The Thin Pink Line


Lauren Baratz-Logsted - 2003
    Only, not in the conventional sense. It all began when Jane missed her period. Whether it was the clouds in the sky or a major case of pregnancy envy (this year's concern), Jane doesn't know. She only knows that she told her best male friend, and began to believe it. Until she got her period and realized she never was. Pregnant.But that brief glimpse into the other world -- the world of smiling faces and courteous men -- was just too beautiful not to be a part of . . .and so Jane told a little white lie to her live-in boyfriend, and crossed the line. With the help of a pink Magic Marker she closed the gap that separated her from the positively perfect pregos.Enter Jane's world, one of deception and success, Mr. Wrong and Mr. Right, Nutrition Police and tilted uteruses, baby showers and celebrity obstetricians. As Jane spins closer to her due date, she's got a lot of soul-searching to do -- not to mention an appointment with reality . . .

Tempting Fate


Jane Green - 2014
    They have two teenaged daughters. They have built a life together. Forty-three year old Gabby is the last person to have an affair. She can't relate to the way her friends desperately try to cling to the beauty and allure of their younger years…And yet, she too knows her youth is quickly slipping away. She could never imagine how good it would feel to have a handsome younger man show interest in her--until the night it happens. Matt makes Gabby feel sparkling, fascinating, alive--something she hasn't felt in years. What begins as a long-distance friendship soon develops into an emotional affair as Gabby discovers her limits and boundaries are not where she expects them to be. Intoxicated, Gabby has no choice but to step ever deeper into the allure of attraction and attention, never foreseeing the life-changing consequences that lie ahead. If she makes one wrong move she could lose everything--and find out what really matters most.A heartfelt and complex story, Tempting Fate will have readers gripped until they reach the very last page, and thinking about the characters long after they put the book down.

Death Visits the Hair Salon


Amy Andersen - 2016
    When Marion and Ruth open their salon, just as they do every morning, they’re horrified to discover a corpse seated in a styling chair. The police determine that the cause of death is strangulation. The murderer has to be someone from Chippingville, someone who knows Marion and Ruth. In their quest to discover the truth, they receive the unexpected help of their hair salon's clients, and that of the attractive village doctor, Glenn Steel, who has a secret. If you like short mystery stories, get hooked with the first book in the Marion Fox mystery series. Marion is a character that will amaze you with her ingenuity and tenacity.

Cupcakes and Cyanide


P.L. Harris - 2018
    One sweet taste could be her last. Charlotte McCorrson has spent her entire life building her business, CC’s Simply Cupcakes. The town of Ashton Point is her home and she’s garnered a reputation of stellar service and delightful pastries, one nibble at a time. But everything isn’t as sweet in the sleepy, coastal town as Charlotte would like to think. She is in for a rude awakening and no amount of sugar will make this medicine go down any smoother. After catering a large town-wide event, Ashton Point’s morning newspaper fills Charlotte McCorrson with an icy sense of dread. The headlines scream Cupcake Killer! and put the blame squarely on CC’s Simply Cupcakes. When bodies begin to pile up behind her confectionary goodies, Charlotte must prove that while her cupcakes are delicious, they aren’t literally to die for—before she ends up in jail for a crime she didn’t commit. This is Book 1 in The Cupcake Capers Series and may contain elements of humour, drama and danger. However, it will definitely not contain any of the following potentially lethal substances: Swearing or profanity. Gore or graphic scenes. Cliff-hangers or unsolved endings.

Breathe Again


M.J. Fields - 2017
    This is the story Tatum is working on during her time in Detroit. Annie is on a journey. She’s lost hope, love, and a reason to believe. All is not lost, all is not gone, and it’s time for Annie to learn to breathe again. Jonathon is caught up in his work, life, and day-to-day existing. When is the last time he was able to just breathe? Two people broken brought together to learn to live again. The writing duo of MJ Fields and Chelsea Camaron team up to bring you a hot, quick read that is part of the story for Tatum Longley and Michelangelo Mazzini in Use Me (Caldwell Brothers 4). While this story is written by our main characters in Use Me, it is not necessary to read Use Me or the entire Caldwell Brothers series to follow this story. Use Me is a standalone novel.

