When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay.

Eight-year-old Cassie Witting is upset when she finds out that her mother, Sarah, is expecting a baby, but writing in the journal that belonged to her brother Caleb helps her sort out her feelings and understand that Sarah will always love her.

While still grieving for her mother and unable to accept her stepmother, a girl clings to the memories represented by forty-three buttons on a string.

When eleven-year-old Zack Jennings moves to Connecticut with his father and new stepmother, they must deal with the ghosts left behind by a terrible accident, as well as another kind of ghost from Zack's past.

In the early twentieth century in Swampsea, seventeen-year-old Briony, who can see the spirits that haunt the marshes around their town, feels responsible for her twin sister's horrible injury until a young man enters their lives and exposes secrets that even Briony does not know about.

"From the lighthouse sporting a huge wreath to the Christmas Stroll along its quaint streets, holidays on Nantucket are always magical. However, while the town might be aglow like a scene from Dickens tale, unfortunately for newly married island newcomer Nicole Somerset, Christmas means a dreaded visit from her step-daughter. Headstrong Kennedy brings with her a family of her own--husband Archer and adorable 3 year old son, Maddox--but Kennedy's yet...

"Joanne knows how lucky she is--Richard is a wonderful husband, Evie is the most gorgeous baby girl, they live in a beautiful house--life couldn't be better. But then Richard's twenty-year-old daughter Chloe turns up. Chloe hasn't spoken to her father since the day he married Joanne two years ago. But with the arrival of her baby sister Evie, Chloe wants to make peace. Richard is delighted, and since Joanne is struggling with the new baby, he suggests...

Fourteen-year-old Daisy Meyer is angry and frustrated with her world: her German American town, New Ulm, is under surveillance, her father's newspaper was forced to shut down for criticizing the United States' entry into World War I, her beloved older sister Elsie's fiancé is deployed to France, and she deeply resents her stepmother--but worse is coming, because this is October 1918, and influenza is about to descend on her home and family, and it...