Marci Stitt

Everyone in Hemingway Grove, Illinois, knows David and Marcie Bowers. David owns the local pub. Marcie is a former big-city lawyer who practices family law. When David jumps into Cotton River to save a drowning stranger, he’s celebrated as a hero. His muscled physique, shaved head, and piercing blue eyes are broadcast on every news outlet. For most people, newfound fame is a lifeline. For David Bowers, it’s a death sentence. For Marcie Bowers, it’s a test.

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it all: men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot. Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet. Then the brutal murder of a young woman—the latest in a string of deaths across the coast—confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town where she grew up—she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life seems too good to be true.

Welcome to the Chapel House, the old oceanfront mansion where a group of close friends share their hopes and dreams and where love is sometimes an unexpected guest. Heartfelt and deeply moving, Private Relations won the 1989 RITA Award for Best Single Title Contemporary Novel from the Romance Writers of America.