"One day a young couple wakes to find a boy asleep on their porch. Unable to speak, the boy cannot explain his history. What kind of people would leave their child with strangers? All John and Marta know is that they have been chosen to care for this boy. As their connection to him grows, they embrace his exuberant spirit and talents. The three of them blossom into an unlikely family, but how long can their happiness last?"-- From dust jacket flap....

Three women find their lives disrupted by the unexpected chimings of their biological clocks, leaving two wanting a baby and the other dreading the thought of carrying a child.

"Juliet is failing to juggle motherhood and her anemic dissertation when her husband, Michael, informs her that he wants to leave his job and buy a sailboat. The couple are novice sailors, but Michael persuades Juliet to say yes. With their two kids--Sybil, age seven, and George, age two, Juliet and Michael set off for Panama, where their forty-four-foot sailboat awaits them--a boat that Michael has christened the Juliet. The initial result is transformative:...

A couple obsessed with their infertility travels to Slovenia to have an unusual and painful procedure that results in horrible consequences they manage to hide until their twins, Adam and Alice, turn ten years old and start asking questions.

"Claudia Parr has everything going for her. A successful editor at a publishing house in Manhattan, she's also a devoted sister, aunt, and friend. Yet she's never wanted to become a mother, which she discovers is a major hurdle to marriage, something she desperately wants. Then she meets her soul mate Ben who, miraculously, feels the same way about parenthood. The two fall in love and marry, committed to one another and their life of adventure and...

"A body has been dredged from the San Francisco Bay. Kate Connolly, pregnant and ready to pop, has reason to fear it may be her long lost bother-in-law. When a private investigator begins nosing around, Kate decides on a new career path. BAttling sleep deprivation, diaper blowouts and brestfeeding mishaps she muddles through her own investigation, Mommy style: To do: 1. Find Killer. 2. Figure out hideous breast pump. 3. Avoid cranky cop. 4. Send out...

"It's summer time and son Theo is away at camp. Feeling frisky and free, and tired of living vicariously through nighttime erotic novels, Penelope can begin Phase 2 of her post-divorce life. First on the agenda is a date with the mysterious Fitzwilliam Darcy, who lives in a mansion with his snobbish cat, Algernon, and spends his spare time painting massive nude portraits. Nothing in her bedtime reading of Tycoon's Dare has prepared Penelope for an...

Reuniting to celebrate their father's seventy-fifth birthday, the Miller siblings, each of whom is expecting first children of their own, struggle with difficult life challenges, from the eldest's confinement in a wheelchair after a devastating accident, to the middle son's anticipation of twins, to the pregnant youngest daughter's single status.

This collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national crises. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people's wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art collapse under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood; and, in "Bronze," a sexually confused college freshman whose encounter with a stranger on a train leads to a revelation about his past and his future.