Ester Waters

Last year, Rachel Bacharach met the man of her dreams at a Hanukkah party — and then her outgoing best friend Tamara swooped in and “called” Oz Caplan for herself. It’s a typical outcome for the dependable, bookish Rachel, who is never able to extinguish the spark she immediately felt for Oz. But being secretly in love with her best friend’s boyfriend all year hasn’t been easy.

No matter how many years Dakota Keller has spent trying, he can't outrun his past, so when a private investigator tells him his sister needs him, he travels to the small Texas town of Hope Springs to start a new life with the support of his siblings. When he arrives to do a routine construction job at the town's new espresso bar, he's shocked to discover that the owner is Thea Clark - the girl he couldn't resist in high school and whose memory kept him sane in prison.

Wife. Mother. Breadwinner. Penelope Ruiz-Kar is doing it all - and barely keeping it together. Meanwhile, her best friend, Jenny Sweet, appears to be sailing through life. As close as the two women are, Jenny’s passionate marriage, pristine house, and ultra-polite child stand in stark contrast to Penelope’s underemployed husband, Sanjay, their unruly brood, and the daily grind she calls a career.

Arranged marriages seldom happen in modern America, so Daisy Devreaux hates her father's ultimatum: marry the humorless man he has picked for her, or go to jail. It's not much of a deal for Alex Markov, the prospective groom, either. He's got no time to indulge an uptown girl. So Alex puts Daisy to work in his traveling circus, expecting the harsh realities will break her. Instead, he finds she's got heart enough for both of them.