Marie Bostwick weaves the unforgettable story of four very different women whose paths cross, changing their lives forever. It’s a long way from Fort Worth, Texas, to New Bern, Connecticut, yet it only takes a day in the charming Yankee town to make Evelyn Dixon realize she’s found her new home. The abrupt end of her marriage was Evelyn’s wake-up call to get busy chasing her dream of opening a quilt shop. Finding a storefront is easy enough; starting a new life isn’t....

Hope Carpenter received that advice from her mother decades ago. Now, with their four children grown, Hope and her husband, Rick, are suddenly facing an uncertain future after a forced retirement strains both their savings and their marriage. Seeking inspiration and a financial boost, Hope gets a job teaching crafts to inmates at a local women's prison.

Celia Fairchild, known as advice columnist "Dear Calpurnia", has insight into everybody’s problems—except her own. Still bruised by the end of a marriage she thought was her last chance to create a family, Celia receives an unexpected answer to a “Dear Birthmother” letter. Celia throws herself into proving she’s a perfect adoptive mother material—with a stable home and income—only to lose her job. Her one option: sell the Charleston house left to her by her recently departed, estranged Aunt Calpurnia.

Esme Cahill thinks she has failed spectacularly: fired from her New York City publishing job, divorced from her husband, and possessing little more than a broken-down car and a pile of unfinished manuscripts, she drives home to Asheville at the request of her late grandmother, Adele, who had begged her, just before she died, to return to the place she grew up. There she discovers the once-charming lakeside retreat run by her family is sliding toward financial ruin.

Years of long workdays and little sleep as a political campaigner are about to pay off now that Lucy Toomey's boss is entering the White House. But when her estranged older sister, Alice, unexpectedly dies, Lucy is drawn back to Nilson's Bay, her small, close-knit Wisconsin hometown.

An engaging tale full of warmth and wisdom, The Quilter’s Apprentice is the first novel in best-selling author Jennifer Chiaverini’s Elm Creek Quilts series. Sarah McClure takes a job helping elderly Sylvia Compson prepare her family estate for sale. Sylvia, a master quilter, agrees to share the tricks of the trade with Sarah. As the two women grow close, Sylvia shares her family’s tragic past, compelling Sarah to look at her own life more closely.

Every child prodigy grows up eventually. For the Promise sisters, escaping their mother's narcissism and the notoriety that came with her best-selling book hasn't been easy. Minerva Promise claimed that her three test-tube daughters - gifted pianist Joanie, artistic Meg, and storyteller Avery - were engineered and molded to be geniuses. In adulthood, their modest lives fall far short of her grand ambitions.

At the break of dawn, Caroline Shelby rolls into Oysterville, Washington, a tiny hamlet at the edge of the raging Pacific. She’s come home. Home to a place she thought she’d left forever, home of her heart and memories, but not her future. Ten years ago, Caroline launched a career in the glamorous fashion world of Manhattan. But her success in New York imploded on a wave of scandal and tragedy, forcing her to flee to the only safe place she knows. And in the backseat of Caroline’s car are two children who were orphaned in a single chilling moment.

Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter is the story of a sweet Southern belle who leaves her beloved Memphis, Tennessee, to follow her husband's dream of becoming the proprietor of a quaint Vermont inn.

When Lark Ashwood's beloved grandmother dies, she and her sisters are bequeathed an unfinished quilt. Finishing it could be the reason Lark's been looking for to stop running from the past. Hannah can't believe she's back in Bear Creek, the tiny town she sacrificed everything to escape from. But the driven musician's plan is to renovate her grandmother's house and leave as fast as humanly possible. Stay-at-home mom Avery has built her perfect life, but at a cost. This summer, the Ashwood women must lean on each other like never before if they are to stitch their family back together.

As Samantha Wishaw watches the love of her life marry another woman, she’s ready to give up hope of finding her happy ever after. But when a chance encounter leads Sam to find friendship in Thomas - a lonely, grumpy elderly widower living at derelict Hedgehog Hollow - her life is about to change forever. Glad to have a distraction from family feuds and match-making, Sam vows to fulfill Thomas and his wife Gwendoline's dreams of restoring Hedgehog Hollow to its former glory, and to open a hedgehog rescue centre.

