Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.

Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

Life giveth, and life taketh away. For a woman of a certain age, loss is not unexpected, but when Ruby Hudson loses someone she loves dearly, it changes everything... At fifty, Ruby knows that life is a series of ups and downs, wins and losses, but she's still wholly unprepared to lose someone she loves so much. In the process of working through her grief, she discovers that there was so much she didn't know about this person she loved--so many contradictions and hidden stories. Has she turned a blind eye to everything but being First Lady, raising kids, and, now, to being a widow? Did she ...

When a woman gets to a certain age, everyone forgets that she has a long and vibrant life behind her. Molly is no different; at sixty-five, the residents of Shipwreck Key see her as just the proprietress of The Scuttlebutt, the island's coffee shop. But Molly has lived—really lived—and she has the battle scars to prove it. In 1982, when her beloved husband Rodney died in a boating accident off the coast of Hawaii, Molly was left a widow in her early twenties. But not only was she left to live without her best friend and life partner the day his boat vanished, her hopes and dreams to ...

A President dies under mysterious circumstances, leaving a secret mistress and their twelve-year-old son…and also a loyal First Lady who has no idea what went wrong with their marriage. Forty-nine-year old widow Ruby Hudson, the former First Lady of the United States, needs a fresh start. As she mourns the loss of her husband, she turns her love of books into a whole new career, opening a little bookshop on a charming, pirate-themed island called Shipwreck Key just off the coast of the Florida Panhandle. Her two daughters think she’s crazy, but Ruby can finally breathe again knowing ...

When a woman needs to flee a bad marriage, it doesn’t matter that she’s the wife of the former Vice President, it only matters that she escapes... Sunday Bond longs for a life far from Washington D.C., and far from the husband who has kept her in a gilded cage for too long, locked up there with only his dark secrets to keep her company. When Sunday’s best friend, the former First Lady, moves south to Shipwreck Key, Sunday goes for a visit and decides to stay. The remote island off the coast of Florida is the perfect place to avoid the world’s prying eyes and to forget about her ...

Ruby Hudson has avoided reading the words of her late husband, President Jack Hudson--until now... For most of his life, Jack kept meticulous and well-written journals and diaries about his life. After his death, everything was boxed up and put into storage, but now, nearly two years after his passing, Ruby is ready to start unpacking her past and making sense of her husband's choices. With the month of August to herself on Shipwreck Key, Ruby brings out the boxes of journals dating back to the 70s, and she tries to unravel the mystery of her marriage: where did it go wrong? What had she ...

When a woman is prized first and foremost for her looks, what does she have left to offer when the world decides those looks are fading? Marigold Pim, once the darling of the modeling world, graced the covers of nearly every prestigious fashion magazine on the planet. Her beauty made her the epitome of glamour as a young woman—and also led her straight into the arms of Cobb Hartley, the famous-but-troubled British rockstar. They raised a son together and endured two decades of a complicated marriage, but now they’re happily divorced and living their lives on different continents. For ...

All John Beauchamp wants is a simple life. He's a widower who is content running his Louisiana sugarcane farm. Then Shelby Mackey breezes in, announcing that she's pregnant with his baby. Their accidental night of passion has changed . . . everything. Shelby insists John doesn't have to be involved—she'll raise the baby on her own in Seattle. But John can't let her go that easily. Even without the baby, Shelby is a breath of fresh air. So when Shelby agrees to stay in Louisiana temporarily, John's determined to make that stay permanent—and as sweet as can be.

Valentine's Day is near, and romance is in the air on Christmas Key! Things are heating up between Mayor Holly Baxter and the island's newest resident, Miguel, and there's a seafood festival coming to town. Holly's DNA results have come in and suddenly there's a man in her life to fill the role of father figure--but does she even want to meet him after a lifetime of assuming he doesn't exist? When a tragedy happens on the island its residents must pull together to help a stranger--whether they agree with Holly's methods and motives or not. Join Christmas Key's colorful locals for another ...

Christmas Key will have to function without its beloved mayor, Holly Baxter, while she embarks on a European adventure with her long-distance love... But when Holly's mother arrives on the island with plans to sell off paradise and build a bloated, gaudy casino on the island's shores, the locals have to pull together to keep her at bay. A shocking loss throws the locals for a loop while they welcome three new islanders to Christmas Key in Holly's absence, but if she learns nothing else from her trip across the pond, Holly comes home knowing in her heart that it's time to say "yes" to new ...

Florida’s Space Coast—1963. People flock south to make the Sunshine State their winter playground, moving to the brand new beach towns and neighborhoods to live their lives in the sun. But the families moving to Stardust Beach near Cape Kennedy aren’t there for canasta and cocktails; the men aren’t going to spend their days on the golf courses, and the women aren’t there for fashion shows and shuffleboard. These couples are young, driven, and there to make history. These are the First Families of NASA’s new space program, and they’re ready to aim for the moon… Josephine ...