Being a good mother is never simple: each day brings new choices and challenges. For Diane Robbins, being a devoted single mother has resulted in her greatest joy and darkest sorrow. Weeks before her daughter was born, she and her husband, Tim McIntosh, received the news that every parent fears. Tim had not reckoned on their child being anything less than perfect, and abruptly fled to a solitary existence on the sea. Diane was left with a newborn - almost alone.

Artist Dana Underhill has always been a free spirit, traveling the world, filling her canvases with the mysterious colors of the seas she and her sister have sailed since childhood. Then on a calm, moonlit night an inexplicable “accident” occurs and Dana is called home to Hubbard’s Point to become a mother to her two young nieces, a challenge unlike any she’s ever known. As Dana and the girls struggle to begin a new life - and to find the truth about what happened to Dana’s sister and brother-in-law - help comes in the person of an old childhood friend.

Sarah Talbot never thought she'd live to see another birthday. But through indomitable will and expert medical care, she has beaten the cancer and reopened her bedding boutique, Cloud Nine. In celebration, Sarah's friends give her a special present: a ride over her upstate New York town in a chartered plane. It is on this flight that Sarah meets Will Burke, a former Navy pilot, whose outward confidence hides the wounds he has yet to heal.

After artist Claire Beaudry Chase is attacked and left for dead in her home on the Connecticut coast, she doesn’t know who she can trust. But her well-connected husband, Griffin—who is running for governor—is her prime suspect. Just before the attack, Claire was preparing for an exhibit of her shadow boxes, one of which clearly accuses Griffin of a violent crime committed 25 years ago.

Daisy had gone to the Wyoming wilderness in search of inspiration for her art. She found rancher James Tucker, a man with the wilderness inside him. Their life together was close to paradise - until their three-year-old son Jake disappeared and was never found. Her marriage in tatters, Daisy returned home to Connecticut, taking with her from Wyoming two things: her daughter, Jake's twin, and her livelihood, the jewelry she etches with symbols of Indian legend.

Beneath his controlled demeanor, attorney John O’Rourke is a man in turmoil. Since the death of his wife, he has been juggling the rigors of a controversial capital murder case and the demands of raising two children. As 11-year-old Maggie and 14-year-old Teddy long for the past, they must also contend with the hostility that swirls around them since their father took on the defense of a despised killer - including a brick through their window one autumn morning.

Ever since her mother left, Maia's struggled with depression - which once got so bad, she had to go to an institution for a while. She doesn't want to go back. When Maia sets off on a road trip in search of her mom, Billy unexpectedly comes along. They drive up the East Coast, stopping along the way for lobster rolls and lighthouses. Maia learns that Billy has dark secrets of his own - and wants to outrun his past, too. But what will the future hold if they reach their destination?

Painter Honor Sullivan has made a life for herself and her three daughters, Regis, Agnes, and Cecilia, at Star of the Sea Academy on the magical Connecticut shore. Here she teaches art at the convent school's beautiful seaside campus, over which Honor's sister-in-law, mother superior Bernadette Ignatius, keeps a benevolent and watchful eye. No one could have foreseen the day rebellious Regis would come home with the stunning news that she was getting married.

When Ruth Ann (Roo) McCabe responds to a text message while she's driving, her life as she knows it ends. The car flips, and Roo winds up in a hospital bed, paralyzed. Silent. Everyone thinks she's in a coma, but Roo has locked-in syndrome - she can see and hear and understand everything around her, but no one knows it. She's trapped inside her own body, screaming to be heard.

In the five years since Julia last visited her aunt and uncle’s home in Malibu, her life has been turned upside down by her daughter’s death. She expects to find nothing more than peace and solitude as she house-sits with only her dog, Bonnie, for company. But she finds herself drawn to the handsome man who oversees the lemon orchard. Roberto expertly tends the trees, using the money to support his extended Mexican family. What connection could these two people share? The answer comes as Roberto reveals the heartbreaking story of his own loss – a pain Julia knows all too well, but for one striking difference: Roberto’s daughter was lost but never found. And despite the odds he cannot bear to give up hope.

For 18 years, Jude Farraday has put her children’s needs above her own, and it shows - her twins, Mia and Zach, are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill moves into their small, close-knit community, no one is more welcoming than Jude. Lexi, a former foster child with a dark past, quickly becomes Mia’s best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable. Jude does everything to keep her kids on track for college and out of harm’s way. It has always been easy - until senior year of high school. Suddenly she is at a loss.

Tananarive Due, author of The Living Blood won the American Book Award and is praised as Stephen King's equal by Publishers Weekly. In The Good House, Due sets a story of ancient powers and modern retribution in a small Pacific Northwest town. When a young woman returns to her grandmother's empty mansion, she is pitted against demonic forces that have poisoned her family for generations.

Thirty-four-year-old Ruby Bridge is a not-too-successful comedienne who uses her mother, a nationally-syndicated "moral and spiritual counselor" as the main fodder for her cynical, rather bitter humor. Her mother Nora, long divorced from Ruby's father, is a woman whose past is just about to catch up with her - in the form of blackmail by a former lover.

On the day her daughter leaves for college, Anne Colwater's husband of 20 years announces he wants a divorce. Her roles of wife and mother suddenly gone, Annie retreats to her childhood home of Mystic, Washington, to heal. There she finds her old friend Nick, suddenly widowed and unable to cope with his emotionally scarred young daughter, Izzie.

Elizabeth and Jackson Shore married young, raised two daughters, and weathered the storms of youth as they built a future together. But after the children leave home, they quietly drift apart. When Jack accepts a wonderful new job offer, Elizabeth puts her needs aside to follow him across the country. Until the sudden death of her father changes everything.