Graphic designer Sonya MacTavish is stunned to learn that her late father had a twin he never knew about—and that her newly discovered uncle, Collin Poole, has left her almost everything he owned, including a majestic Victorian house on the Maine coast, which the will stipulates she must live in for at least three years. Her engagement recently broken, she sets off to find out why the boys were separated at birth—and why it was all kept secret until a genealogy website brought it to light.

Number one New York Times best-selling author Nora Roberts presents Legacy, a new novel of a mother and a daughter, of ambition and romance, and of a traumatic past reawakened by a terrifying threat....

Welcome to the most tumultuous summer of the 20th century. It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year, the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same.

On a perfect June day, Vivian Howe, author of 13 beach novels and mother of three nearly grown children, is killed in a hit-and-run car accident while jogging near her home on Nantucket. She ascends to the Beyond where she's assigned to a Person named Martha, who allows Vivi to watch what happens below for one last summer. Vivi also is granted three “nudges” to change the outcome of events on earth.

Caitlyn Sullivan had come from a long line of Hollywood royalty, stretching back to her Irish immigrant great-grandfather. At nine, she was already a star - yet still an innocent child who loved to play hide-and-seek with her cousins at the family home in Big Sur. It was during one of those games that she disappeared. Some may have considered her a pampered princess, but Cate was in fact a smart, scrappy fighter, and she managed to escape her abductors. Callan Cooper was shocked to find the bloodied, exhausted girl huddled in his house.

Beth is the darling of God Halsa, a pharmaceutical giant, and she’s got the outrageous salary and lifestyle to prove it. Until she lands in white-collar women’s prison, thanks to a high-profile whistleblower suit. Sam, Beth’s husband, used to be the town’s most eligible bachelor, and he’s never had to do anything for himself. Until his wife goes to jail, and he’s left to raise two daughters on his own. Lise, the au pair, is the whistle-blower. But is she? Everyone knows she’s not clever enough to have done it alone.

Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she has been writing for six years. At 31, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life.

After uprooting her life in the States, Irene Steele has just settled in at the villa on St. John where her husband Russ had been living a double life. But a visit from the FBI shakes her foundations, and Irene once again learns just how little she knew about the man she loved. With help from their friends, Irene and her sons set up their lives while evidence mounts that the helicopter crash that killed Russ may not have been an accident.

Lily Bishop wakes up one morning to find a good-bye note and divorce papers from her husband on the kitchen counter. Having just moved to Alabama for his job only weeks before, Lily is devastated. New to town and knowing no one, Lily finds herself in desperate need of a job and a new place to live. When Lily hears that a hair stylist is needed at small retirement community, she decides to apply.

When Ava Harrison receives a letter containing an unusual job listing one month after the sudden death of her ex-boyfriend, she thinks she’s being haunted. The listing—a job as a live-in caretaker for a peculiar old man and his cranky cat in Driftwood, Alabama—is the perfect chance to start a new life. A normal life. Ava has always been too fearful to even travel, so no one’s more surprised than she is when she throws caution to the wind and drives to the distant beachside town.

Ivy Marin’s life implodes after discovering that her late husband had spent their life savings on a beach house. Strapped for cash as an art teacher and with nowhere to go, Ivy and her recently jilted sister head to Summer Beach to recreate their lives. If only renovating a historical home didn’t unveil a host of hidden secrets in the beachside community - and the mayor wasn’t her former high school crush.

Stella Boor's biological father is a nameless, faceless sperm donor. At least, that's what her parents have led her to believe. Imagine her surprise when she learns he's none other than rock legend Billy Jameson and that Billy has died and left Stella a historic inn on a sprawling farm in the mountains of Virginia. A city girl at heart, Stella can't imagine living anywhere but New York. Her first inclination is to sell the property. But the terms of Billy's will stipulate she manages the inn for three years before putting it on the market.

Though India Devlin left her hometown to pursue a brilliant career as a criminal prosecutor, she has always loved historic Devlin’s Light, visiting as often as her busy schedule permits. But when her brother is found murdered on the steps of the lighthouse - the town’s namesake - she returns to uncover who killed Ry. When her brother’s good friend, Nick Enright, offers to help in her investigation, India accepts - after all, he’s the one who found Ry that night, and heard his mysterious last words.

With a little determination and a lot of charm, Rosa Capoletti took a run-down pizza joint and turned it into an award-winning restaurant, voted the “best place to propose” three years in a row. For Rosa, though, there has been no real romance since her teenaged love affair with Alexander Montgomery ended without explanation a decade ago. But guess who’s just come back to town? Reunited at the beach house where they first fell in love, Rosa and Alexander discover that the secrets of the past are not what they seem.

When Marina Moore’s life blows up on national television, she seeks refuge at her grandmother’s beach house called the Coral Cottage. Now in her mid-40s with children in college, Marina is in dire need of her grandmother's gutsy advice to a well-lived life. Marina meets an old friend, Ivy Bay, proprietor of the Seabreeze Inn, who encourages her to share her love of food at the local farmer’s market.

