Strikingly different since childhood and leading dissimilar lives now, sisters Frances and Cynthia have managed to remain "devoted"-as long as they stay on opposite coasts. When Frances arranges to host Thanksgiving at her idyllic New England farmhouse, she envisions a happy family reunion, one that will include the sisters' long-estranged father. Cynthia, however, doesn't understand how Frances can ignore the past their father's presence revives,...

Will Butterfield can't believe it. His 75–year–old mother, Holly, is drunk and threatening to jump off the roof. Again. Holly and Fiona, another elderly relative, won't stop tormenting Will and his wife Elizabeth with their bizarre (though often amusing) antics. Between Will's worries about his bookstore, The Heart's Ease, and Elizabeth's troublesome high school students, dealing with "the crazies" has become just too much. But then something...

Six months ago, Janine Grimson learned her best friend had an affair with her husband of twenty years -- at the engagement party of their oldest daughter, Maggie. In the wake of that horrific event, Janine rekindled her relationship with her mother, Nancy, moved full-time to Martha's Vineyard, and found herself stronger, better, and brighter than ever before. Now, news from Manhattan shakes her to the core. Something tragic has happened to her ex-husband,...