On the surface, these seven women are as different as can be - but each has had her share of bad luck, from cheating husbands to sexist colleagues to a legal system that often doesn't do its job. Now, drawn together by tragedy, they're forging a bond that will help them right the wrongs committed against them and discover an inner strength they didn't know they had. The Sisterhood is learning that when bad things happen, you can roll over and play dead...or you can get up fighting...

After years of trying to become pregnant without success, Rachel Dawson and her husband Thomas felt their dreams had finally come true the day they brought home their newly adopted twin babies. Though the lawyer Baron Bell who arranged for the surrogate mother charged a hefty six-figure fee, one glance into the eyes of their precious children told them it was all worth it - until the birth mother reappeared, first demanding more money, then the twins themselves.

Through public triumphs and private sorrows, the men in the Sisters' lives - husbands, friends, colleagues, and lovers - have offered invaluable aid and support. In the process, they've become an informal brotherhood of their own, able to relate to the unique challenges and rewards of life among the vigilantes.

At 29, Alison Marshall is ready to find a place to call home. With no family and no ties, she’s drifted from one small Florida town to another since high school, working odd jobs, saving hard, and building a nest egg. Once she finds the right place to settle down, she’ll know. And when she reaches beautiful Palmetto Island, she thinks she may have found it. The small, close-knit island community seems to have everything Alison needs. On a hunch, she contacts the island’s only realtor, and learns that an old beach house is on the market.

Mateo Castillo is a rising star chef on the Manhattan culinary scene. But just as he’s about to reap the rewards of his skill and hard work by being featured on a major TV cooking competition, Mateo collapses in his restaurant’s kitchen—and regains consciousness in a hospital emergency room. If it weren’t for a security guard finding him in time, Mateo would have bled to death. The cause of his sudden illness is as mysterious as it is worrying, and Mateo and his family undergo a battery of genetic tests. Yet the answers that start to emerge only raise more questions.

Ellie Bowman barely remembers the incident that put her into a coma. When she awoke, filled with unease, all she knew for certain was that her boyfriend, Rick, was missing. She knew she needed to get away from her old life and recover in safety. With the proceeds of a video game she helped develop, Ellie starts over in rural Missouri, working from her cottage and trusting no one except her friend and business partner.

Teresa "Toots" Amelia Loudenberry has crammed a great deal of living - not to mention eight much-loved husbands - into her varied and rewarding life. Newly single, Toots is ready to taste life again, and fate has just handed her the perfect opportunity.

Luna Bodman always looks forward to a new shipment of furniture at the restoration shop. Her brother, Cullen, has a knack for finding discarded pieces with an intriguing history, and Luna likes to sit with each item to see if she can feel any kind of vibrations. Usually, Cullen does his thing while Luna does hers, but the arrival of an old armoire triggers a reaction in Luna that’s impossible to ignore. From the moment Luna wiggles inside the armoire and closes her eyes, she feels an overpowering and disturbing sensation.

With her best-selling mix of thrilling twists and characters to cheer for, Fern Michaels delves inside Washington, D.C.'s halls of power - and into the heart of an independent woman driven by passion and bound by duty. Raised by her loving but eccentric aunt, former F.B.I. agent Quinn Star has always relied on herself - how else could she have survived the Bureau's old boys network, or navigated the heartbreak of a thwarted affair with her boss? Now Quinn risks her life every day in the Secret Service, protecting the First Lady of the United States.

At Ridgewood High, Amy, Frankie, Rachael, and Nina formed a deep bond. Now, 15 years after leaving school behind, they’re back for a reunion, laughing, reminiscing, and chatting how much has changed - and how much hasn’t. But Frankie has an idea to help solve that: a singles cruise for the holidays.

Emily Ammerman has always felt at home amid the ski runs and slopes of Snowdrift Summit, the Colorado resort her family has operated for decades. Snow is her element, and she doesn’t hesitate when a new client asks her to train him to ski The Plunge, one of Colorado’s most treacherous runs. But Zach Ryder is no regular client. On screen, he’s famous for starring as a daring CIA officer who always saves the day. In real life, he’s just as handsome and charming as his alter ego, though not everyone is impressed.

