Leopold Bloom King has been raised in a family shattered - and shadowed - by tragedy. Lonely and adrift, he searches for something to sustain him and finds it among a tightly knit group of outsiders. Surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating breakdowns, as well as Charleston, South Carolina’s dark legacy of racism and class divisions, these friends will endure until a final test forces them to face something none of them are prepared for.

The world is at war. A young man bravely kisses his weeping bride goodbye at the train station, leaving her all alone. Then the dreaded telegram, and a decision that nearly tears her apart.

In his three novellas, In Short Measures, Strong Conspirators, and Sally Forth, Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love - and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity - what are one's obligations toward one's spouse, one's family, and one's heart?

It’s Christmas Eve in Mt. Jefferson, but unlike snow, peace is not in the forecast. In this story that spans over fifty years, family values collide with poor decisions, posing a daunting challenge to what should be the happiest time of the year.

Jo Marie Rose first arrives in Cedar Cove seeking a sense of peace and a fresh start. She purchases a local bed-and-breakfast - the newly christened Rose Harbor Inn - ready to begin her life anew. Yet the inn holds more surprises than Jo Marie can imagine. Her first guest is Joshua Weaver, who has come home to care for his ailing stepfather. The two have never seen eye to eye, and Joshua has little hope that they can reconcile. But a long-lost acquaintance from Joshua's high school days proves to him that forgiveness is never out of reach and love can bloom where it's least expected.

Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion’s widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke out whatever meager promise isn’t already boarded up. Miles Roby gazes over this ruined kingdom from the Empire Grill, an opportunity of his youth that has become the albatross of his life.

What would you do if you lost everything - your job, your home, and the love of your life - all at the same time? When it happens to Seattle ad executive Alan Christoffersen, he's tempted by his darkest thoughts. A bottle of pills in his hand and nothing left to live for, he plans to end his misery. Instead, he decides to take a walk. But not any ordinary walk. Taking with him only the barest of essentials, Al leaves behind all that he's known and heads for the farthest point on his map.

After the tragic death of his wife, Alec Riley struggles to put his life back together. He and his three children are lost in their grief...until Sophie walks unexpectedly into their lives. Having left her native Czechoslovakia, she has discovered that this land that had seemed so bright with promise is far from her dream. A highly educated woman, she now finds herself keeping house for Alec and his family. How can Sophie find peace in her new job? Will God use her gentle spirit to help heal Alec's broken heart?

Sam and Holly Foster seem to enjoy near-perfect lives. Each claim a successful career and a legacy of goals set and achieved. Held above their possessions and accomplishments is their only child James. He is the son they promised to raise together and the reason they come home each night.

As a struggling young attorney fresh out of law school, Renny Jacobson was pining for the day he could afford the fast cars and sprawling homes of the partners in his Charlotte firm. And with news of his father's death and an ancient, secret inheritance, Renny's life was sure to change forever. But the inheritance and membership in the clandestine society which provided it soon threatens to change him in more ways than one.

Baby Boy Fisher was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. He ultimately came to live with a foster family, where he endured near-constant verbal and physical abuse. In his midteens he escaped and enlisted in the navy, where he became a man of the world, raised by the family he created for himself. Finding Fish shows how, out of this unlikely mix of deprivation and hope, an artist was born.

Unwilling to return to the darkness of her former life, Sherry Gore attacks her faith head on. Soon the life she remakes for herself and her children as she seeks to follow the teachings of the Bible features head coverings, simple dress, and a focus on Jesus Christ. Only then does she realize, in a fit of excitement, that there are others like her. They are called Amish and Mennonite, and she realizes she has found her people.

Needing time to contemplate her troubled marriage, Tessa MacRae agrees to spend the summer helping her mother and grandmother clean out the family home in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. But the three women have never been close.

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.

