Growing up at the Shelter Inn hotel, Natalie Shepherd envied guests who could come and go as they pleased. So when it was time to finally leave for college and put the lush green mountains around Shelter Springs—along with the cloud of loss that seemed to follow her family—behind her, she swore she’d never come back. But now her sister McKenna needs a favor. On pregnancy bed rest at doctor’s orders, McKenna needs a helping hand with her two young daughters and someone to take over the inn during the hectic holiday season, and Nat can’t refuse.

Angel’s View Ranch has always been special to Annelise McCade. Once upon a time, it was her family’s land, until her grandfather sold it to billionaire Wallace Sheridan. Now employed as the live-in caretaker, Annie is just trying to make it through the holidays with both her sanity and her niece's and nephew’s faith in the magic of Christmas intact.

When Jenny inherits her estranged grandmother’s cottage in Sherwood Forest, she has nothing to lose - no money, no job, no friends, no family to speak of, and zero self-respect. Things can only get better.... Her grumpy but decidedly handsome new neighbour, Mack, has a habit of bestowing unsolicited good deeds on her. And when Jenny is welcomed into a rather unusual book club, life seems to finally be getting more interesting. Instead of reading, the members pledge to complete individual challenges before Christmas.

Melissa Henderson is leading a quiet life. Once a best-selling author, she now pours all her energy into renovating a Victorian house nestled in the foothills of rural New England. Six years ago, she lost her young son to cancer, and her marriage dissolved. She stopped writing. Then Melissa receives a call from her sister, Hattie. They were close once, but that was before Melissa withdrew from the world. Now Hattie, who became a nun at 25, is determined to help Melissa turn a new page, even if it means reopening one of the most painful chapters of her life.

Lydia Wooding can hardly keep up with all the inventions the new century has brought. She’s particularly fond of the petrol motor car, a luxury that fuels her longing for independence. Her older brother and guardian, Andrew, however, refuses her frequent requests to learn to drive. He’s been extra protective of Lydia after their parents were killed in a motor car accident, and he’d prefer his sister focus her attention on finding a suitable husband.

With indifferent parents, Iona Sheehan grew up craving devotion and acceptance. From her maternal grandmother, she learned where to find both: a land of lush forests, dazzling lakes, and centuries-old legends. Ireland. County Mayo, to be exact. Where her ancestors’ blood and magic have flowed through generations - and where her destiny awaits.

On a cold and snowy December 24, a crowded train is taking holiday travelers home for Christmas. But because of the storm, a group of strangers is stranded together in a small, ramshackle New Hampshire station. Despite their disappointment over the breakdown in their holiday plans, they come together with local townspeople, who open up their hearts to the travelers and create a celebration that reminds them all what Christmas really means.

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Between the urban bustle of Denver and the high-stress environment of a career in neurosurgery, Maggie Sullivan has hit a wall. When an emergency high-risk procedure results in the death of a teenager, Maggie finds herself in the middle of a lawsuit - and experiencing levels of anxiety she's never faced before. She knows she needs to slow down before she burns out completely, and the best place she can think to do that is Sullivan's Crossing.

A champion boat racer, Cameron Quinn traveled the world spending his winnings on champagne and women. But when his dying father calls him home to care for Seth, a troubled young boy not unlike Cameron once was, his life changes overnight.

Nestled on the Oregon coast is a small town of rocky beaches and rugged charm. Locals love the land’s unspoiled beauty. Developers see it as a potential gold mine. When newcomer Hank Cooper learns he’s been left an old friend’s entire beachfront property, he finds himself with a community’s destiny in his hands. Cooper has never been a man to settle in one place, and Thunder Point was supposed to be just another quick stop. But Cooper finds himself getting involved with the town. And with Sarah Dupre, a woman as complicated as she is beautiful.

Nothing short of a miracle can restore Eliza Hayward’s Christmas cheer. The job she pinned her dreams on has gone up in smoke—literally—and now she’s stuck in an unfamiliar, if breathtaking, small town. Precariously close to being destitute, Eliza needs a hero, but she’s not expecting one who almost runs her down with his car! Rescuing Eliza is pure instinct for tech genius Aidan Caine. At first, putting the renovation of his lakeside guest lodge in Eliza’s hands assuages his guilt—until he sees how quickly he could fall for her.

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town where she grew up—she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life seems too good to be true.

Molly and Andrew are just trying to get home to Ireland for the holidays when a freak snowstorm grounds their flight. As the snow falls over the city and over the heads of two friends who are sure they’re not meant to be together, the universe might just have a plan of its own.

When Meredith Collins was a child, the little beach town of Cape Sanctuary lived up to its name. Spending summers there with her grandmother, Meredith finally felt safe and loved. Now she’s returning in disgrace. Her late ex-husband swindled investors out of millions of dollars and made Meredith a figure of scorn—though she knew nothing about his scheme. But she still has the beach cottage she inherited from her grandmother and half ownership of the local café. It’s a place to work and earn a little money.