From her silver Mercedes to her designer kitchen, Molly's life is gleaming and beautiful - at least on the surface. Married to Tanner, a top cosmetic dentist, she has a wonderful daughter finishing high school and twin stepsons from Tanner's first marriage. No one in her exclusive neighborhood in Goldenhills, Massachusetts, knows what living with the demanding Tanner is really like. They know even less about the life she left behind in Florida almost two decades ago.

When Carol Ann “CJ” Jansen lost her beloved older brother, Kick, in a boating accident, she came adrift. Kick had taken on the role of caring for his little sister after their parents were killed in a car crash. Inheriting half his fortune has left CJ financially secure - yet needing a purpose. As administrative assistant to powerful congressman Snapper Lewis, she’s immersed herself in the exciting and often tumultuous world of politics. But suddenly, the career that anchors her life is threatened.

Tessa Jamison couldn't have imagined anything worse than losing her beloved twin girls and husband - until she was convicted of their murder. For 10 years, she has counted off the days in Florida's Correctional Center for Women, fully expecting to die behind bars. Fighting to prove her innocence holds little appeal now that her family's gone. But on one extraordinary day, her lawyers announce that Tessa's conviction has been overturned due to a technicality, and she's released on bail to await a new trial. Hounded by the press, Tessa retreats to the small tropical island owned by her late husband's pharmaceutical company. There, she begins to gather knowledge about others in similar situations to her own...people who have lost their families in horrific ways, only to see the perpetrators walk away unpunished. For the first time since her nightmare began, Tessa feels a sense of purpose.

Young Billie Ames naively fell for the exciting pilot Moss Coleman at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during World War II. Within a few months, she was pregnant, married, and traveling across the country to Austin...to the 250,000-acre spread known as Sunbridge and into the tantalizing world of the Texas rich. In a vast land dominated by the industrious Colemans, Billie fights to maintain control of her life and her marriage.

On the surface, these seven women are as different as can be - but each has had her share of bad luck, from cheating husbands to sexist colleagues to a legal system that often doesn't do its job. Now, drawn together by tragedy, they're forging a bond that will help them right the wrongs committed against them and discover an inner strength they didn't know they had. The Sisterhood is learning that when bad things happen, you can roll over and play dead...or you can get up fighting...

Corporate auditor Sam Keller, careful to a fault, has decided to live it up for a change. And what better spot for business-class hedonism than the boomtown of Dubai, where resort islands materialize from open ocean, fortunes are made overnight, and skiers crisscross the snowy slopes of a shopping mall. But when a colleague is murdered during a night on the town, Sam soon finds himself waist-deep in a bewildering, lethal mix of mobsters, prostitutes, and crooked cops.

As an employee of MacBain Securities and Solutions, Claire Kelly can certainly hold her own. Armed with an impressive set of covert skills, she’s more than prepared to tackle any job that comes her way...except one involving Cooper Lockman. Cooper and Claire used to work together before his feelings for her sent him packing to Europe for six long years. But now he’s back and determined to ignore the still-smoldering heat that lingers between them. Their current mission: go undercover together at a California high school to root out the mastermind behind a prostitution ring.

Abby Cooper is a P.I., psychic intuitive. But her insight failed her when she didn't foresee the death of one of her clients - or that the lead investigator for the case is the gorgeous blind date she just met. Now, with the police suspicious of her abilities and a killer on the loose, Abby's future looks more uncertain than ever.

Madison is booming with dreamers and drifters, visionaries and entrepreneurs. Among them is Sydney Richardson, the daughter of a cop who died on these streets and now the proud, stressed-out owner of Hush Money, one of the city's top new restaurants. Like everyone else in town, Sydney is shocked when Madison's popular mayor - a crusty, charismatic man of the people - is shot to death in his own home. But the news hits especially close to home for Sydney because one of her own stands accused of the brutal crime. Sydney's the one person that Wanda Fields, a quiet, hardworking waitress and single mother, can think to call after her arrest.

