Showing results by author "Jessie Gussman" in All Categories

She thought she was going on a romantic getaway with her boyfriend, but he dropped her off and drove out of town, leaving Skyler Montgomery scared, penniless and alone. Homer Aiken needs help caring for his mother, but he's not expecting a homeless woman to take over his garage. He doesn't know where the pesky woman came from, but he doesn’t have time to deal with his mother, let alone another needy female. He has formulas to figure out and equations to master.

It took me a while—most of my life, in fact—to decide that my hometown of Good Grief, Idaho, is the best place in the world to live. But I have and I love it...except for one thing. My boss. Okay, so the man is good at his job. We just have a tendency to disagree on how much activity the seniors at our assisted-living center want to have.

Once the vows were said, she had to keep them. After all, they were said to God just as much as to her loser, neglectful husband. And so for 15 years and four children, Carmen Davis stayed true, kept her word, and did her level best to love the man she married. But she never forgot the man who could make her heart race and whose life was as straight and true as it had promised to be in high school.

Clara Landry hates her job. When her boss informs her she needs to transfer to The Cities from her office at Lake Michigan, she decides it's a good time to quit and to start her dream business selling her art at a small artisan shop in Strawberry Sands. The decision would be a no-brainer, except she's been in love with her boss for years. But he doesn't know, and wouldn't be interested in her.

Preston Harding witnessed his best friend’s death in the prime of his life. Alcohol has numbed the pain. Until his son’s mother drops the boy off on his doorstep and tells him she is dying. Suddenly he’s responsible for a young life and is facing another death. Thankfully, hospice is taking care of everything except the child.

She’s his best friend’s little sister. He’s never noticed her. Not like that. He needs to marry to inherit his money, so he’s hired a woman to be his fake bride. Only he’s too sick to get married.

Late one night Lincoln was delivering a yard decoration when he came upon a wild, unruly teenager throwing stones at the window of his neighbor’s house. He tackled the belligerent child and was about to call the cops when she informed him she was his neighbor’s sister who had been locked out of the house. Oops. Not the best beginning, but it gets worse when he accidentally walks into her house and accuses her of squatting in it.

Sadie Powers has crushed on her brother’s best friend for years, but when the Piece Makers, Sweet Water’s own quilting and matchmaking group, ask her to help them match him up with the new single mom in town, she just wants the man she’s loved for years to be happy, even if that’s with someone else. When rancher and livestock auction owner Colman Baldwin is asked to give riding lessons to the son of the new single mom in town, he doesn’t hesitate to make time in his schedule to help out. That’s what small towns are for. He doesn’t realize he’s being set up.

Amara Jardine didn’t expect to leave her big city marketing job and return home. But the death of her parents in a car crash brings her back to Raspberry Ridge along with the two sisters she barely knows. One mystery they all share: why did their mother have such a hatred for the Gilcrest family and why weren’t they ever allowed to talk to their one son, Hobert? Regardless, Amara just wants to clean the mansion out and sell it and get back to her life on the East Coast.

Willen Hawkins knew exactly what she wanted to do with her unexpected inheritance: use it to fix up the Indigo Inn at Blueberry Beach. After all, it’s been more than 18 years since she graduated from Blueberry Beach High and left town. The life she’s created for herself is far more lonely than the life she’d envisioned for herself as a teen. But if she wants to reinvent herself and start building the life she wants, she has to stop waiting for everything to be perfect and start now.

After her husband died, leaving her with six kids to raise on her own, Piper Hughes struggles to hold everything together on a hairdresser's small wage. She has no hope of expanding her two bedroom ranch house, and doesn't want to rely on the charity of the town either. She definitely doesn't want some strange man coming in, being too kind, stealing her kids' hearts, and turning her world upside down. He'll be leaving when he's done. After all, what man would want a woman with six kids?

Two days before Christmas, single mom Blythe Mason is stunned when her car is not at the mechanic’s shop where she dropped it off. Her surprise soon gives way to panic when they figure out that an employee gave her car to the wrong person, and it is now 500 miles away. All the Christmas gifts that she’d carefully budgeted out for her children since July were in the trunk.

I’m a city girl and proud of it. Chicago is my hometown and I’m in my element surrounded by people and buildings and busyness. Actually, my business—my vlog—depends on my interactions with people. You can’t go viral talking about your pet turtle. Well, maybe some people can, but that’s not how I became a highly paid influencer. I was happy to use my influence to help my grandmother, Agnes, save her assisted care facility. I thought I was going to hate being out in the wilderness for days on end…bugs and bears and no internet or sushi bars.

People are so serious about life. I feel it was made to be enjoyed. I’m not interested in having a great career or climbing a corporate ladder or being inside much at all, actually. I don’t like to stay with things too long, either. I’ve worked as a short line cook, a firefighter, and a dolphin trainer among other things. So, when the ladies at the Good Grief senior living center offer me a short term job as the photographer for the risqué nature calendar they want to pose for—to cross it off of Miss Agnes’s bucket list—I am all in.

Jonah Mills is content keeping a low profile on the Sweet Briar Ranch, drumming up business for their crop-dusting service and learning how to be a rancher after years in the Air Force. His marriage was a mistake he doesn't intend to repeat.

Journee Barclay isn't interested in the big, hulky football player the town of Mistletoe wants her to date. She's been writing to a sweet but shy computer geek, and she's hoping he'll eventually ask to meet her. But putting the town off is getting to be more difficult every day.

With her family and life spiraling out of control, Pam Corrigan needs an escape from the stress of her day job and decides to purchase the old inn just south of Strawberry Sands. Her mother will give her half of her inheritance when she remarries, but Pam isn’t the slightest bit interested in another failed relationship. So, she asks her best friend and neighbor, Mark Shields, to fake a relationship with her in the hopes that she can convince her mother to help fund the repairs of the inn she just purchased.

Merrit and Sorrel Hines have been trying to find a husband for their mom because they want a dad. Their mom says to be patient, but at the rate she's going–always more concerned with what is happening at her diner than in looking for a husband–they'll be grown and out of the house until she gets around to finding someone.

Chi came to Strawberry Sands to escape her past. There were a lot of things to be ashamed of there. Maybe that's why she's so eager to catch the eye of the big-name lawyer who hangs out at her diner. It will prove she's not as worthless as she feels. At a big gala she wasn't supposed to attend, she discovers the lawyer is not only cheating on her but married as well. She might have done more to embarrass herself, but Griff, her coworker, showed up on his bike and whisked her away. She is almost like a heroine in a fairy tale.

At the annual Christmas barn dance, Eleanor and her best friend Sally devise a mischievous plan to steal Sally's longtime cowboy crush, Peter. They enlist the help of their cousin, who mistakenly kidnaps Peter's brother, Franklin, instead. Determined to keep her intentions secret, Norma Jean convinces Eleanor to embark on a rescue mission. Little does she know that a fierce snowstorm is on its way, trapping her with Peter, a quirky cat, and her adorable litter of four kittens.