What of the penetrating cold terror of an old hotel, a haunted place of seductive evil with a malevolent will of its own--and a five-year-old boy of innocent beauty whose mind mirrors the nightmarish secrets of its past?

"Jess O'Brien has overcome a lot--the challenges of attention deficit disorder, the near bankruptcy of her beloved Inn at Eagle Point and her self-perception as a screwup in a family of overachievers. Now she's ready to share the future with a man. Her friends persuade her to join a dating service--but she gets no takers! Which is fine with her childhood friend, psychologist Will Lincoln, who's already chosen the perfect man for Jess: himself..."--P....

Sparks (A Bend in the Road, etc.) logs more miles on the winding high road of romance with the story of two middle-aged people who meet by chance in the small North Carolina coastal town of Rodanthe. The impassioned but doomed romance seems to owe much to Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County. Once again, a housewife who has focused on everyone but herself indulges in a brief, intense, secret affair with a stranger who changes her life...

"Hotel Portofino has only been open a few weeks, but already the problems are mounting for its coproprietor Bella Ainsworth. She is short of staff and ready money. Her high-class guests are demanding and hard to please. And she is being targeted by a scheming and corrupt local politician, who threatens to drag her into the red-hot political cauldron of Mussolini's Italy. To make matters worse, her marriage is in trouble, and her children are still...

In this wickedly satiric romp, Paul Theroux captures the essence of Hawaii as it has never been depicted. The novel's narrator, a down-on-his-luck writer, escapes to Waikiki and soon finds himself the manager of the Hotel Honolulu, a low-rent establishment a few blocks off the beach. Honeymooners, vacationers, wanderers, mythomaniacs, soldiers, and families all check in to the hotel. Like the Canterbury pilgrims, every guest has come in search of...

When her family cannot make it home for Christmas, Edith opens her home--which doubles as an inn the rest of the year--to a few strangers in need of a place to stay, who are an unusual bunch of characters.

"Visitors come to Charity's friendly little inn to escape their ordinary lives. But FBI Agent Roman DeWinter knows something ugly is going on beneath the cozy surface. His mission is to expose the dangerous criminal gang operating out of the inn. Going undercover, Roman begins his investigation-which puts Charity's life on the line. A hit-and-run attack leaves her shaken and bruised, but only Roman knows how close she came to death. And with the gang...

"Junie Raines is ready for a second chance at life on a sunny island off the coast of Southern California. She's managing the gift shop at the Majestic Hotel, a Victorian-era beach resort, and her sister Maileah is trying her patience with her sibling rivalry. It's been two years since Junie's husband died. She longs for a second chance to have a family while she's still young, but dating has its challenges with Maileah around. Junie is looking for...

"Life is busier than ever for Innkeeper, Dina DeMille and Sean Evans. But it's about to get even more chaotic when Sean's werewolf mentor is kidnapped. To find him, they must host an intergalactic spouse-search for one of the most powerful rulers in the Galaxy. Dina is never one to back down from a challenge. That is, if she can manage her temperamental Red Cleaver chef; the consequences of her favorite Galactic ex-tyrant's dark history; the tangled...

"Since moving to Cedar Cove, Jo Marie Rose has truly started to feel at home, and her neighbors have become her closest friends. Now it's springtime, and Jo Marie is eager to finish the most recent addition to her inn. In memory of her late husband, Paul, she has designed a beautiful rose garden for the property and enlisted handyman Mark Taylor to help realize it. She and Mark don't always see eye-to-eye-- and at times he seems far removed-- yet...