Losing Your Head


Clare Kauter - 2015
    My nemesis has been accused of offing his billionaire uncle for an inheritance, and as much as I’d love to see James McKenzie rot in prison, there are two problems.One: He definitely didn’t do it. (Probably.)Two: In exchange for proving his innocence, he’ll pay up big. And I simply can’t resist his… cash. I have to find the killer somehow, because the reward money isn’t the only thing on the line. If I don’t catch the murderer before they catch me –I might just lose my head. Caution: Contains swearing, occasional inappropriate jokes and men with seriously hot surfaces. You have been warned.

Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream


Greg Sarris - 1994
    She spent her life teaching others how the spirit speaks through the Dream, how the spirit heals, and how the spirit demands to be heard.Greg Sarris weaves together stories from Mabel McKay's life with an account of how he tried, and she resisted, telling her story straight—the white people's way. Sarris, an Indian of mixed-blood heritage, finds his own story in his search for Mabel McKay's. Beautifully narrated, Weaving the Dream initiates the reader into Pomo culture and demonstrates how a woman who worked most of her life in a cannery could become a great healer and an artist whose baskets were collected by the Smithsonian.Hearing Mabel McKay's life story, we see that distinctions between material and spiritual and between mundane and magical disappear. What remains is a timeless way of healing, of making art, and of being in the world.

Out of Options


Dianne Ascroft - 2019
     A dry district, a shocking secret, a missing person. When Lois Stone’s friend, Beth Darrow, arranges to meet her to reveal an astonishing discovery, Lois’s curiosity is piqued. Then Beth doesn’t keep their lunch date and Lois becomes worried. What has happened to her friend? Middle-aged widow Lois is settling into life on her own in her neighbourhood and in the library where she works, and she is just about coping with her fear of strangers after her husband was mugged and died in the park at the end of their street. But her quiet existence is rocked when her friend and fellow local historical society researcher, Beth, arranges to meet her to reveal an exciting and shocking discovery she has made about the history of prohibition in West Toronto Junction, the last dry area in Toronto, and then goes missing before she can share her secret with Lois. There isn’t any proof that Beth is missing so the police won’t actively search for her. Only Lois and Beth’s niece Amy are convinced that Beth’s disappearance is very out of character, and they are worried about her. Where has Beth gone? Is she in danger? And, if she is, who might want to harm her and why? Lois knows she must find the answers to these questions fast if she wants to help and protect her friend. And so begins a weekend of skulking in the park, apple and cinnamon pancakes, familiar faces staring out of old newspapers, calico cats, shadows on the windowpane, and more than one person who might want Beth to disappear from the quiet, leafy streets of the historic and staunchly dry West Toronto Junction neighbourhood. A tale for fans of Cindy Bell, Leighann Dobbs, Dianne Harman and Kathi Daley.

Charm School Quickie


Lynn Garcia Carmer - 2021
    . .The next few hours will get her a super-sexy boyfriend who makes her toes curl; a fledgling charm school that teaches adult classes; and the chance to teach a real and raunchy class on oral instruction.She just has to figure out how to teach techniques like the Sucker and Pucker and the Ball Juggler, while keeping the uninhibited class under control! Brynn Calvo never gets what she wants. . . She's watching Caelen instruct the down-and-dirty techniques from way in the back of the room, mortified that she may have to teach next.Hopefully, no one will notice her swiping at her phone, gazing longingly at the sexiest man she's ever seen: Alexei Park--a delicious blend of tattoos, broodiness, and stacks and stacks of muscles.When the fickle hand of fate, or was that her sister, chooses her to teach the next class, she has no one to turn to for help. Or does she?