Near the rugged Australian coastline beaten by the winds of the wild, great Southern Ocean sits a forgotten stationmaster's cottage holding secrets of a tragic love story. These are secrets Christie Ryan knows nothing about when she unexpectedly inherits her estranged grandmother's cottage in the small seaside town of River's End. There, Christie finds love letters that have remained unopened for close to 50 years.

An inheritance has reunited three estranged cousins. Their grandmother Lucy left Nessa, Flynn, and April her cabin nestled in the woods near Blossom, Texas, as well as a hope chest to be unlocked after they complete a special task. Together, they must hand stitch a cherished quilt Lucy left unfinished. It meant everything to her. And now, to three people struggling with their own patchwork pasts.

Lillie Silva knew life as an empty nester would be hard after her only child left for college, but when her husband abruptly dumps her for another woman just as her son leaves, her world comes crashing down. Besides the fact that this announcement is a complete surprise (to say the least), what shocks Lillie most is that she isn't...heartbroken. She's furious. Lillie has loved her life on Cape Cod, but as a mother, wife and nurse-midwife, she's used to caring for other people...not taking care of herself.

For Grace Dalton, her sister, Sarah, and her cousin Macy, the Devine Doughnut Shop is a sweet family legacy and a landmark in their Texas town. As the fourth generation to run the Double D, they keep their great-grandmother’s recipe secret and uphold the shop’s tradition as a coffee klatch for sharing local gossip, advice, and woes. But drama brews behind the counter, too.

When Katie Garrett gets the news that she’s received an inheritance from the grandmother she hardly knew, it couldn’t have come at a better time. She flees Boston and travels to rural Texas. There, she’s greeted by her distant cousin Scarlett. Friendly and flamboyant, Scarlett couldn’t be more different from sensible Katie. And as they begin the task of sorting through their grandmother’s possessions, they discover letters and photographs that uncover the hidden truths about their shared history, and the long-forgotten tragedy of the New London school explosion of 1937 that binds them.

Josh Coleman left SunStar, the thoroughbred horse farm he'd built from nothing, unfinished when he took to his deathbed. But his family's unfinished business cannot be ignored now that his long-lost daughter has come back to settle an old score. No longer resembling the teenage waif who slipped away in the middle of the night with her illegitimate child 30 years ago, Nealy is rich, sophisticated, and renowned in the racing world-a woman to be reckoned with - and her shocking return changes everything.

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.

Ethan Cruz should be mending fences on his Montana ranch, but instead he's driving to the Chance Creek, Montana, airport - to pick up the bride he didn't know he had. This latest salvo in his ongoing practical joke battle with his best friend Rob Matheson has gone too far, and Ethan plans to send his "bride" right back home, then get busy plotting his revenge. One look at Autumn Leeds changes his mind, however. Perhaps he needs a bride, after all. A breathtakingly beautiful city bride.

Welcome to Grace Valley, California - where blood runs thicker…ties are stronger…and love is all the more sweet. Visitors to the town often remark about the valley's peace and beauty - both of which are plentiful. Unlocked doors, front porches, pies cooling in the windows - this is country life at its finest. But visitors don't always see what lies at the heart of a community. Or just beyond.… June Hudson grew up in Grace Valley, the daughter of the town doctor. Leaving only to get her medical training, she returned home and followed in her father's footsteps.

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.

For 41 years, Samson Brown has been caring for Hannah, the lone elephant at the down-at-the-heels Max L. Biedelman Zoo. Having vowed not to retire until an equally loving and devoted caretaker is found to replace him, Sam rejoices when smart, compassionate Neva Wilson is hired as the new elephant keeper. But Neva quickly discovers what Sam already knows: that despite their loving care, Hannah is isolated from other elephants and her feet are nearly ruined from standing on hard concrete all day.

Sometimes even good girls need to be a little bad.... Marla Jean Bandy might be down, but she's not out. Even though her no-good ex-husband left her for another woman - a Bookmobile -driving librarian 20 years her senior - Marla Jean won't settle for another lonely night. She's not ready for Mr. Right, but why not have a little fun with Mr. Right Now? The only wrench in her plan is her childhood crush, Jake - and the memory of the one toe-curling kiss they shared on a hot summer night years ago....

