Ciska Swanepoel

After seven years as a Chicago homicide detective, Lisa Grant has hit a wall. Ready for a kinder, gentler life, she takes a job as a small-town police chief. But the discovery of a human skeleton by a construction crew at the edge of town taxes the resources of her department.

Dit is Simone se annus horribilis. Op vier en veertig stap sy vir die tweede keer uit n huwelik, bankrot, werkloos, moedeloos, verbrysel. Al wat sy het om van vier en veertig jaar te wys, is n bedenklike verlede, n tienerseun wat skaars met haar praat, en die besef van mislukking en ontoereikendheid wat soos n meulsteen om haar nek hang. Al waarheen sy het om te gaan, is die kleinburgerlike dorp op die Oos-Vrystaatse platteland waar sy grootgeword het, waar haar konserwatiewe ma en konvensionele suster haar gedurig aan haar tekortkominge kan herinner. Rock bottom, dis waar sy is.

On paper, Jazmine, Judith, Erin, and Sara have little in common - they’re very different people leading very different lives. And yet at book club meetings in an historic carriage house turned bookstore, they bond over a shared love of reading (and more than a little wine) as well as the growing realization that their lives are not turning out like they expected.

Ava Jackson entered the military shortly after high school, but her mother's illness has forced her to request an early discharge. She already lost her father while deployed, and there's no way she's going to let her mother die alone. But after a visit to the nursing facility where her mother lives, Ava is attacked walking back to her car. Fortunately, FBI Special Agent Caden Denning arrives in time to help fight off her attacker. Caden reveals to Ava that she may hold the key to the murders of three families, and he needs her help before anyone else is harmed.

It’s peak tourist season in Eternity Springs, and Dana Delaney has her hands full running her ice cream parlor, Scoops. The last thing she needs is for her star employee to fall sick, but she’s in luck when a newcomer to town offers to fill in...and the fact that he’s sinfully handsome with a sexy Scottish accent is an added treat.

Paint your toes. Pick up the wrong coffee and bagel order. Drive from Brooklyn to Jersey in traffic so slow you want to tear your hair out. It’s amazing all the useless things I can accomplish while on hold for three hours with customer service. Three hours when I should be getting the Date-in-a-Box website ready to launch at the big business expo in a few days. Except my shiny new website is glitching, and my inner rage-monster is ready to scorch some earth...when he finally picks up. Not the robot voice I expected but a real live human named Kal.

I have exactly 5 hours and 10 minutes to get from Boston to New York City or the professional opportunity of a lifetime disappears. My only travel option? The second to last seat on a discount bus. Across from the bathroom. Wearing last night’s clothes (don’t ask). All worth it if I can make it in time.

Maggie Patel has landed her dream job at The New York Spectator; or, it would be, if she could get a decent story assignment. When a career-making interview finally lands on her desk, it’s with the last person she’d ever want to see again — Edward, the Crown Prince of Bairmorne...and her long-ago friend.