Juslivin

With the Veil finally open, I hoped that would be the end of the fight. But I was wrong. Jadis is still in town, people are still going missing, and things are getting worse. Choices will be made, lives will be lost, and friendships tested. Not all family is blood; not every family is the norm. What would you do to hold onto yours?

"I need a ride," I said to a sexy stranger on a Harley. Three hours later? A six-foot-tall Marilyn Monroe was officiating our Vegas wedding at the Happy Chapel. But it's not love—it's business—a marriage pact made out of desperation so my career doesn't go up in flames. Sure, Flynn Winslow is a hot, broody, mysterious man that women all over the globe would sell their souls to land for real, but I have my eyes on the prize and our marriage arrangement will end in three months with no strings attached. Right?

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.

Zoe didn't meet her daughter the way most mothers do. She finds five-year-old Maddie alone and dirty on a countryside road. Frightened for Maddie's safety, she picks her up and takes her back to her father, not knowing what she's about to step into. Because Maddie wasn't just lost; she was there to lure her serial killer dad's new victim. After escaping from the clutches of Maddie's dangerous father, she bonds with the little girl. Only Maddie knows what it was like to be at that house. And when no family members come forward to claim Maddie, Zoe decides to adopt her.

Last year, after traumatic circumstances forced her from her job as a nanny, Mara Bristol finally found a place to belong - the winsome Everwood Bed & Breakfast at the edge of Maple Valley, Iowa. For months, she's helped its owner, Lenora, maintain the ramshackle property despite their shortage of guests. But when Lenora fails to return from a month-long trip and the bank threatens foreclosure, Mara worries she's once again alone...abandoned ...about to lose the only true home she's ever known.

Kate Walker used to believe in true love and happily ever after. While her own love life may have left her brokenhearted, it hasn't kept her from churning out made-for-TV romance movie screenplays...until a major career slump and a longing to do something meaningful send her running back to her hometown of Maple Valley.

I'm begging you to tell me that the practice of falling in love with your should-be-enemy is common. Please tell me that I'm not the only person to track down a guy - who used to be Hollywood's baddest bad boy before he left LA for good - at his off-the-grid cabin in Alaska, show up unannounced, and find him gloriously naked.

I live hard and love harder, and it's love that usually gets me in the most trouble. According to the greater population, I'm the ultimate jerk. My affection tends to be short-lived - a quality I've been assured multiple times by the fairer sex isn't becoming - and the leaving part of loving and leaving has always come natural. At least, it used to. Until her. Luciana Wright. She's an American bombshell and my sister's best friend - a woman so wrong for me, it's written in the waves. And she's the reason we're all here. The reason I have to go back to explain how it all went wrong.

Blind dates? Online dating profiles? Been there, done that. Georgia Cummings has zero luck with dating, and the era of the Internet is not her friend. No matter how fast she runs, how many corners she turns, she can't find her way out of this weird, alternate universe where men think dick pics are a replacement for small talk and getting to know a girl. One more crotch selfie and she might write men off for good. But why can't she stop fantasizing about him?