"Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two...

"Ronni Sunshine left London for Hollywood to become a beautiful, charismatic star of the silver screen. But at home, she was a narcissistic, disinterested mother who alienated her three daughters. As soon as possible, tomboy Nell fled her mother's overbearing presence to work on a farm and find her own way in the world as a single mother. The target of her mother's criticism, Meredith never felt good enough, thin enough, pretty enough. Her life took...

"Alice Metcalf was a devoted mother, loving wife, and accomplished scientist who studied grief among elephants. Yet it's been a decade since she disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind her small daughter, husband, and the animals to which she devoted her life. All signs point to abandonment . . . or worse. Still Jenna--now thirteen years old and truly orphaned by a father maddened by grief--steadfastly refuses to believe in her...

Owen is the organizer of the Montgomery clan, running the familys construction business with an iron fist-and an even less flexible spreadsheet. And though his brothers bust on his compulsive list-making, the Inn BoonsBoro is about to open right on schedule. The only thing Owen didnt plan for was Avery McTavish... Averys popular pizza place is right across the street from the inn, giving her a first-hand look at its amazing renovation-and a newfound...

BONUS: This edition contains an Arcadia Falls discussion guide.
Financial straits and a desire for a fresh start take recently widowed Meg Rosenthal and her aloof teenage daughter, Sally, to Arcadia Falls, a tucked-away hamlet in upstate New York where Meg has accepted a teaching position at a boarding school. The creaky, neglected cottage they’ll be calling home feels like an ill omen, but Meg is determined to make the best of it....

"A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family, about a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for--and everything she feared. Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting, supportive 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--Violet...

Patrick Riordan's plans for a relaxing Christmas--a much-needed break from his work as a Navy pilot--are complicated when he falls for Angie LeCroix, who is visiting Virgin River in order to escape her hovering mother.

The further adventures of the Quimby family as Ramona enters the third grade.

When I was twelve, I made a naïve, yet desperate pact with God to keep my ailing mother alive. It was the first time I'd ventured something so brazen--making a contract with the Almighty... So begins the story of Becky Owens, a talented and passionate young pianist on the verge of adolescence when she learns the devastating news of her mother's critical illness. As the daughter of a country preacher in Lancaster County, Becky knows well the significance...

"With her father recently moved to a care facility, Beth Walsh volunteers to clear out the family home and is surprised to discover the door to her childhood playroom padlocked. She's even more shocked at what's behind it--a hoarder's mess of her father's paintings, mounds of discarded papers and miscellaneous junk in the otherwise fastidiously tidy house. As she picks through the clutter, she finds a loose journal entry in what appears to be her...