When Siddalee Walker, oldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker, Ya-Ya extraordinaire, is interviewed in the New York Times about a hit play she's directed, her mother gets described as a 'tap-dancing child abuser'. Enraged, Vivi disowns Sidda. Devastated, Sidda begs forgiveness, and postpones her upcoming wedding. All looks bleak until the Ya-Yas step in and convince Vivi to send Sidda a scrapbook of their girlhood mementos, called Divine Secrets of...

"Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South is the story of Margaret Hale, the daughter of a local priest in Hampshire, whose father decides to leave his country church after a serious crisis of faith. All the events that follow happen in the fictional industrial English town named Milton to which the Hale family has moved. Thus, part of the narrative focuses on the juxtaposition between industrial areas and the countryside. Margaret is very critical of...

Rosamond Treverton lay dying at Porthgenna Tower, the family mansion in Cornwall. Calling her lady's maid to her side she confesses a terrible secret from her past, but dies before she can extract a promise from Sarah to reveal all to her husband. Hiding the written confession in a remote part of the mansion, Sarah carries the burden alone for fifteen years. Worn out by the strain, it is at this point that she is pitched headlong into a chain of events...

Artistically talented orphan Audra Kenton leaves nursing to serve as nanny to precocious Theo Bell. Soon she meets and weds handsome Vincent Crowther, and they begin a long but unstable life together. Obsessively determined to give her daughter the best art education possible, Audra toils long and hard only to see Christina forsake painting for haute couture as a way to repay her mother's untiring sacrifice. At length Christina must allow her own...

"A picturesque Maine beach town is the setting for Holly Chamberlin s touching and thought-provoking new novel, as a mother struggles to reconnect with her long lost daughter ... Every year on March 26th, Verity Peterson visits Ogunquit Beach, where she puts a handwritten message into a bottle and launches it into the waves. It's a ritual of remembrance for the daughter she hasn't seen in sixteen years--not since her baby's father, Alan, took two-month-old...

"In 1969 Alabama, eleven-year-old Dixie Dupree learns that the family she once believed was happy has deep fractures and records everything in her diary in this coming-of-age story about mothers and daughters, the guilt and pain that pass between generations, and the truths that are impossible to hide, especially from ourselves"--

Toots has decided to stay in Charleston and care for her ailing housekeeper and help plan her daughter Abby's marriage, but before long, she is distracted by a romance of her own.

With the high summer season underway at the Seabreeze Inn, Ivy Bay faces new challenges. She has just one season to make the inn a success to pay the tax bill her late husband left behind. And her neighbor's lawsuit could mean an end to the Seabreeze Inn. Yet her daughter Sunny's arrival in Summer Beach is also a chance to renew their strained relationship. While the mayor, Bennett Dylan, develops deeper feelings for Ivy, new trials weigh on their...

"As Sophie De Luca has learned, many things really are better the second time around, whether that's a wonderful year of marriage with Goebel, her sweet second husband, or strengthening her bonds with childhood friends Toots, Ida, and Mavis. Yet ever since she and Goebel moved into their new home, Sophie has sensed something a little . . . unusual. Old houses often contain items left behind from previous owners, but what remains in this case is a...

Aimless and guilt-ridden, [Margaret Neal] decides to get away from the East Coast altogether. For the money to buy a ticket to California she appeals to her aunt Nell Kerwin. ... When Nell replies to Margaret's plea, she encloses a gift-an odd but cherished souvenir ..."--Jacket.