Sam Gardner has been pastor of Hope Friends Meeting for just four months when ninety-eight-year-old member Oilve Charles passes away. What's more shocking news is that Olive has left her entire estate--worth nearly one million dollars--to the meeting. At first the gift sounds to Sam like a godsend. Yet as word of the unexpected windfall spreads, it stirs up a storm of conflicting opinions among the church members as to how the money would best be...

In an eventful year spanning two Easters in a small Midwestern town, witness Sam Gardner suffering a crisis of faith; follow the marital woes of Wayne Fleming; learn of a secret illness and a surprise lottery recipient; and laugh at the marvel of Dale Hinshaw's ill-hatched Scripture-Eggs ministry.-- from WorldCat.

"When Quaker Pastor Sam Gardner is asked by the ill Unitarian minister to oversee a wedding in his place, Sam naturally agrees. It's not until the couple stands before him that he realizes they're two women. In the tempest of strong opinions and misunderstandings that follows the incident, Sam faces potential unemployment. Deeply discouraged, he wonders if his pastoral usefulness has come to an end. Perhaps it's time for a change. After all, his wife...

The winter of 1889 is harsh in Amesbury, Massachusetts, but it doesn't stop Quaker midwife Rose Carroll from making the rounds to her pregnant and postpartum mothers. When Charity Skells dies from an apparent early miscarriage, Rose wonders about the symptoms that don't match the stated cause of death. She learns that Charity's husband may be up to no good with a young woman whose mother appears to offer prohibited medical procedures. A disgraced...

They say friends make life worth living ... Once a spirited, independent woman with a rebellious streak, Masha's life was forever changed by a tragic event twelve years ago. Unable to let go of her grief, she finds comfort in her faithful canine companion Haizum, and peace in the quiet lanes of her town's swimming pool. Almost without her realizing it, her life has shuddered to a halt. It's only when Masha begins an unlikely friendship with the mysterious...

Six long years ago, Captain Reynolds Macy sailed away from his bride, looking forward to the day when he would return to Nantucket Island with a ship's hold full of whale oil. But when that momentous day finally arrives, Ren soon discovers that everything has changed in his absence. Everything. "Is nothing on this island as it appears to be?" he whispers in despair. Unlike most islanders, bold and spirited Daphne Coffin doesn't defer to Ren as an...

Quaker Rachel Woolsey dreams of having her own bakery and her own homestead, but the odds are stacked against her - until the handsome ex-soldier she nurses back to health offers to help her. Like Rachel, Brennan Merriday is an outsider, but he'll be the temporary ally she needs and her foolish attraction to him will fade once he's gone. At first, the only thing Brennan wants to know about Pepin, Wiconsin is how fast he can leave it. Perhaps in Canada...

"Gina Petrillo runs home to Winding River to escape her troubles, but they follow her when lawyer Rafe O'Donnell, determined not to let his suspect get away, pursues her."--

Greg and Tess MacAvoy are one of four prominent Nantucket couples who count each other as best friends. As pillars of their close-knit community, the MacAvoys, Kapenashes, Drakes, and Wheelers are important to their friends and neighbors, and especially to each other. But just before the beginning of another idyllic summer, Greg and Tess are killed when their boat capsizes during an anniversary sail. As the warm weather approaches and the island mourns...

"A journalist sets out to find a missing friend, a friend who may never have existed at all. Confronted by a restraining order and the threat of a lawsuit, failed journalist Leah Stevens needs to get out of Boston when she runs into an old friend, Emmy Grey, who has just left a troubled relationship. Emmy proposes they move to rural Pennsylvania, where Leah can get a teaching position and both women can start again. But their new start is threatened...