Between the Covers: The Book Babes' Guide to a Woman's Reading Pleasures


Margo Hammond - 2008
    Between the Covers is organized around their wide-ranging curiosity—about themselves, friends and family, the larger world—and their concerns, from health to sex to managing their finances. With such sections as “Babes We Love” (Role Models Real and Imagined), “The Babe Inside” (Focusing on Body and Soul), and “Love, Sex & Second Chances,” this unique collection of fiction and nonfiction reflects how women really read.

Women Within


Anne Leigh Parrish - 2017
    Constance Maynard, fierce, independent and proud, reflects on her long life promoting women’s rights through her career as a professor of history. Eunice Fitch, the perfect caregiver, is often unlucky in love, yet even in middle age refuses to give up searching for the perfect man. Sam Clark is a young aide with a passion for poetry, and small beautiful things, but at war with her own large, ungainly physique. All together they weave a tapestry as rich and complex as the female experience itself.

The Vineyard


Barbara Delinsky - 2000
    To her family, Natalie Seebring is a woman who prizes appearances. She is exquisitely mannered, socially adept, a supportive wife, and head of a successful wine-producing enterprise. So when she announces plans to marry a vineyard employee mere months after the death of her husband of fifty-eight years, her son and daughter are stunned. Faced with their disapproval, Natalie decides to write a memoir. There is much that her children don't know about her life -- about her love of the vineyard, her role in fighting to build it up, and the sacrifices she made for her family. Olivia Jones is a dreamer, living vicariously through the old photographs she restores. She and her daughter, Tess, have no one but themselves, so they cling to the fantasy that a big, happy family is out there somewhere, just waiting to welcome them home. When Olivia is hired by Natalie to help with her memoir, a summer at Natalie's beautiful vineyard by the sea seems the perfect opportunity to live out that fantasy -- an elegant home by the shore, a salary that allows her to hire a tutor for her dyslexic daughter, a job that is creative, hours spent with a woman who has led a charmed life. But all is not as it seems, Olivia and Tess discover when they arrive at Asquonset, the vineyard in Rhode Island. While welcoming, Natalie is not quite the mothering type, as is quickly evident in the hostility her daughter and son have toward her -- it's a hostility that Olivia must buffer. Another dose of stark reality comes in the form of Simon Burke, who runs the vineyard's day-to-day operation and sees in Olivia and Tess an unwelcome reminder of the wife and daughter he tragically lost. And then there is the cruel reality of Olivia's own life -- the mother who never wanted her, and a career that has floundered. Natalie's story, intended for her own children, enlightens Olivia as well. The lives of these two women of different generations, parallel in so many ways, become, in The Vineyard, a powerful and moving story as the fantasy of an idealized life, complete with perfect romance, crashes headlong into reality.

Cape Maybe


Carol Fragale Brill - 2013
    For Katie, navigating life and love is trickier than walking barefoot on a beach full of broken shells. Maybe Katie will break the family cycle of alcoholism. Maybe she won’t. Set against the backdrop of picturesque, seaside Cape May, Cape Maybe traces the push and pull of Katie’s conflicting love for her erratic mother and steadfast grandfather, and her ever-growing attraction to her best friend, Dennis. Katie’s life is shaped by her vow to be nothing like her alcoholic mother. Her reckless teenage choices test the strength of family ties, friendship, and first love. Ultimately about hard-earned hope, what we inherit, and what we choose to let go, Katie discovers what she never expected about motherhood, forgiving yourself, and creating your own second chances.

Bun in the Oven


Jamie Knight - 2019
    Jamie Knight promises to always bring you a happy ever after filled with plenty of heat. And never any cheating or cliffhangers!

Marked by the Demigod


Alessa Winters - 2019
    The last thing after that is to find out that he’s actually a Demi god on the run from his murderous brothers who view him as the last thing in their way from ruling the world. Now thrust into a world full of gods and ghosts and dryads and succubi, Aimes must learn how to navigate the craziness around her, keep her steamy relationship with her new husband a secret, and struggle to keep them both alive. But when his brothers start to kill other people in the community, slowly drawing closer and closer to everything Aimes holds dear, she is faced with the choice: does she leave with her new husband, leaving everyone she loves to face their own fates, or does she team up with him to take the murderers down?