When Athena disappeared from St. Polycarp's College at Oxford, her friends assumed she had run away - to hide from her overbearing, wealthy Greek family, or even to marry some unacceptable young man. To their shock, they find out at their 10-year reunion that her body has been discovered in an excavation. Private investigator Regan Reilly, Athena's former college roommate, is determined to track down her friend's killer.

In the still shadows of the confessional, a madman tauntingly reveals his plan for a murder he is going to commit, pulling Father Thomas Madden into a twisted game by disclosing his next intended victim: Tom's sister, Laurant. In a frantic race to protect her, Tom calls upon his best friend, elite FBI agent Nick Buchanan, to track the predator who is closing in on Laurant. Now, as an electrifying attraction grows between Laurant and Nick, so does the danger - and one false move will cost both of them everything that matters.

Nikki Burgess survived a terrible marriage and a worse divorce. She's just about given up hope of ever finding happiness. But when her ex-husband suddenly dies, she gets custody of her kids again - and a chance to start over. Dixie McPherson, on the other hand, has had way too much love. She has 11 tennis bracelets, dozens of trinkets, piles of sexy lingerie, and a tarnished reputation when all she ever wanted was true love, a partner, and a family. Carlisle Bartlett is loyal, kindhearted, and the funniest guy slinging drinks in the back of an airplane. But he has an ugly little secret. The only kind of love he's used to comes with bruises.

Los Angeles greeting-card artist Wollie Shelley is dating 40 men in 60 days as research for a radio talk show host's upcoming book. Wollie is meeting plenty of eligible bachelors but not falling in love, not until she stumbles over a dead body en route to Rio Pescado - a state-run mental hospital - and is taken hostage by a charismatic "doctor" who is on the run from the Mob.

As jewelry designer for one of the most prestigious jewelers in the world, Gracie Miller completed a particularly stunning piece: a custom setting for a large diamond. But when her billionaire client Mrs. Katsaros comes to have a minor issue with the setting repaired, Gracie is horrified to realize it is not the ring she created. Someone has forged her design, and the priceless diamond is gone. Mrs. Katsaros has no desire to bring media attention to the jewelry heist, so she recruits her nephew, Quinn, and his FBI agent friend, Steve, to do some sleuthing off the record.

As if baking holiday cookies, knitting a sweater for her husband, and making her daughter’s angel costume for the church pageant weren’t enough things for Lucy Stone’s busy Christmas schedule, she’s also working nights at the famous mail-order company Country Cousins. But when she discovers Sam Miller, its very wealthy founder, dead in his car from an apparent suicide, the sleuth in her knows something just doesn’t smell right.

Four bodies, each with a single bullet wound in the back of the head, stacked like cordwood in a weed-choked vacant lot: That's the front-page news facing Carter Ross, investigative reporter with the Newark Eagle-Examiner. Immediately dispatched to the scene, Carter learns that the four victims - an exotic dancer, a drug dealer, a hustler, and a mama's boy - came from different parts of the city and didn't seem to know one another.

Promoting her latest books brings best-selling mystery writer Jessica Fletcher to New York for Christmas. Her schedule includes book signings, chat-show appearances, department store shopping...and murder. But it all begins with a sidewalk Santa staring at Jessica with fear and recognition.

Penelope Drayton Spence made a choice years earlier, and picked marriage and family over a promising career as an investigative reporter. Now, divorced and with her children spread around the country, she is having second thoughts. A mysterious call from the Managing Editor of the Washington Post, offers her a second chance at big time journalism. He has a story so sensitive that the President of the United States personally asked the Post to leave it alone.

Bernadine Brown is a woman with money to spend. Henry Adams is a town in desperate need of cash. But after Bernadine puts up the money, she has some ideas about how the town should be run. Will the townspeople be willing to shake up their comfortable lives to share the gift they’ve been given with others who really need it?

On the surface, these seven women are as different as can be - but each has had her share of bad luck, from cheating husbands to sexist colleagues to a legal system that often doesn't do its job. Now, drawn together by tragedy, they're forging a bond that will help them right the wrongs committed against them and discover an inner strength they didn't know they had. The Sisterhood is learning that when bad things happen, you can roll over and play dead...or you can get up fighting...

