As a child Great-aunt Alice Rumphius resolved that when she grew up she would go to faraway places, live by the sea in her old age, and do something to make the world more beautiful--and she does all those things, the last being the most difficult of all.

After she discovers her sister Tanya dead on the floor of her fashionable New York City townhouse, Letty Carnahan is certain she knows who did it: Tanya's ex; sleazy real estate entrepreneur Evan Wingfield. Even in the grip of grief and panic Letty heeds her late sister's warnings: "If anything bad happens to me--it's Evan. Promise me you'll take Maya and run. Promise me." So Letty grabs her sister's Mercedes and hits the road with her wailing four-year-old...

After he receives a posthumous note from his aunt hinting that things are horribly amiss in her Florida Gulf Coast town, Army Special Agent John Puller uncovers a shocking conspiracy.

Horrified at the thought of caring for talkative, ten-year-old Rebecca, the spinster aunts nevertheless spend seven difficult years raising their niece, rewarding years for all three inhabitants of the little brick house in a small New England town.

With goblins, trolls, and the house boggart all trying to get them, the Grace children turn to Great Aunt Lucinda for help.

A girl who always looks forward to her visits with her Great-aunt May and May's canary Willy is terribly disappointed when she thinks she will not be able to see them one Christmas.

Edwina follows in the footsteps of her namesake great-aunt when she begins to write letters to the mayor about community problems and poses as Edwina the elder.

Everything Hope knows about the Orchard House is from the stories of her late mother. So when she arrives at the northern Michigan family estate late one night with a terrible secret and her ten-year-old daughter in tow, she's not sure if she'll be welcomed or turned away. But as Hope works the orchard alongside her aunt, daughter, and a kind man she finds increasingly difficult to ignore, a new life begins to blossom.

Caring for her three elderly aunts and their farmhouse inn near Sugarcreek, Ohio, policewoman Rachel Troyer reluctantly takes in Joe Matthews and his young son. Will she be able to uncover Joe's secrets despite her aunts'--and her own--growing affection for him?

When the Depression hits in Cairo, Illinois, and Oscar Ogilvie's father must sell their home and vast model train set-up to look for work in California, eleven-year-old Oscar is left with his dour aunt, where he befriends a mysterious drifter, witnesses a stunning bank robbery, and is suddenly catapulted onto a train that takes him to a different time and place.