Showing titles in Family Life

Perhaps best known for his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, #1 New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith delights fans around the world with his warmhearted 44 Scotland Street novels. In the series’ sixth entry, the residents of 44 Scotland Street grapple with problems both trivial and severe, but none so great as when six-year-old Bertie Pollock - who longs to be seven - mislays his mum and learns a valuable lesson about wish fulfillment.

Born to a French mother and American father, graceful Dahlia de Beaumont has been sole owner and CEO of the venerable family perfume business based in Paris since her early twenties, following the death of her parents. For twenty-five years, after losing her husband in an avalanche, her life has centered on running Lambert Perfumes and being a devoted single mother to her four children: indecisive Charles, volatile Alexa, kind-hearted business visionary Delphine, and dreamy artist Emma. Now fifty-six, she has an "arrangement" with a married man but has been questioning that relationship.

Jacob Hunt is a teen with Asperger's syndrome. He's hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, though he is brilliant in many ways. But he has a special focus on one subject - forensic analysis. A police scanner in his room clues him in to crime scenes, and he's always showing up and telling the cops what to do. And he's usually right. But when Jacob's small hometown is rocked by a terrible murder, law enforcement comes to him. Jacob's behaviors are hallmark Asperger's, but they look a lot like guilt to the local police.

It’s been fifteen years since her sister died, and Rae McDonald still hasn’t recovered from the accident—or the ways she tried to cope with it. Not even a PhD in psychology has helped her deal with her feelings. It’s safer to shut them out. But that makes it difficult to connect with the son she gave up for adoption as a teenager. Lisa Smyth hasn’t fared any better. She was in the car with Rae’s sister that tragic night and keeps the truth of what really happened buried in her own grief. Still struggling, she drowns her guilt with glass after glass.

Patience Avery is a dowser—a "water witch". Her natural gifts enable her to locate lost items, missing people, and aquifers deep within the earth. This last skill is more in demand than ever, as her home state of Vermont is in the grip of the worst drought in years. Patience knows better than most that this crisis is only the start: a sign of worse things to come.

Nora Noone’s father was many things to many people. To the public he was a self-made titan of industry, whose luxury boutique hotels were among the most coveted destinations in the world. To his three ex-wives, he was a loving yet distant family man who managed to keep his finances—and his families—separate. But, to Nora, he was always a mystery—especially after his suspicious death at his cliffside home.

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.

Annette Goode has finally found a man who loves her. But at a pre-wedding ceremony, her ugly past is revealed, and her world falls apart. When she reunites with her childhood sweetheart, it seems like everything might be fine - until her long-absent friend, who hides a deadly secret, comes back into Annette's life.

Whether it's repairing a home or taking care of clients' other needs, Twin Cities handyman Sam Haney is in demand from his mostly female clientele. Despite Sam's lothario reputation, love isn't part of his portfolio. He's built a lot of walls in his time, but the one that's surrounded his heart ever since the death of his parents is his most solid yet.

After her grandmother Arlette's death, Betty is finally ready to begin her life. She had forfeited university, parties, boyfriends, summer jobs in order to care for Arlette. Now she's ready for whatever life throws at her, and, since the will included a beneficiary unknown to her who lives in the city, she heads there to find the mysterious woman. In 1920s London, Arlette is starting her new life in a time of postwar change. Beautiful and charismatic, she's drawn into a hedonistic world, but then tragedy strikes, and she flees back to her childhood home....

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood's exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter - she doesn't behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe's head? Her husband, Fox, says she's imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.

She smiled in public. She wept in secret. She stayed… until she barely existed. For years, Taryn lived in the shadows of her husband’s narcissistic control—trapped in a cycle of manipulation, emotional abuse, and spiritual gaslighting that slowly stripped her of her identity. On the outside, her life looked picture-perfect. Inside, she was quietly falling apart. Until She Barely Existed is a raw, gripping novel that shines a light on the hidden world of narcissistic abuse and the quiet strength it takes to survive.

After years of living in fear of her husband, Amanda Banning has left him and moved to Mystic Creek, Oregon, for a fresh start. But she's having a tough time providing for herself and her six-year-old daughter. Writing her secret yearnings on slips of paper and sending them into the wind helps her cling to the hope that things will get better - and that she can find happiness again.

Daisy meets Adam on their first day of university. Immediately, they become friends. But when tongues wag and their relationship is questioned, Adam shares his secret with Daisy, who promises to stand by him. When their grandmother dies, Adam’s older brother Ryan returns from abroad, and Daisy quickly falls for him. After a troubled upbringing at the hands of a drunken mother and jailbird father, Adam and Ryan have only each other. In adulthood, their bond holds firm, glued together by Daisy with whom they are now both in love.

Some women, with their perfect children and pricey athleisure, make motherhood look easy. But not Nicole. She never wanted to be a stay-at-home parent—losing her job left her no choice. Now, between her toddlers’ demands, husband’s distance, and father’s deteriorating health, she’s pulled in every direction except her own. Something has to give. Katrina’s in the same dissatisfied boat. After flirting with a handsome stranger at a bar, she’s ready to choose pleasure over responsibility.

Furniture artisan Meli Hynes still abides by her uncle’s truism: the only lasting love story is the one between artists and their creations. Having already given marriage a shot—for all of twenty-four hours during a Las Vegas fling—Meli made her choice. The wood-crafting shop that is her family legacy will always come first. But when her uncle decides to sell to a competitor, Meli’s promised inheritance goes belly-up. She’ll do anything to muddle the deal. Including a marriage of convenience to an unforgettable and very practical old friend—the competitor’s son, Aaron.

Voted Most Likely to Succeed, Melanie Bartlett ended up anything but. The down-on-her-luck single mom wants a complete do-over - is that too much to ask? With her family long gone from River Bend, strong, independent Mel is as surprised as anyone to end up in the quaint small town she once called home. But with her friends, Jo and Zoe, by her side, and a comfortable room at Miss Gina's quirky bed-and-breakfast, she just might have turned the corner on a new life.

Isabel Gibson has all but perfected the art of forgetting. She’s a New Yorker now, with nothing left to tie her to Brinkley’s Island, Maine. Her parents are gone, the family bookstore is all but bankrupt, and her sister, Sophie, will probably never speak to her again. But when a mysterious letter arrives in her mailbox, Isabel feels herself drawn to the past. After years of fighting for her independence, she dreads the thought of going back to the island.

A modern story of family, I’ll Come to You chronicles intersecting lives over the course of one year—1995—anchored by the anticipation and arrival of a child. With empathy, insight, and humor, Rebecca Kauffman explores overlapping narratives involving a couple whose struggle to become pregnant has both softened and hardened them; a woman whose husband of forty years has left her for reasons he’s unwilling to share and the man who is now attempting to woo her; and a couple in denial about a looming health crisis as well as their son who is fumbling toward middle age and can’t stop lying.

This powerful novel tells the story of two World War II concentration camp survivors, the life they build together, and the son who faces struggles of his own as a first-generation American determined to be his own person and achieve success. Moving from the ashes of postwar Europe to the Lower East Side of New York to wealth, success, and unlimited luxury, In His Father's Footsteps is a stirring tale of three generations of strong, courageous, and loving people who pay their dues to achieve their goals.