Then Tibby reaches out to bridge the distance, sending the others plane tickets for a reunion....

When Justin walks out on Alice on their honeymoon, with no explanation apart from a cryptic note, Alice is left alone and bewildered, her life in pieces. Then she meets Evelyn, a visitor to the gallery where she works. It's a seemingly chance encounter, but Alice gradually learns that Evelyn has motives, and a heartbreaking story, of her own. And that story has haunting parallels with Alice's life. As Alice delves into the mystery of why Justin left her, the questions are obvious. But the answers may lie in the most unlikely of places...

A football star ready to make a lifelong commitment. A struggling single mom trying to get her business off the ground. Shadows from the past that could destroy everything. Ryleigh Eisenhart knows what it’s like to have her dreams of a perfect life ripped away, only to have to start over. She has no time for romance and balks at the idea of being set up with Chas O’Brien, Texas Titans’ celebrated running back, a.k.a. the Irish Flash. When a near-accident brings Ryleigh face-to-face with Chas, who’s not only charming and charismatic, but also easy on the eyes, sparks fly. Fighting ...

When reporter Phoebe Adams loses her job and her fiancé on the same day, it never occurs to her that she’ll also have to support her mother, Ruth, through her divorce from Phoebe’s father after thirty-five years of marriage. They both need a safe haven, and Phoebe knows just the place—Summer Island where Grandma Alice still rules the roost from the big New England beach house Phoebe and Ruth once called home.

On a leafy suburban street in Dublin, beautiful, poised Stella Greene lives with her successful husband, Matt. They're the perfect couple in every way, and Stella appears to have it all. Next door, at number 72, however, lives Rea Brady. Gruff, bad tempered and rarely seen besides the twitching of her net curtains, rumour has it she's lost it all...including her marbles, if you believe the neighbourhood gossip. But appearances can be deceiving, and when Stella and Rea's worlds collide they realise they have much in common.

Meri is newly married, pregnant, and standing on the cusp of her life as a wife and mother, recognizing with some terror the gap between reality and expectation. Delia Naughton, wife of the two-term liberal senator Tom Naughton, is Meri's new neighbor in the adjacent New England town house. Delia's husband's chronic infidelity has been an open secret in Washington circles, but despite the complexity of their relationship, the bond between them remains strong.

Growing up in the small town was a nightmare. When the end nears, can five grieving siblings forgive the abuse of the past? Tessa Whitley dreads going home. Faced with moving an abusive father into memory care, the pragmatic forty-something reunites with her siblings to begin the arduous task of helping an angry man who barely remembers them. But even as his dementia causes his mind and behavior to deteriorate, the shy woman finds strength when her estranged elder sister makes a surprise visit. Reliving the days when the family prodigal was her sole protector, Tessa struggles to balance the...

On the heels of a difficult break-up and a devastating diagnosis, Shakespeare scholar Lizzie Delford decides to take one last lavish vacation on Elba, the sun-kissed island off the Italian coast, with her best friend and his movie-star boyfriend. Once settled into a luxurious seaside resort, Lizzie has to make big decisions about her future, and she needs the one thing she may be running out of: time.

Chareese “Reese” Devlin spent every summer of her childhood in the lake town of Mount Dora, Florida. Reese never realized that the idyllic haven hid a deep divide between the town’s haves and have-nots. Not until the summer she turned seventeen and fell for Duncan McNeal, a boy who lacked the pedigree so valued by her parents and their friends. After her family squashed the budding romance, Reese refused to return to the place she lost her heart. Now, ten years later, she’s back to attend her sister’s debutante ball and must come to terms with all she’s missed.

When their paths first cross, Ben Livingston is a fledgling screenwriter on the brink of success; Tatum Connelly is a struggling actress tending bar in a New York City dive. They fall in love, they marry, they become parents, and they think only of the future. But as the years go by, Tatum's stardom rises while Ben's fades. In a marriage that bears the fallout of ambition and fame, Ben and Tatum are at a crossroads. Now all they can do is think back....

Gabe Wilde has never been more ready for a change. Thirty-three and in the midst of a divorce, he's packed up his second-grade daughter and come home to Birch Bay, Montana. New house, new career, new life. Only, with changes come stress. His daughter is struggling with the transition to their new norm - and Gabe is out of ideas as to how to help.

The New York Times best-selling author of The Beach House, Jemima J, and Sister Stardust presents a novel about the pleasure and meaning of finding a home - and family - where you least expect them...When Emma Montague left the strict confines of upper-crust British life for New York, she felt sure it would make her happy. Away from her parents and expectations, she felt liberated, throwing herself into Manhattan life replete with a high-paying job, a gorgeous apartment, and a string of successful boyfriends.

A hot football player and a bet--what more could you want for Valentine's day? Ziggy Brady, center for the Denver Storm, doesn't expect to dance with the woman who broke his heart ten years ago. But a bet issued by the owner of the Storm, is the catalyst for asking her. He certainly can't believe she slaps him, and he really doesn't know what to do when she throws in his face the fact her boyfriend is proposing later that night. The truth, is that Sophia Charles will always be his biggest regret. Sophia Charles doesn't want to dance with Ziggy Brady at a fundraiser; but his brother has ALS ...

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!

They're a glamorous family, the Caseys. Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together - birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, weekends away. And they're a happy family. Johnny's wife, Jessie - who has the most money - insists on it. Under the surface, though, conditions are murkier. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much.... Everything stays under control until Ed's wife Cara, gets concussion and can't keep her thoughts to herself.

Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney has never been a devotee of tarot cards or crystal balls. And yet when the fortune-teller at the county fair suggests that it is time for her to “redream” her life, Ave Maria realizes she is wide open to suggestion.

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....

Jules Whittier is starting to regret the promise she made to her grandmother on her deathbed. The motel is even more dilapidated than it looked like in the pictures, and it turns out that renovating it includes working with her estranged cousins Maddie and Gina - the same cousins who caused her to fail at running the last motel. But there’s no getting around the stipulations in Gram’s will, and Jules needs to make a success of the Beachcomber, not only because of the promise she made, but also to prove to herself that she’s not a failure.