Broken by life's disappointments, four women forge a friendship that leads in unexpected directions.

Dinah Taylor has an orderly life that is just how she likes it. A perfectly furnished luxury apartment, a satisfying career as a scientist and CEO of her own company, and an uncomplicated personal life. But all of that changes when she meets seven-year-old Jonah. The boy shows up one day, a scruffy dog by his side, in front of her office building. Dinah knows nothing about kids and even less about animals, but after she buys him breakfast, he shows up the next day...and the next. She tries to learn more about him, to help him, but he's remarkably skilled at evading her questions.

Mona and Ken Sorenson are approaching the best years of their lives. Mona's greatest concern is that Ken will learn of the surprise party she's planning for his retirement from his job as dean of students at Stone University. They've already been making plans to travel and spend limitless hours in the garden, and Ken is looking forward to working on his woodworking and fishing with his grandchildren. It's what they deserve after years of careful planning. But things begin to unravel....

Larkspur Nielsen is ready for a change. Her parents have passed on, and her older brother is successfully running the family business. She bristles at the small-mindedness that permeates life in her small Ohio community, and she sees little chance of a satisfying future there. She has a little money saved, and after turning the tables on a crooked gambler who had fleeced several locals, including her younger brother, she can stake a new start for herself and her three sisters.

National best-selling author Lauraine Snelling brings a small mountain town to thrilling life when a natural disaster threatens to destroy lives. US Border Patrol agent Ben James' life is in tatters. A tragic accident stole the love of his life and he never finished grieving. Turning to the bottle for support, he lost sight of what was important. While making his last patrol run before a storm rolls in, Ben's canine partner Bo finds an abandoned baby hidden in the woods. As Ben rushes the child to the only clinic in the area, the storm strikes with unexpected fury.

As the last will of a close friend is read, three women discover that they have inherited a legacy from her: the funds to take a dream trip to Florence, Italy, in her memory. With plenty of hilarious travel mishaps along the way, this book is a story of deep friendship, of making room in our lives to celebrate and remember, of grief, of the realization that friendship keeps the memory alive, and the sweet discovery of unexpected romance.

When Chicago native Ragni Claussen grudgingly agrees to take her sullen niece with her to spruce up the family's old North Dakota cabin, she uncovers long-hidden secrets about how her greatgrandmother - in 1903 - learned to live and paint and love in this very place.

After a local mountain becomes a deadly and imminent threat, three strikingly different women become linked in a desperate mission. Children's author Katherine Sommers is searching for her depressed husband, David, and their son Brian, camping together on Mt. St. Helens' tumultuous north slope. Mellie Sedor seeks her husband, Daniel, who has taken a logging job to pay for their daughter's chemotherapy. Fashion photographer Jen Stockton joins Cowlitz County Sheriff Frank McKenzie, himself the victim of a brutal loss, in his quest to evacuate the awakening volcano.

"But Mother is always dying" is Gillian Ormsby's sarcastic response when her younger, favored sister tells her that she has to go take care of their hypochondriac mother. Much against her will, since she and her mother never have gotten along, Gillian arrives in California to find the garden and yard dead, the blinds all drawn, and her mother indeed in bed - waiting to die. But when Gillian talks with the doctor, he assures her there's no medical reason behind her mother's state.

Caroline Murphy swore she'd never set foot back in the small Southern town of Peachtree Bluff; she was a New York girl born and bred and the worst day of her life was when, in the wake of her father's death, her mother selfishly forced her to move - during her senior year of high school, no less - back to that hick-infested rat trap where she'd spent her childhood summers.

Keira Johnson, a 50-year-old mother of two grown sons, believes she lives a good Christian life without secrets - until she discovers a life-jarring fact her late mother kept hidden all her life. Kiera was born out of wedlock, and the man she had always known as her father had adopted her as an infant. Meanwhile, Keira's beloved 17-year-old niece, Kirsten, has just discovered an unwanted pregnancy. Her boyfriend, Jose, is bound for college and Kirsten does not know what to do.

Roseanna Chaldecott spent her life as a high-powered lawyer in Manhattan. But when her best friend and law partner dies suddenly, something snaps. Unsure of her future, Roseanna heads upstate on one tank of gas and with no plans to return. In the foothills of the Adirondacks, Roseanna discovers the perfect hideout in a ramshackle farm. Its seventy-six acres are rich with possibilities and full of surprises, including a mother and daughter squatting on the property. Although company is the last thing Roseanna wants, she reluctantly lets them stay.

Madysen Powell has always been a forgiving person, but when her supposedly dead father shows up in Nome, Alaska, her gift for forgiveness is tested. With the recent loss of her mother, she searches for answers, leaning on Granny Beaufort, a neighbor in town, who listens with a kind heart. Still, Madysen is restless and dreams of performing her music around the world. The arrival of a traveling show could prove just the chance she needs, and the manager promises more than she ever dreamed.

This breathtaking novel travels more than a century between two love stories set in the Australian seaside town of Lighthouse Bay. In 1901, a ship sinks off the coast of Lighthouse Bay in Australia. The only survivor is Isabella Winterbourne - escaping her loveless marriage and the devastating loss of her son - who clutches a priceless gift meant for the Australian Parliament. Suddenly, this gift could be her ticket to a new life, free from the bonds of her husband and his overbearing family.

December 1940. As German bombs fall on Southampton, England, the city's residents flee to the surrounding villages. In Upton village, amid the chaos, newly married Ellen Parr finds a girl asleep, unclaimed at the back of an empty bus. Little Pamela, it seems, is entirely alone. Ellen has always believed she does not want children, but when she takes Pamela into her home, the child cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she and her husband, Selwyn, had dreamed for themselves. As the war rages on, love grows where it was least expected, surprising them all.