Sometimes the journey home is its own reward. Once upon a time, Rick Sullivan had a promising future. One of Jewell Cove's star athletes and reigning heartthrobs, he joined the Marines and had the world in the palm of his hand - until it all came crashing down. His honorable discharge doesn't make him the hometown hero everyone wants him to be, and there's little reprieve from the demons that haunt him at night. Still, even though it seems that all hope is gone, fate has something else in store.

Madison's heart has been closed for years. But one summer can change everything. In the years since her twin brother’s drowning, Madison McKinley has struggled to put it behind her. Despite the support of her close-knit family and her gratifying job as a veterinarian in their riverside town, the loss still haunts her. To find closure, Madison sets out to fulfill her brother’s dream of winning the town’s annual regatta. But first she has to learn to sail, and fast. Madison will do anything - even work with the infamous Beckett O’Reilly - to reach her goal.

Abby Foster is a fish out of water in the Maine coastal town of Jewell Cove. The crumbling Foster estate, left to her by a relative she never even knew, has everyone's eyes on her - an eerie reminder of the long-buried family secrets that have haunted her... forever. Single, stunning, and sometimes too strong-willed for her own good, Abby's plan is to sell the house and hightail it back to Nova Scotia.

Samantha Owens' estranged stepfather has died, leaving her his cottage in Nantucket - a place she fled years ago, never planning to return. As a single mom, Samantha can't afford to pass up a financial windfall like oceanfront property. So she travels home to fix up the house and sell it...never suspecting that Landon Reed still lives two doors down. As their long-dormant romance begins to bud again, Samantha must face a past that separated her from the God of her childhood. And she must tell Landon why she fled the island in the first place - a secret that could tear them apart.

When Emmanuelle Peroni’s father - and mayor of her town - asks her to help rehab Cooper Endicott’s image, she’s horrified. Cooper drives her crazy in every way possible. But he’s also her father’s protégé, and she can’t say no to him without him finding out the reason why: Cooper and her have a messy past. So Emmanuelle reluctantly launches her father’s grand plan to get this Casanova someone to settle down with and help him lose his Lothario reputation.

When Finley Brown returned to her hometown of Christmas, Oklahoma, from boarding school, she expected to find it just as she left it. Christmas hasn't changed much in her 16 years. But instead she returns to find that her best friend is dating her ex-boyfriend, her parents have separated, and her archnemesis got a job working at her grandmother's inn. And she certainly didn't expect to find the boy she may or may not have tricked into believing that Christmas was an idyllic holiday paradise on her grandmother's doorstep.

In her first weeks at Hawthorne College, Malin is swept up into a tight-knit circle that will stick together through all four years. There’s Gemma, an insecure theater major from London; John, a tall, handsome, wealthy New Englander; Max, John’s cousin, a shy pre-med major; Khaled, a wisecracking prince from Abu Dhabi; and Ruby, a beautiful art history major. But Malin isn’t like the rest of her friends. She’s an expert at hiding her troubled past - all while using her extraordinary insight to detect their deepest vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

When Annie Jacobson's brother Mike enlists as a medic in the Army in 1967, he hands her a piece of paper with the address of their long-estranged father. If anything should happen to him in Vietnam, Mike says, Annie must let their father know. In Mike's absence, their father returns to face tragedy at home, adding an extra measure of complication to an already tense time. As they work toward healing and pray fervently for Mike's safety overseas, letter by letter the Jacobsons must find a way to pull together as a family, regardless of past hurts.

Everything Hope knows about the Orchard House is from the stories of her late mother. So when she arrives at the northern Michigan family estate late one night with a terrible secret and her 10-year-old daughter in tow, she’s not sure if she’ll be welcomed or turned away with a shotgun by the aunt she has never met.

Ever since her troubled mother abandoned her, Trix McCabe has preferred to stay on the move. But when she lands with her long-lost relatives, she finds out that the McCabe women have talents like her own that defy explanation: pies that cure all ills, palm-reading that never misses the mark, knowledge of secrets that have never been told. Before long, Trix feels like she might finally have found somewhere she belongs. But when her past comes back to haunt her, she’ll have to decide whether to take a chance on this new life...or keep running from the one she’s always known.

Anna Vere has escaped to the Cotswolds for Christmas to try to heal from her broken engagement and, far worse, her broken dreams. When her reserved room at a bed-and-breakfast is flooded, she takes up the offer of camping out in Willoughby Close, the converted stables of the nearby manor house...and is taken under the wing of sexy local carpenter Colin Heath. What starts out as merely helping a neighbor in need turns into far more as Colin and Anna share a surprisingly intense and emotional connection, weaving their own Christmas magic as they spend the holiday together.

At the pinnacle of my career, a patient’s death sends my world into a tailspin. I had a million-dollar practice, a luxurious Manhattan apartment, and a reputation as one of NYC’s top surgeons. Then a patient dies, and my reputation is challenged. Exonerated in a lawsuit from any wrong-doing, The truth lags far behind. Depressed and disillusioned from the experience, A tranquil island off the coast beckons. Surprised to fall for a beautiful, compassionate woman during a snowstorm, My future’s outlook is turned upside-down. She’s built a simple life in a community she loves and ...