When she was eight years old, Jessica Graham made three wishes: that she wouldn't always be the tallest kid in the class, that she would find a big conch shell on the beach, and that she would finally meet her father someday. Jessica's wishes never came true, but twenty years later, when she finds her mother's old love letters, she has a chance to make the third wish a reality. Jessica travels to Florida to find her father, but their reunion is interrupted by his arrogant junior business partner, Rocky Rycroft.

Tourists think they see the real Charleston, but Simons Smythe knows there’s more to her hometown than sweet tea and Southern hospitality. Behind the walled gardens, inside the fabled historic homes, live Charleston’s elite. Simons was born into this powerful aristocracy that has quietly ruled the city for centuries.

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.

Becc was the good girl. A dedicated student. Aspiring reporter. Always where she was supposed to be. Until a secret affair with the charming Cal one summer in college cost her everything she held dear: her journalism dreams; her relationship with her best friend, Eric; and her carefully imagined future. Now, Becc’s past is back front and center as she travels up the scenic California coast to a wedding - with a man she hasn’t seen in a decade. As each mile flies by, Becc can’t help but feel the thrilling push and pull of memories.

All that writer Cece Caruso -- a 39-year-old former beauty queen from New Jersey -- really wants to do is finish her biography of Erle Stanley Gardner so that she can finally stop obsessing about Perry Mason. Well, that and find a 1970 silk chiffon Ossie Clark to add to her collection of vintage clothing. And fix the broken front doorknob on her West Hollywood bungalow. But first she has to help save her daughter's foundering marriage, which is more than Cece could manage for her own.

Mystery-book aficionado Birdie Lindberg has an overactive imagination. Raised in isolation and homeschooled by strict grandparents, she's cultivated a whimsical fantasy life in which she plays the heroic detective and every stranger is a suspect. But her solitary world expands when she takes a job the summer before college, working the graveyard shift at a historic Seattle hotel. In her new job, Birdie hopes to blossom from introverted dreamer to brave pioneer, and gregarious Daniel Aoki volunteers to be her guide.

Katie Lightfoot's tired of loafing around as the assistant manager of an Ohio bakery. So when her aunt Lucy and uncle Ben open a bakery in Savannah's quaint downtown district and ask Katie to join them, she enthusiastically agrees. While working at the Honeybee Bakery - named after Lucy's cat - Katie notices that her aunt is adding mysterious herbs to her recipes. Turns out these herbal enhancements aren't just tasty - Aunt Lucy is a witch and her recipes are actually spells!

Christina Antonioni is preparing for the holidays at her Nantucket toy shop, unpacking last-minute shipments and decorating for her loyal Christmas shoppers. But when her Scrooge of a landlord, Oscar Bittlesman, raises her rent, it seems nearly impossible for Christina to continue business on the wharf. Even so, Christina firmly believes there may be a warm heart underneath Oscar's steely exterior. When she bonds with Wink, his sweet, young granddaughter who frequents the shop, it becomes clear that perhaps he isn't so cold after all.

On the run from a violent past, Leah Allen arrived in tiny Rivertown, South Carolina, battered and broken, but ready to reinvent herself. By a stroke of fate, Leah is drawn to the Southern hospitality of a small café, looking for a warm meal but finding so much more. Lulu, the owner, offers her a job, a place to stay, and a new lease on life. Through Lulu’s tenacious warmth and generosity, Leah quickly finds herself embraced by the quaint community as she tries to put herself back together.

Emergency-call operator Hollie Porter is saddled with a job she hates and a boyfriend who’s all wrong for her. Reaching a breaking point, she cashes in a gift certificate and heads to Revelation Cove in British Columbia. Flying solo and newly single, Hollie hopes to reflect and discover her purpose among the beautiful surroundings but instead ends up unintentionally providing comic relief for the staff and guests alike. Even concierge Ryan, a former hockey star with bad knees and broken dreams, can’t stop her from stumbling from one (mis)adventure to another.

What Doesn't Kill You is the story of how Thomasina Hodges, a.k.a. Tee, loses her job and finds herself. Tee's evolution after her sudden and unexpected outplacement, is loosely based on the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, relinquishing, readjusting, and reinvesting. For Tee, losing her job is like a death, but with time, and some bumps, bruises and a new attitude, she comes out on the other side, having reassessed what's important in her life.

From the moment she first learned to read, literary genius Darcy Wells has spent most of her time living in the worlds of her books. There, she can avoid the crushing reality of her mother’s hoarding and pretend her life is simply ordinary. But when a new property manager becomes more active in the upkeep of their apartment complex, the only home Darcy has ever known outside of her books suddenly hangs in the balance.

Abby Harrington’s family has dedicated their lives to cultivating the family vineyard and collecting vintage wines. But it takes only one night for the priceless collection to vanish, stolen during Abby’s grandparents’ sixtieth anniversary celebration. Then a devastating plane crash leaves her grandfather clinging to life in intensive care. Desperate to take action, Abby sets out to discover who stole the precious wine - and why. The clues lead her to dark truths about her family she is not prepared to face.

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.

It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water. In the newest collection of stories by the Mystery Writers of America, each author weaves a fresh tale surrounding the eerie feeling that comes when a stranger enters our midst, featuring stories by prolific mystery writers.