The first in a new series, Four Seasons, takes us to Deepwater Cove, a small community on the shore of the Lake of the Ozarks, where we're introduced to four couples in different stages of life. It Happens Every Spring centers on Brenda, a lonely wife, and Steve, a go-getter real estate agent, in the mid-winter of their relationship. When a stranger appears at their door one night, change blows through their house and their marriage.

How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways.

Despite being raised in a traditional Old Order Amish family, 17-year-old Hannah Lapp desires to break with custom, forgo baptism into the faith, and marry outside the cloistered community. She's been in love with Mennonite Paul Waddell for three years, and before returning to college for his senior year, Paul asks Hannah to be his wife. Hannah accepts, aware that her marriage will change her relationship with her family forever.

Aria is no stranger to tragedy. Fifteen years ago, a family outing took the lives of her father and baby sister, leaving remaining members of this fractured family struggling with their own guilt - real and imagined. At 25, Aria believes she can reinvent herself through her planned marriage with all its promise of a family of her own. Her infertility changes her life as swiftly and irrevocably as the urban landscape around her.

One night four lives entered the world by the hands of an Amish midwife just outside North Star, Pennsylvania. Rebekah's babies, as they are called, are now grown adults, and in four heartwarming novellas each young person experiences a journey of discovery, love, and the wonder of Christmas.

Celeste English and Ronnie Frazier are sisters, but they couldn't be more different. Celeste is a doctor's wife, living a perfect and elegant façade. But secretly, her marriage is falling apart and her need to control people around her threatens to destroy them all. Ronnie is an actress, living in New York. But she has no money, she has no home, and her life is held together by "chewing gum, paper clips, and spit." When their father dies, the sisters inherit a house in Prosper, North Carolina.

Cassie Madison has it all: A high-powered advertising career; a stylish Manhattan apartment; and a sophisticated, rich, and gorgeous fiancé. It's a far cry from her childhood in Walton, Georgia, home of the annual Kudzu Festival and hot, sticky summers. And then there are all the bad memories, the heartache. When Cassie's estranged sister calls to say that her father is dying, Cassie knows it's time to set aside her feelings and go home and face the sister she hasn't seen in 15 years.

Marie Bostwick weaves the unforgettable story of four very different women whose paths cross, changing their lives forever. It’s a long way from Fort Worth, Texas, to New Bern, Connecticut, yet it only takes a day in the charming Yankee town to make Evelyn Dixon realize she’s found her new home. The abrupt end of her marriage was Evelyn’s wake-up call to get busy chasing her dream of opening a quilt shop. Finding a storefront is easy enough; starting a new life isn’t....

Years of long workdays and little sleep as a political campaigner are about to pay off now that Lucy Toomey's boss is entering the White House. But when her estranged older sister, Alice, unexpectedly dies, Lucy is drawn back to Nilson's Bay, her small, close-knit Wisconsin hometown.

Every child prodigy grows up eventually. For the Promise sisters, escaping their mother's narcissism and the notoriety that came with her best-selling book hasn't been easy. Minerva Promise claimed that her three test-tube daughters - gifted pianist Joanie, artistic Meg, and storyteller Avery - were engineered and molded to be geniuses. In adulthood, their modest lives fall far short of her grand ambitions.

When Grace Saunders vowed to take her husband for better or worse, she meant every word. She and Jamie are solid, mutually supportive, and certain of their future together. And then, on a hiking trip for their 15th anniversary, an accident leaves Jamie in a coma, unable to move or communicate. As months pass, Grace is in limbo - still married, yet utterly alone and burdened with responsibilities that threaten to sink her. Meeting Nan and Monica, unlikely friends who need Grace almost as much as she needs them, makes life bearable, if not quite happy.

Esme Cahill thinks she has failed spectacularly: fired from her New York City publishing job, divorced from her husband, and possessing little more than a broken-down car and a pile of unfinished manuscripts, she drives home to Asheville at the request of her late grandmother, Adele, who had begged her, just before she died, to return to the place she grew up. There she discovers the once-charming lakeside retreat run by her family is sliding toward financial ruin.