Dorothy Jean Wetstra, 87, is the town matriarch in Partonville, Illinois. Fully aware of both her strengths and flaws, she often asks "the Big Guy" in heaven for help: "Dear Lord, DO SOMETHING!"

It's easy to feel at home in Mitford. In these high, green hills, the air is pure, the village is charming, and the people are generally lovable. Yet Father Tim, the bachelor rector, wants something more. Enter a dog the size of a sofa who moves in and won't go away. Add an attractive neighbor who begins wearing a path through the hedge. Now, stir in a lovable but unloved boy, a mystifying jewel theft, and a secret that's 60 years old.

Miss Julia, a recently bereaved and newly wealthy widow, is only slightly bemused when one Hazel Marie Puckett appears at her door with a youngster in tow and unceremoniously announces that the child is the bastard son of Miss Julia's late husband. Suddenly, this longtime church member and pillar of her small Southern community finds herself in the center of an unseemly scandal - and the guardian of a wan nine-year-old whose mere presence turns her life upside down.

In Bonnet, Texas, Liddy Latham, the queen of funeral dinners, keeps a Southern comfort-food tradition alive - until fancy-schmancy Matilda Monroe moves back to town. She wants room at the table for her own style of consolation and closure: healthy, modern, and vegan. But this is about more than fried chicken versus tofu turkey. Matilda’s return is also stirring up their volatile, unresolved history. And just when they thought it couldn’t get more personal.

In a season of loss and change, Wren Crawford and her great-aunt, Katherine Rhodes, share the journey as companions in sorrow and hope. As Katherine prepares to retire as the director of the New Hope Retreat Center, she faces both personal and professional challenges—especially after the arrival of the board's candidate to replace her. Not only must she confront more unresolved grief from her past, but she's invited to embrace painful and unsettling insights about her own blind spots.

Essie Mae Richardson means the world to the residents of the Braxton Park subdivision. So when she dies, all the hard work she did to rebuild fraying relationships and bolster broken families begins coming undone. But there are some who won’t let her efforts go to waste, and they will fight to keep this angel’s legacy alive.

In the small Illinois town of Bradbury, change doesn't come often, and it certainly doesn't come easily. So when Pastor Fletcher hires Emily Duke as the new choir director at Zion Lutheran Church, he unknowingly sets in motion a chain of events that turns the life of his congregation upside down. The crusty church secretary, Mrs. Scheinberg, must learn to adjust her curmudgeonly ways. Zion's talented but pompous organist, Evan Ebner, must recognize his shortcomings.

Janelle Evans hasn’t gone back to Hope Springs for family reunions since losing her husband. But when she arrives for Christmas and learns that her grandmother is gravely ill, she decides to extend the stay. It isn’t long before she runs into her first love, and feelings that have been dormant for more than a decade are reawakened. Becca Anderson is finally on the trajectory she’s longed for. Having been in the ministry trenches for years, she’s been recruited as the newest speaker of a large Christian women’s conference.

In The Face of the Earth, Mitchell Brannon is counting the minutes until his wife Jill gets home from a conference. But when she fails to return, he contacts the police, who conduct a search and come up empty-handed. Jill’s best friend Shelley stays by Mitch’s side, and as their relationship deepens, Mitch struggles to honor the vows he made to a woman who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

Hope Jensen is a young, single woman and an aspiring newspaper writer, and when she receives a much-needed but anonymous Christmas gift, she's determined to find her benefactor. That search leads her to an unusual family with a longstanding Christmas tradition. Sensing a front-page feature article, Hope desperately wants to publish their story, but doing so would be a breach of trust. What she decides to do will change her life forever.

When Liz Hoole, a free-spirited liberal from the Midwest, marries into a conservative Quaker family, she knows that raising children in compliance with Quaker values will be challenging. Twenty-five years later, she still feels like she's falling short of expectations. Fortunately, her faith and her friends in the small, rural North Carolina town of Cedar Branch keep her strong.

Angels eagerly watch over Ann Fletcher's every move. She just doesn't know it yet. When Ann Fletcher returns to Charleston to see her younger sister, Sarah, receive her master’s degree, she finds herself riding in the back of an ambulance, watching helplessly as Sarah fights for life. During the ride, Sarah appears to talk to someone who is not there, humming a melody Ann has never heard before. Neighbor Ethan McKinney lends a shoulder when Sarah unexpectedly dies. And as a carpenter, Ethan volunteers to help Ann get the Fletcher family home into shape for selling.

Secrets can be funny things. We think they keep us safe, but more often than not, they spill out when we least expect and make a mess out of everything. It's a truth Scarlett Jo Newberry knows all too well-a truth Grace Shepherd and Zach Craig are about to learn the hard way. As the lives of this boisterous pastor's wife, polished news anchor, and beleaguered divorce attorney intersect in the tree-lined streets of Franklin, Tennessee, scandal threatens to topple their carefully constructed worlds.