When a brother-and-sister team uncover dangerous information hidden in an antique, they have no one to turn to but themselves in the first installment in a suspenseful new series by legendary, number one New York Times best-selling author Fern Michaels.

Raised on her father's South Carolina plantation, Callie Parker wanted for nothing, and now she is about to marry wealthy local scion Wyn Archer. But her wedding wouldn't be complete without the three people she grew up with under the sheltering branches of the angel oaks at Parker Manor.

Satisfied with her life and a new relationship, Abby Mitchell is most happy to be reunited with her sister, who was separated from her after their parents died. The siblings are planning a sumptuous party, unaware that an uninvited guest is coming, one who'll do anything to help keep the past hidden.

Tessa Jamison couldn't have imagined anything worse than losing her beloved twin girls and husband - until she was convicted of their murder. For 10 years, she has counted off the days in Florida's Correctional Center for Women, fully expecting to die behind bars. Fighting to prove her innocence holds little appeal now that her family's gone. But on one extraordinary day, her lawyers announce that Tessa's conviction has been overturned due to a technicality, and she's released on bail to await a new trial. Hounded by the press, Tessa retreats to the small tropical island owned by her late husband's pharmaceutical company. There, she begins to gather knowledge about others in similar situations to her own...people who have lost their families in horrific ways, only to see the perpetrators walk away unpunished. For the first time since her nightmare began, Tessa feels a sense of purpose.

Raised in a magnificent Charleston house, Jessie Roland wants for nothing. But as she grows into young adulthood, all she feels is loss and a desperate need to break free from the stifling possessiveness of her parents. Somewhere, in the deepest part of herself, Jessie believes that the world she has always lived in is not the one she came from...or belongs in. Now, at 19, she has escaped to Washington, DC, where no one knows her, and where she is swept into a whirlwind marriage to a Texas senator's son.

Anna Campbell is ready to take her first tentative steps back into the world after widowhood. On a singles cruise, she meets divorced professor Ryan Robertson, and the sparks between them are undeniable. Back home in West Texas, Anna and Ryan continue their romance, and Anna decides it’s time for their families to meet. But the idyllic relationships Anna is hoping for are quickly thrown into doubt. And as the situation grows more desperate, Anna must reach deep within and draw on all her courage and self-reliance to fight for the family and home she deserves...

Back in college, Jane Lewis would have given anything to be like homecoming queen Connie Bryan. Instead she was just Plain Jane - overweight, frumpy, and painfully shy. That was then. Today, a lovely and confident Dr. Jane Lewis has a thriving psychotherapy practice, her own radio talk show, a beautiful old Louisiana mansion, and her affectionate, nutty dog, Olive, to keep her company. The only thing missing is someone to share her life.

At 29, Alison Marshall is ready to find a place to call home. With no family and no ties, she’s drifted from one small Florida town to another since high school, working odd jobs, saving hard, and building a nest egg. Once she finds the right place to settle down, she’ll know. And when she reaches beautiful Palmetto Island, she thinks she may have found it. The small, close-knit island community seems to have everything Alison needs. On a hunch, she contacts the island’s only realtor, and learns that an old beach house is on the market.

Just as flowers blossom in springtime, so do second chances and new beginnings in these heartwarming stories of family, homecoming, and love....

Professional mountaineer Lily is building a new life for herself - in ways she never would have expected. She's traded the mountain wilderness of Wyoming for the lush river country of the deep South, where she is busy restoring a fine old Natchez, Mississippi house. And she's rediscovered happiness with Matt Starr, the man she has always loved. But Lily's dreams for the future are suddenly threatened when Matt disappears without a trace.

Chin up, Emily Thorn faces the pain and heartache of love lost and years wasted. At 40, all she has to show for 20 years of marriage is a Federal Express letter from her husband that begins "Dear Emily" - and ends their life together. She had put her own life on hold to pay Ian's way through medical school. She believed him when he told her that one day she'd have everything she ever wanted - children, an education, a career of her own. What she got was overweight, out of shape - and dumped.