Contemporary Family Life

♥The Candy Beach Series ♥ Falling in love is not easy when you're 60+ years old! If loving him is so wrong, why does it feel so right?Childless, Michael Gray longs to find the secret daughter his deceased wife gave up for adoption years ago. His search takes a detour when he meets candy maker Dara Greene. Dara is also widowed and she’s determined to make her business, Caroline’s Candy Shoppe, a success. Dara suffers from stage fright and due to a recent traumatic event, she seeks Michael’s assistance. Can he help her win the Annual Cruise Ship Candy Competition and convince her to...

April 5, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, husband and wife, are slowly drifting apart—and both, it seems, are a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, is living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart.

For Susan Green, messy emotions don’t fit into the equation of her perfectly ordered life. She has a flat that is ideal for one, a job that suits her passion for logic, and an “interpersonal arrangement” that provides cultural and other more intimate benefits. But suddenly confronted with the loss of her mother and the news that she is about to become a mother herself, Susan’s greatest fear is realized. She is losing control.

Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother's happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author's celebrated New York Times best seller) returns to visit her siblings after 17 years of absence.

Pay It Forward, is the moving story of Trevor McKinney, a 12-year-old boy who accepts his social studies teacher’s challenge to come up with a plan to change the world. Trevor’s idea is simple: Do a good deed for three people and ask them to "pay it forward" to three others who need help. He envisions a vast movement of kindness and goodwill spreading beyond his small California town and across the world.

The scent of flowers and change is in the air for the Wingate sisters. With her husband gone for weeks at a stretch, Rose's unwavering enthusiasm is tested, forcing her to remove her famous rose-colored glasses and face a family crisis. While Susannah plans an anniversary surprise for Rex, Chloe finds the courage to try one more career path, with help coming from the one constant in her life, her precious furbaby, Lady Bug.

In Danielle Steel’s powerful new novel, four trauma doctors - the best and brightest in their field - confront exciting new challenges, both personally and professionally, when given an unusual opportunity. When an unspeakable act of mass violence galvanizes them into action, their temporary life in Paris becomes a stark turning point: a time to face harder choices than they have ever made before - with consequences that will last a lifetime.

Annie Adams is days away from her 32nd birthday and thinks she has finally found some happiness. She visits the world's most interesting places for her syndicated travel column and she's happily cohabiting with her movie director boyfriend Nick in Los Angeles. But when Nick comes home from a meeting with his therapist (aka "futures counselor") and announces that he's taking a break from their relationship so he can pursue a woman from his past, the place Annie had come to call home is shattered.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.

Love wasn’t supposed to be a part of the deal… Even a famed matchmaker like Nolan Madaris’s great-grandmother can’t get it right every time. Nolan, the notorious fun-loving ladies’ man, could never connect with someone as straitlaced as tech whiz Ivy Chapman. Yet the scheme Ivy proposes is tempting - they can pretend to be a couple, just long enough to satisfy their families. But someone forgot to clue in their hearts. What happens, though, when Ivy’s plan to get her relatives off her back has an unexpected side effect: getting her into Nolan’s bed?

Abbie MacIntyre is living the dream in the picturesque Nova Scotia town she calls home. She is a successful surgeon, is married to a handsome cardiologist, and has a model teenage son who is only months away from going off to college. But then one fateful night, everything changes. When a drunk driver hits her car, Abbie is rushed to the hospital. She survives, but the accident forces unimaginable secrets out into the open and plagues Abbie with nightmares so vivid that she starts to question her grip on reality.

Mia Carter's life has always been about her family and their charming bed and breakfast in the idyllic Blue Ridge Mountains. When her mother passes away, Mia is left to run the Sweet Tea B&B alone. But a routine DNA test changes everything. Mia discovers she has a sister named Kate, who lives in Rhode Island. The sisters meet for the first time at the will reading and are shocked to learn that their mother's final wish was for them to run the B&B together.

Some kids inherit a family business; Jo Ward inherited a badge. Once voted Most Likely to End Up in Jail, the town wild child has become sheriff - hell-bent on uncovering the truth about her father’s mysterious death. Life is quiet in rustic River Bend, but Jo longs for something beyond her small hometown and the painful memories it holds. All that keeps her sane is the support of her best friends, Melanie and Zoe.

When Serenity Alston swabbed her cheek for a genetic test, she joked about uncovering some dark ancestral scandal. The last thing she expected was to discover two half sisters she didn’t know existed. Suddenly, everything about her loving family is drawn into question. And meeting these newfound sisters might be the only way to get answers.

A delicious, sharp novel about a woman who jets off to France after her perfect marriage collapses, putting the broken pieces of herself back together while rediscovering her own joie de vivre - a lust for life, art, and steamy sex.

No one drives in New York City. Everyone knows that, including California transplant Rachel Price. But that doesn't stop her from driving into the city. From Connecticut. Every single morning. Rain or shine...or snow. When she runs the charismatic and good-looking Jason Fairchild off the road, their immediate spark is met with bad timing. There is also one tiny little detail: Jason is her boss. And a woman as intelligent and dedicated to her career as Rachel knows not to date her boss.

In his three novellas, In Short Measures, Strong Conspirators, and Sally Forth, Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love - and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity - what are one's obligations toward one's spouse, one's family, and one's heart?

When Callie rents a beach cottage in Whitstable, she doesn't expect for its owner to be glamorous influencer Vanessa Lowe. Vanessa has it all. A beautiful home, a loyal husband, three perfect children, and a growing number of adoring online fans. Callie has long admired her world from afar. But when Vanessa invites her in, the closer Callie looks, the more she suspects that there's more to Vanessa than meets the eye. So when Vanessa's son disappears, Callie must question everything she knows.

Life is meant to be savored, but that’s not easy with no family, limited prospects, and a past you’d rather not talk about. Still, Callie Smith doesn’t know how to feel when she discovers she has a brother and a sister - Malcolm, who grew up with affection, wealth, and privilege, and Keira, a streetwise 12-year-old. Despite her trepidation, she moves into the grand family home with her siblings and grandfather on the shores of Lake Washington, hoping just maybe this will be the start of a whole new life. But starting over can be messy.

Kezia Cooper Hobson, recently widowed, arrives in New York from San Francisco. Determined to make a fresh start, she has just completed the sale of her Pacific Heights home, not to mention her husband's venture capital firm, and in doing so, is also freed from her responsibility as a board member of the company. Bringing with her only a few personal treasures, she is excited to move into the blank slate of a beautiful midtown penthouse, in the city that she has always loved. It is also where her two adult daughters now live.