Chelsea Chambers is on her own. After a public split from her NFL superstar husband, Chelsea takes a bold step out of the limelight and behind the counter of the Higher Grounds Café, an old-fashioned coffee shop in dire need of reinvention. But when her courage, expert planning, and out-of-this-world cupcakes fail to pay the bills, this newly single mom finds herself desperate for help. Better yet, a miracle.

Maura Sullivan never intended to set foot in Granger, Ohio, again. But when circumstances force her to return, she must face all the disappointments she tried so hard to leave behind: a husband who ignored her, a congregation she couldn’t please, and a God who took away everything she ever loved. Nick Shepherd thought he had put the past behind him until the day his estranged wife walked back into town.

Hope Jensen is a young, single woman and an aspiring newspaper writer, and when she receives a much-needed but anonymous Christmas gift, she's determined to find her benefactor. That search leads her to an unusual family with a longstanding Christmas tradition. Sensing a front-page feature article, Hope desperately wants to publish their story, but doing so would be a breach of trust. What she decides to do will change her life forever.

Only God knew why Jillian Slater agreed to return to New Orleans on the news that her father had finally drunk himself to death. It's not like they were close. She hadn't seen him - or her grandmother, the ice queen - in almost 20 years. But when Adella Atwater, the manager of her grandmother's apartment house, called and said her expenses would be paid if she'd fly in for the burial, a free trip to New Orleans was too intriguing to resist.

The biggest thing to happen to Skary, Indiana, is renowned horror novelist Wolfe Boone, or "Boo" as the locals fondly call him. For the past 16 years, the reclusive writer has been the town's greatest attraction, having unintentionally turned the once struggling Skary into a thriving tourist trap for the dark side.

But when a newly reformed Wolfe suddenly quits the genre and subsequently starts to pursue Skary's favorite girl-next-door, Ainsley Parker, the little town becomes truly horrified.

The first novel in a charming new series, award-winning author Jane Myers Perrine's The Welcome Committee of Butternut Creek is an amusing, warmhearted look at a small town's reception of its newly ordained minister. The mission of committee members Miss Birdie and Mercedes is to educate Adam Jordan on how things should be done in town. But soon the ladies decide on a new goal - to find him a wife.

Teresa "Toots" Amelia Loudenberry has crammed a great deal of living - not to mention eight much-loved husbands - into her varied and rewarding life. Newly single, Toots is ready to taste life again, and fate has just handed her the perfect opportunity.

Bernadine Brown is a woman with money to spend. Henry Adams is a town in desperate need of cash. But after Bernadine puts up the money, she has some ideas about how the town should be run. Will the townspeople be willing to shake up their comfortable lives to share the gift they’ve been given with others who really need it?

Lilith Whitmore appoints recent empty-nester Wilda to the Rush Advisory Board and suggests their daughters, both incoming freshman, room together. It's all part of Lilith's plan to ensure her own daughter receives an Alpha Delt bid - no matter what. Cali Watkins possesses all the qualities sororities are looking for in a potential new member, but her resume lacks a vital ingredient: pedigree. And if anyone discovers the dark family secrets she's hiding, she'll be dropped from rush in an instant.

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.

In The Face of the Earth, Mitchell Brannon is counting the minutes until his wife Jill gets home from a conference. But when she fails to return, he contacts the police, who conduct a search and come up empty-handed. Jill’s best friend Shelley stays by Mitch’s side, and as their relationship deepens, Mitch struggles to honor the vows he made to a woman who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

Now that Audrey and Grant's five kids are grown, they are turning their beloved family home into a cozy bed and breakfast in the heartland. Opening weekend makes Audrey anxious, with family and friends coming from all over to help celebrate the occasion. But when Audrey's daughter, Landyn, arrives, the U-Haul she's pulling makes it clear she's not just here for a visit. Audrey immediately has questions. What happened in New York that sent Landyn running home? And where is her husband, Chase?

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.

The first step to letting go of the past is forgiving it …Every day of her life Julia Rich lives with the memory of a horrible accident she caused long ago. In the years since, she has tried to hide her guilt in the quiet routine of teaching at a small South Carolina college, avoiding close relationships with family and would-be friends. But one day a phone call from Carmen, a niece she has never met, disrupts her carefully controlled world.

Karen Kingsbury, author of 24 books, has warmed the hearts of millions with her tales of miracles. Gideon's Gift captures a Christmas miracle that touches a frail young girl and a gruff homeless man.

At 41, Vivian Armstrong Gray's life as an investigative journalist is crumbling. Humiliated after taking a bullet in her backside during an exposé, Vivi learns that she's pregnant, jobless, and very hormonal. This explains why she says "yes" to a dreadful job covering suburban living back home in Georgia, a column she must write incognito. Down South, it's her sister's ballroom dance studio that becomes her undercover spot where she learns about the local life - and where unexpected friendships develop.

Fans of T.D. Jakes' Cover Girls will delight in Michelle Stimpson's debut book Boaz Brown. LaShondra Smith has been waiting for a man like Stelson Brown. He is intelligent, funny, and a man of God - but he's white. Can LaShondra get past her prejudices and fears and allow herself to love this man she's always dreamed of?