Single mom Heather Donovan's dreams of home and family are tantalizingly within reach when she settles in Chesapeake Shores. The welcoming arms of the boisterous, loving O'Brien clan embrace her and her son. But accepting their support seems to further alienate her son's father, Connor O'Brien. His parents' divorce and his career as a high-powered divorce attorney have left him jaded about marriage. Then everything changes. Will the possibility of...

John "Preacher" Middleton is about to close the bar when a young woman and her three-year-old son come in out of the wet October night. A marine who has seen his share of pain, Preacher knows a crisis when he sees one - the woman is covered in bruises. He wants to protect them, and he wants to punish whoever did this to her, but he knows immediately that this inclination to protect is something much more. Paige Lassiter has stirred up emotions in...

When her step-daughter steals money belonging to Amber, a woman who has since been evicted along with her teenage son, Cassie invites them to move in with her and as they each form friendships, Cassie discovers that Amber is trying to outrun her dark past.

Shelby Hearon has been widely praised for the insight, wit, and subtlety with which her novels limn the complexities of marriage and family ("What Jane Austen is to courtship, Shelby Hearon is to marriage" —New York Newsday), and the ways in which place can profoundly affect us all. Now, with Ella in Bloom, Hearon gives us her sharpest, funniest, most telling novel yet.
It is the story of Ella, who has always lived in...

"Single mom Lynn Morrow is determined to put food on the table for her son and daughter. Her soon-to-be-ex-husband has failed to meet his obligations time and again-but it turns out that Ed is struggling with his own demons. Enter contractor Mitch Franklin, an unlikely knight in shining armor. A widower with two grieving sons, Mitch once admired Lynn from afar. Now he sees in her not only the sweet girl who got away, but a woman desperately in need...

"Christine Eisley is the single mother of seven-year-old Zach and five-year-old Haley. With little support from her ex-husband, she works long hours to make ends meet. When Christine saves the life of an elderly woman who works in Wilson's department store, the owner of the store wants to find and thank her. But Christine has disappearred, losing yet another job. He sets his grandson, Jason, to the task of finding the mysterious "Christy." Jason,...

A novel on the hardship of the Industrial Revolution through the eyes of an Englishwoman forced to be a prostitute to make ends meet. A potter's assistant during the day, she changes at night into a gown, rented by her pimp to walk the narrow streets. It is cold and business is slow. By the author of A Stolen Tongue.

Lucy Bloom is broke, freshly dumped by her boyfriend, and forced to sell her house to send her nineteen-year-old son to drug rehab. Although she's lost it all, she's determined to start over. So when she's offered a high-paying gig helping clear the clutter from the home of reclusive and eccentric painter Marva Meier Rios, Lucy grabs it. Armed with the organizing expertise she gained while writing her book, Things Are Not People, and fueled by a burning...

Enjoying a close relationship with her daughter, Phoebe, Catherine Sanderson has kept only one secret--the identity of Phoebe's father--until Phoebe embarks on her own search for her paternity, bringing her real father back into their lives.

Jean Gilkyson and her daughter Griff run to Wyoming to escape an abusive relationship and move in with Einar Gilkyson, the grandfather Griff never knew she had, but Einar still blames Jean for the accident that killed his son and it is up to Griff to turn grief, anger, and loss into reconciliation and love.