Beth is a spirited woman with mental retardation who spends nearly every day riding the buses in her pennsylvania city. The drivers, a lively group, are her mentors; her fellow passengers are her community. Beth, who lives independently and has a boyfriend, is a joyful, endearing, and feisty individual. Her single sister Rache;, a writer and professor, masks her emotional isolation and loneliness behind her hyperbusy schedule. When Beth asks Rachel...

Carly May was adopted and has never found out anything about her own biological roots, yet tracing genealogical roots for other families is how she makes a living. She has been hired by Winifred Simmons y Castillo, aunt of the governor of New Mexico, to write a history of her family, but only of the female descendants. This is highly unusual; then, when Carly arrives in Taos, she finds that the governor's father has died, and no one is truly mourning...

"Lost in the Forest is a novel set in the vineyards of Northern California that tells the story of a young girl who, in the wake of a tragic accident, seeks solace in a damaging love affair with a much older man." "Eva, a divorced and happily remarried mother of three, runs a small bookstore in a town north of San Francisco. When her second husband, John, is killed in a car accident, her family's fragile peace is once again overtaken by loss. Emily,...

In this memoir, Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of tragic loss--the death of her daughter, Paula. Recalling the past thirteen years from the daily letters the author and her mother, who lives in Chile, wrote to each other, Allende ... recounts the stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her that becomes a new kind of family. Throughout, Allende shares her thoughts...

At twenty-four, Gordon McKenna thinks he's already heard the worst news of his life when he learns that his sister Georgia is fatally ill. Then Georgia and her husband die in a car accident, leaving behind their baby daughter, Keefer. Gordon and his parents are able to survive their sorrow only by devoting themselves to the care of the beloved one-year-old. But the decision of who will raise Keefer is far from over, and soon Gordon's most basic assumptions...

The Kellehers' Maine property sits on three acres of sand and pine nestled between stretches of rocky coast. As three generations of Kelleher women descend on the property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears.

"Seventeen-year-old Aimee Roh has Sensory Time Warp Syndrome, a rare condition that causes her to time travel to a moment in her life when she smells something linked to that memory. Her dad is convinced she'll simply grow out of it if she tries hard enough, but Aimee's fear of vanishing at random has kept her from living a normal life. When Aimee disappears for nine hours into a memory of her estranged mom, a moment Aimee has never remembered before,...

It's been too long since the entire Quinn family has been able to celebrate the holidays under the same roof, but that's about to change. With Bart back safe and sound from Afghanistan, the Quinns are preparing for a holiday more joyous than any they've experienced in years. And Bart's safe return isn't the family's only good news: Kevin is enjoying married life with Isabelle; Patrick is getting back on his feet after paying his debt to society; Ava...

"For years things have run smoothly at Cavendon Hall, with very few quarrels, dramas, or upsets among the Inghams and the Swanns. But since the end of World War II, things have changed. The Secrets of Cavendon picks up in the summer of 1949, with the new generation of the estate at the forefront of the scandal and intrigue. With romance, betrayal, heartbreak, and possible murder threatening to tear them apart, the Inghams and Swanns will have to find...

When Lucy Jarrett returns to her childhood home in Lake of Dreams, N.Y., she learns that her brother, Blake, who's gone into the family business, and his girlfriend hope to drain a controversial marsh to construct a high-end property. Meanwhile, Lucy, who remains haunted by her father's death in a fishing accident years earlier, reconnects with her first boyfriend, Keegan Fall, now a successful glass artist. But when she sees something familiar in...