Chrrry Morgan

I got her fired. Okay, so I’d had a bad day and took it out on a bystander in a pizza shop. But there’s nothing innocent about Ally Morales. She proves that her first day of her new job in my office, after being hired by my mother. So, maybe, her colorful, annoying, inexplicably alluring personality brightens up the magazine’s offices that have felt like a prison for the past year. Maybe, I like that she argues with me in front of the editorial staff. And maybe, my after-hours fantasies are haunted by those brown eyes and that sharp tongue.

Six years before my phone rang and changed my life forever, I made a mistake. I met a girl, we had some fun, and then we had a baby. And I fell pretty damn hard for my daughter. I was going to be there. I was going to give her everything I never had. I was going to have a family. And then her mother disappeared and took my baby with her. And now she’s done it again. Because that call that changed my life was from my five-year-old daughter asking me if I knew where her Mommy was.

Growing up in the foster system, Quinn O'Meara made a point of never getting involved. But when she discovers a crying baby amid a fiery crime scene, she knows she has no choice. Suddenly in way over her head, Quinn turns to the police, unintentionally positioning herself in the crosshairs of a deadly human-trafficking ring. The last time homicide detective Nick Saldano saw Quinn, she was still the young girl he'd shared a foster home with.

Dale Maharidge’s father, like many World War II veterans, never talked about “the good war”. There was just one clue to his dad’s experience as a US Marine - a portrait with a close friend that hung permanently in their home. In The Dead Drink First, Dale, now a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, recounts his 18-year quest to find and repatriate the missing remains of his dad’s buddy, Herman Walter Mulligan, 73 years after he was killed in action.

Year after year, Willa stands by, watching as the bartender/playboy drowns his demons in beer and sex. Then one night, he shows up at her door, suddenly aware that the girl he's seen around Lark Cove is now a beautiful woman. Except what he doesn't remember is that this visit isn't his first. They spent a night together once before. A night he's forgotten, thanks to a bottle of tequila. A night that crushed a timid girl's heart and set a broken man on the path to heal them both.

Lucky Strickland has lost everything. First it was her dignity and then it was her husband, and now it's her house. She's penniless, stuck at the McDonald's in Bee Cave, Texas. Her only hope, her brother-in-law, just stole her car.

Poppy Maysen carries a journal in her purse. Its pages were filled long ago by a man who craved adventure, lived life to the fullest, and never failed to make her laugh. The journal is his birthday list - one she vows to complete. She'll do the things he wanted to do most. Because maybe, just maybe, if she can finish his list, she can start to live again.

Margot Cary has spent her life immersed in everything Lake Sackett is not. As an elite event planner, Margot's rubbed elbows with the cream of Chicago society and made elegance and glamour her business. She's riding high until one event goes tragically, spectacularly wrong. Now she's blackballed by the gala set and in dire need of a fresh start - and apparently the McCreadys are in need of an event planner with a tarnished reputation.

One old farmhouse brought them together. It could also tear them apart. Gigi has just uprooted her whole world to start a new life. The unexpected gift of a farmhouse in small-town Montana is just what she and her daughter need to escape big-city loneliness. The last thing she needs is attitude from the town’s sheriff, the most perfectly attractive and ruggedly handsome man she’s ever laid eyes on—and a complete jerk.

Gigi has just uprooted her whole world to start a new life. The unexpected gift of a farmhouse in small-town Montana is just what she and her daughter need to escape big-city loneliness. The last thing she needs is attitude from the town's sheriff, the most perfectly attractive and ruggedly handsome man she's ever laid eyes on - and a complete jerk. Jess knows all about women like Gigi. Beautiful. Sexy. Scheming. She's stolen his sanctuary, the farmhouse that should have been his.