Ever since his mother passed away two years ago, Caleb Pine has been stuck while the rest of his family seem to have moved on. Alone at Christmas, he finds himself drawn back to Martha’s Vineyard and the Gingerbread Inn, where his family spent a wonderful Christmas holiday when he was a teen. To his surprise, the local girl he almost kissed under the mistletoe all those years ago is now grown up and running the Inn.

Celebrate Christmas on Blossom Street with a brand-new romantic comedy from New York Times best-selling author Debbie Macomber. Katherine O'Connor often spends her days at a cozy cafe on Blossom Street in Seattle where she writes Christmas letters for other people. She's good at making their everyday lives sound more interesting. More humorous. More dramatic. But for Dr. Wynn Jeffries, who also frequents the cafe, Christmas means lies and deception

When Simon Blacklock, a handsome, whimsical stranger, breezes into her shop and buys a cupcake and then returns the next day and the day after, Olivia begins to dream. Can romance blossom amid the sugar and flour? And after a lifetime of living on the sidelines, is she brave enough to star in her own story?

Rachel Rinehart’s Christmas season is on the brink of disaster when her record label suddenly drops her, threatening to end her music career. Then she receives a mysterious Christmas card, and everything starts to change.... Inside the card are lyrics to a classic Christmas carol urging her to return home to Crystal Falls, the snowy mountain town she left behind 15 years ago.

In the middle of an awful divorce, 53-year-old Georgia Carpenter finds herself out of luck, time, and money. Then her phone rings with the news that her great aunt has died and left her a cottage in the Gulf Coast town of Blackbird Beach. Georgia has no idea what awaits her on the other coast of Florida. All she knows is that she has nowhere else to go. And no reason to stay where she is.

Wanted: Midwife/nurse practitioner in Virgin River, population 600. Make a difference against a backdrop of towering California redwoods and crystal clear rivers. Rent-free cabin included. When the recently widowed Melinda Monroe sees this ad, she quickly decides that the remote mountain town of Virgin River might be the perfect place to escape her heartache and to reenergize the nursing career she loves. But her high hopes are dashed within an hour of arriving - the cabin is a dump, the roads are treacherous, and the local doctor wants nothing to do with her.

When Marlo is unceremoniously ghosted by her part-time lover, she decides she’ll need to avoid the whole Christmas season. That is actually pretty easy in this country, because it’s so hot and so far away from anything that means Christmas to her. But Marlo’s flatmate Alex is determined to lift her out of her grinch slump and convince her that Christmas Down Under may be unfamiliar, but exactly what she needs to start her life on a new course.

Ellie Marsden couldn't wait to shake the dust of Branding Iron, Texas off her heels and chase after bright lights, big city, and a wealthy husband. Now she's come home, divorced, a little disillusioned, and a whole lot pregnant. Leave it to her one-time high school sweetheart, cattle rancher Jubal McFarland, to point out that citified Ellie is as out of place in small-town Texas as her teacup poodle. So why is there something about being back - and being with Jubal - that feels surprisingly right?

Maddie McLendon hasn't had a new relationship since the loss of her beloved husband two years ago. Broken by grief and desperate for a new start, Maddie moves to Bitterroot Valley, Montana with her adult son and her grandson. But despite the natural beauty of her new town, not every change in her life is a welcome one. Maddie's new next-door neighbor, Sam Conacher, used to be a pillar of the community, but he has driven old friends and new acquaintances away due to a recent heartbreak of his own. He seems to intrude on her life at every turn.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler is back with a new anthology that has gathered the intel on the world's greatest secret agents, declassified here for the first time.

Hadley Donavan can’t believe she has to go home to Nebraska for her sister’s wedding. She’s gonna need a wingman and a whole lot of vodka for this level of family interaction. At least her bestie agreed he’d man up and help. But then instead of her best friend, his evil twin strolls out of the airport.

It's taken a long time and a little heartache, but Annie Sutton is finally following her dream of living on Martha's Vineyard. She fell in love with the island's singular beauty while using it as a setting for two of her novels. In her cozy rented cottage on Chappaquiddick, she's settling in for her first Vineyard winter - complete with a fierce nor'easter on the way, forecast to bring high winds and deep snow. But the blizzard also brings something unexpected to Annie's front porch: a basket, encircled by a ribbon, containing a baby girl. The note reads: "I named her Bella, after my grandmother. Please help her, because I can't."

Make it a merry Christmas with these four heartwarming stories. In Christmas Homecoming, sparks fly between former Air Force Pararescueman Kevin Matthews and the town's new surgeon, Kate Stafford. Widower Billy Morgan and his longtime friend, Bella, might discover an occasion to celebrate in An Unexpected Gift. In Christmas in Blue Hollow Falls, Attorney Moira Brogan is rescued by a Aussie chef Hudson Walker. And event planner Julia Louisa Fernandez meets former pro baseball player Ben Thomas who just might inspire a winning strategy in Holiday Homerun.