Best of
Womens-Fiction

2000

Follow the Stars Home


Luanne Rice - 2000
    Her stories remind us how precious and fragile life can be—and that we must risk our hearts every day to know happiness. Follow the Stars Home is just such a novel: a story of poignancy and heartbreak, grace and courage.Being a good mother is never simple: each day brings new choices and challenges. For Dianne Robbins, being a devoted single mother has resulted in her greatest joy and her darkest hours. Weeks before her daughter was born, she and her husband, Tim McIntosh, received the news every parent fears. Tim had not reckoned on their child being anything less than perfect, and abruptly fled to a solitary existence on the sea, leaving Dianne with a newborn—almost alone.It was Tim's brother, Alan, the town pediatrician, who stood by Dianne and her exceptional daughter. Throughout years of waiting, watching, and caring, Alan hid his love for his brother's wife. But one of the many hard choices Dianne has made is to close her heart toward any man—especially one named McIntosh. It will take a very special twelve-year-old to remind them all that love comes in many forms and can be received with as much grace as it is given.As lyrical and moving as the poetry of nature, Follow the Stars Home is a miracle of storytelling that will take your breath away. If words alone can dare us to confront our fears and to choose joy over sorrow, then Luanne Rice's magnificent novel is a benediction and a call to celebrate our lives.

To Hear a Nightingale


Charlotte Bingham - 2000
    Fleeing to New York, she falls in love with handsome Irish racehorse trainer Tyrone Rosse, and when he marries her and takes her back to Claremore, his tumbledown mansion in Ireland, she is happy at last.Passionately in love as she is, Cassie can’t help but find the all-male world of Horseracing rather lonely. Yet there is much for her to learn, not least about the man she has married. Tyrone’s success depends heavily on the whims of wealthy horse owners, men — and women — whose demands are high. And Cassie must learn to endure the enmity of one in particular, who comes out of her buried past determined to destroy her.When tragedy strikes, it seems that Cassie must once again face rejection and lose her hard-won security. But although the chances of success are slim and the cost in personal happiness considerable, she fights against all odds to survive in a world closed against her.

The Ladies of Covington Send Their Love


Joan Medlicott - 2000
    Outspoken Hannah Parrish, harboring private fear that may change her life. Fragile Ameila Declose, shattered by devastating grief. Circumstance has brought these disparate women of "a certain age" to a Pennsylvania boardinghouse where three square meals and a sagging bed is the most any of them can look forward to. But friendship will take them on a starting journey to a rundown North Carolina farmhouse where the unexpected suddenly seems not only welcome, but delightfully promising. And with nothing more than a bit of adventure in mind, each woman will be surprised to find that they years they've reclaimed from the shadow of twilight will offer something far more rare: confidence, competence, and even another chance at love...

Disguised Blessing


Georgia Bockoven - 2000
    Engaged to an adoring, successful executive, she lives in a luxurious house, and her beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter, Linda, is on the brink of college and adulthood. Then, Catherine's rose-colored world is shattered. Her daughter is burned terribly in a freak accident, and just when Catherine needs him most, her fiancé abandons her. Now Catherine must call on every ounce of courage and strength she has to help her beloved daughter recover. Fortunately, she's got help in fire captain Rick Sawyer, an expert burn counselor. Ruggedly handsome, appealingly down-to-earth, Rick is like no man Catherine has ever met. But Catherine made the wrong choice before. How can she trust her emotions--especially when it's not just her heart at stake but her daughter's life, too?In the tradition of Barbara Delinsky comes this poignant, moving story of the bonds of family, the strength of love, and the courage to dare.

Child of Sin


Meg Hutchinson - 2000
    If it weren't for loyal Debbie, who follows her friend into exile, Lizzie would be friendless as well as destitute.The girls are blessed when they meet big-hearted Sadie Trent, who takes them in and cherishes them like her own. But even Sadie cannot protect the girls from the vicious malice of Abe Turley, who is determined to take his pleasure - and then his revenge; and from sinister Fleur Masson, who hides an evil trade behind the respectable facade of a fashion house. After such tribulations, can there ever be true happiness for a child of sin?

Falling


Linn B. Halton - 2000
    Part 1 of three novellas in the Angels Among Us seriesComing soon…Angels Among Us: ForbiddenAngels Among Us: Forever- See more at: http://www.harperimpulseromance.com/b...

No Place for a Woman


Meg Hutchinson - 2000
    But Edmund's violent refusal, and his attempts to cheat her father out of money force her to look elsewhere for happiness. Only when she is saved by Rafe Travers can she embrace true love at last.