When Caroline, a gifted ornithologist who wants a life of travel and adventure, gets pregnant against her wishes, her husband, Charlie, assumes she will change her mind. She doesn't—and as their daughter, Grace, grows up, she falls through the devastating schism that has grown between them. Told by all three of the characters involved and set against the backdrop of Lake Superior, Finding Grace is a piercing chronicle and a poignant comic-of-age journey for a daughter and her parents.

Needing time to contemplate her troubled marriage, Tessa MacRae agrees to spend the summer helping her mother and grandmother clean out the family home in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. But the three women have never been close.

As a struggling young attorney fresh out of law school, Renny Jacobson was pining for the day he could afford the fast cars and sprawling homes of the partners in his Charlotte firm. And with news of his father's death and an ancient, secret inheritance, Renny's life was sure to change forever. But the inheritance and membership in the clandestine society which provided it soon threatens to change him in more ways than one.

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?

Katie Connelly has lived in San Francisco all her life. Her late father made his career as an ironworker on the Golden Gate Bridge, and the many stories of him trying to save jumpers still haunt her. When she's asked to write a history about the bridge, her research uncovers a secret journal hidden in her father's desk, pages of familiar advice penned by the hand of a stranger. The scribbled words tell of a promise ring and a distant love, clues that Katie hopes may answer her own unresolved sorrow.

This is the first Chicken Soup audiobook to focus specifically on stories of faith, including 101 of the best stories from Chicken Soup’s library on faith, hope, miracles, and devotion. These true stories written by regular people tell of prayers answered miraculously, amazing coincidences, rediscovered faith, and the serenity that comes from believing in a greater power, appealing to Christians and those of other faiths, and everyone who seeks enlightenment and inspiration through a good story.

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.

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.

As an ambitious young doctor with a penchant for research, Luke Bradford never wanted to set up practice in a remote rural town. But to pay back his student loans and to fulfill a promise from his past, he heads for Watervalley, Tennessee - and immediately stumbles into one disaster after another. Will he be labeled the town idiot before he’s even introduced as the new doctor?

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.

Seventeen-year-old Lorelei Patio is the adopted daughter of 200-year-old vampire Sergio Patio. She never realized why her family has had to move so often or why she is not permitted to get too friendly with other young people. In fact, except for one shocking moment that seemed more like a dream, Lorelei never fully realized who and what her father was nor what her sisters were brought up to do for him. But one day, that all changed.

When unexpected grief brings two families together, how do they start their journey to healing? Join Michael and Gina Spehn--bestselling authors and founders of the New Day Foundation--as they tell their story of resilience, remembrance, and reliance on their shared faith.

Not long after Isabel "Izzy" Chambers opens up a knitting shop in the sleepy fishing town of Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, a diverse group of women begins congregating each week to form the Seaside Knitters. Izzy raises some eyebrows when she rents the apartment above her shop to Angie Archer, whose reputation for loose behavior and a quick temper has made her unpopular with many locals. But could any of them have wanted her dead? Angie's body is discovered drowned in the harbor, her long red hair tangled like seaweed in a lobster trap.

Twenty-year-old Ariana Brenneman loves her family and the Old Ways. She has two aspirations: open a café in historic Summer Grove to help support her family's ever-expanding brood and keep any other Amish from being lured into the Englisch life by Quill Schlabach. Five years ago Quill and her dear friend, Frieda, ran off together, and Ariana still carries the wounds of that betrayal. When she unexpectedly encounters him, she soon realizes he has plans to help someone else she loves leave the Amish.

What secrets can be found by the light of the Cajun moon? New Orleans may be the "Big Easy", but nothing about it was ever easy for international business etiquette expert Chloe Ledet. She moved away years ago, leaving her parents and their famous French Quarter restaurant behind. But when she hears that her father has been shot, she races home to be by his side and to handle his affairs, only to learn a longhidden secret that changes everything she knew to be true about herself and her family.

It’s Christmas Eve in Mt. Jefferson, but unlike snow, peace is not in the forecast. In this story that spans over fifty years, family values collide with poor decisions, posing a daunting challenge to what should be the happiest time of the year.