As far as Gemma is concerned, her days of dating are over. In fact, it’s her job to cater other peoples’ dates, and that’s just fine by her. At 37, she has her own business, working as a private chef, and her life feels full. She’s got six steady clients that keep her hands full. For Gemma, cooking is predictable. Recipes are certain. Use good ingredients, follow the directions, and you are assured success. Life, on the other hand, is full of variables. So when Gemma’s takes an unexpected turn on a road she always thought was straight and narrow, she must face her past.

When Allison Montgomery's beloved father-in-law and long-time confidant passes away, her mother-in-law, Margaret, "temporarily" moves in. From rearranging the furniture and taking over the kitchen to undermining and embarrassing Allie at every turn, Margaret turns Allie's life upside down.

When Elodie applies for the job of librarian in peaceful Willow Grove, she’s looking forward to a new start. As the daughter of a media empire, her every move has been watched for years, and she longs to work with the thing she loves most: books. It’s a chance to make a real difference, too, because she soon realises that there are other people in Willow Grove who might need a fresh start—like the homeless man everyone walks past without seeing, or the divorcée who can’t seem to escape her former husband’s misdeeds.

When Ava Harrison receives a letter containing an unusual job listing one month after the sudden death of her ex-boyfriend, she thinks she’s being haunted. The listing—a job as a live-in caretaker for a peculiar old man and his cranky cat in Driftwood, Alabama—is the perfect chance to start a new life. A normal life. Ava has always been too fearful to even travel, so no one’s more surprised than she is when she throws caution to the wind and drives to the distant beachside town.

Jerome “Sugar” Barnes learned the art of baking in his grandma’s bakery, also called Sugar, on historic Perdita Street in San Francisco. He supplies baked goods to the Lost and Found Bookshop across the street. When the restaurant that shares his commercial kitchen loses its longtime tenant, a newcomer moves in: Margot Salton, a barbecue master from Texas.

Flora loves Christmas more than anything else in the world, so she's gutted when her Scrooge-alike boss fires her from Deck the Halls Christmas emporium. But now she finally has a chance to follow her dreams, and what better place to start than the home of Christmas? Before she can say sleigh bells, Flora's on her way to Lapland. She cant wait to spend her days drinking hot chocolate and taking reindeer-drawn carriage rides, but something Flora didn't expect was meeting Connor, a Norse god of a man who makes her heart flutter and snowflakes swirl in her stomach.

Sasha Martin set herself a rather ambitious goal: to cook - and eat - her way around the world, with 196 recipes from196 countries in 196 weeks. Enter Global Table Adventure, a project that proves to be more than just a culinary challenge as Sasha attempts to navigate the vicissitudes of marriage, motherhood, and life's failures and successes, all inextricably linked to her troubled past.

Why exactly Charley Bordelon's late father left her eight hundred sprawling acres of sugarcane land in rural Louisiana is as mysterious as it was generous. Recognizing this as a chance to start over, Charley and her 11-year-old daughter, Micah, say good-bye to Los Angeles. They arrive just in time for growing season but no amount of planning can prepare Charley for a Louisiana that's mired in the past: as her judgmental but big-hearted grandmother tells her, cane farming is always going to be a white man's business.

Born above his grandfather’s modest restaurant in Mumbai, Hassan first experienced life through intoxicating whiffs of spicy fish curry, trips to the local markets, and gourmet outings with his mother. But when tragedy pushes the family out of India, they console themselves by eating their way around the world, eventually settling in Lumière, a small village in the French Alps.

After losing almost all of her clients in one fell swoop following an accident involving whipped cream, private chef to Hollywood's elite Roxie Callahan gets a call from her flighty mother, saying she's needed home in upstate New York to run the family diner. Once she's back in the Hudson Valley, local organic farmer Leo delivers Roxie a lovely bunch of walnuts, and soon sparks - and clothing - begin to fly. Leo believes that everything worth doing is worth doing slowly...and how!

At 37, Tessa Harlow is still working her way down her list of goals to "fall in love and have a family". A self-described rolling stone, Tessa leads hiking tours for adventurous vacationers - a job that's taken her around the world but never a step closer to home. Then a freak injury during a trip already marred by tragedy forces her to begin her greatest adventure of all.

Life couldn't be more perfect for Candace Woodrow. Her gourmet gift basket company is thriving, and she's set to marry steady, dependable Barry. There's just one wrench in the fairytale. Two weeks before her wedding she wakes up in the wrong man's bed. Candace thinks she'll be able to run out the door and forget all about Michael Vogler, but the Boston millionaire has other plans for the jittery bride.

In 1945, Elsie Schmidt is a naive teenager, as eager for her first sip of champagne as she is for her first kiss. She and her family have been protected from the worst of the terror and desperation overtaking her country by a high-ranking Nazi who wishes to marry her. So when an escaped Jewish boy arrives on Elsie’s doorstep in the dead of night on Christmas Eve, Elsie understands that opening the door would put all she loves in danger.

Chef extraordinaire Gina Foxton doesn't expect anything to be handed to her on a platter. After years of hard work, the former runner-up Miss Teen Vidalia Onion is now the host of her own local Georgia public television show called Fresh Start, and she's dating the show's producer. But when her show gets canceled - and she catches her boyfriend in flagrante delicto with the boss' wife - Gina realizes that she's meant for bigger and better things. Namely, a gig on national television.

Barbara O’Neal’s novel of food, friendship, and the freedom to grow your dreams brings together four very different women longing to savor the true taste of happiness. Popular blogger and foodie queen Lavender Wills reigns over Lavender Honey Farms, a serene slice of organic heaven nestled in Oregon wine country. Lavender is determined to keep her legacy from falling into the profit-driven hands of uncaring relatives, and she wants an heir to sustain her life’s work after she’s gone.