Meet Linda Breland, single parent of two teenage daughters one of whom is headed off to college. Between that and the married men, the cold New Jersey winters, her pinched wallet, and her ex-husband who married a beautiful, successful woman ten years younger than she is, let's just say Linda has seen enough to fill a thousand pages. Now she's bound for Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the magical landscape of her ancestors. Welcomed by the help of...

Rhett Gallagher's adventurous life is imploding. Just as she turns the big 4-0, her long-term relationship collapses and her gran's death draws her back to the family farm. The only silver lining is that Rhett's inspirational book, The Modern Pioneer Girl's Guide to Life--written under a pseudonym--has become a wild success, so much so that when her big publicity moment comes, self-doubting Rhett panics and persuades her best friend, Jasmine, to step...

What's the one dish you'd do anything to taste just one more time? Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that's not the main reason customers stop by. The father-daughter duo are 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person's treasured memories - dishes that...

Tom Lowe's identity and his pride are invested in the work he does with his back and his hands. He designed and built his family's dream home, working extra hours to pay off the adjustable rate mortgage he took on the property, convinced he is making every sacrifice for the happiness of his wife and son. Until, in a moment of fatigued inattention, shingling a roof in too-bright sunlight, he falls. In constant pain, addicted to painkillers at the cost...

Jasmine Yang arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth--another female casualty of China's controversial One Child Policy. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she's forced to make increasingly desperate decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her daughter. Meanwhile, publishing...

Mallory Moe is a twenty-five-year-old veteran Army mechanic, living with her girlfriend, Andrea, and working overnights at a gas station store while figuring out what’s next. Andrea's off-grid cabin provides a perfect sanctuary for Mallory, a synesthete with a hypersensitivity to sound that can trigger flashbacks from her childhood. The getaway that's largely abandoned during the off season starts out idyllic, until Andrea's once-loving behavior...

At 28, Kathleen Cheng returns home to live with her single mother, Marissa, an immigrant from China. Her mother,to Katheen's surprise, is in love, and Kathleen helps her mother plan her wedding to a tech entrepreneur. Kathleen takes a job working for an unusual start-up, and as mother and daughter peel back the layers of their history, they come to a new understanding of how they can propel each other forward, and what they've done to hold each other...

Claire Powell’s life is turned upside down when her beloved husband admits to a “near affair.” But when Stephen accepts a partnership with an Atlanta law firm without consulting her and buys a historic Southern home sight-unseen—it pushes their already-fractured marriage to the breaking point. Claire’s world spirals, and she soon finds herself in a marriage she no longer wants, in a house she never asked for. In 1863, Charlotte Thursmann,...

Lucy's father is a minor league baseball player, a professional pitcher hoping to get called up to the majors, and Lucy inherited his passion for the game. But she's never played pitcher. She worries her skills would be compared to her dad's and she'd never measure up. And his pitching may mean big things for his career and their family, but it's also what keeps him away from home so much of the year. Sometimes, Lucy isn't sure what would be worse:...

Remy Wadia left India for the United States long ago, carrying his resentment of his mother with him. He has now returned to Bombay to adopt a baby--and to see his elderly mother for the first time in several years. Discovering that she is in the hospital, has stopped talking, and seems to have given up on life, he is struck with guilt for not realizing just how sick she has become. His unexpected appearance and assiduous attention revives her and...