Twelve star signs.Sagittarius - Holly, a travel writer, visits Tuscany to research her next book. Seeking help when her car breaks down, she gets more than assistance when Dario, a vineyard owner, puts temptation in her path. Disappearing without explanation, he proves elusive. Bruised, Holly tries to put it behind her until a chance encounter brings her feelings to the surface again.Capricorn – Holly’s fiancé, Tom misses her while she is in Italy and turns to an internet chat room for solace. His construction business is under threat, but could foul play be at work?Gemini - Holly’s sister, Lucy, a serial man-eater finally meets her match, which puts her long-term relationship and career in jeopardy. Cheating she discovers, can have devastating consequences.Libra - Holly’s uncle Jack, an eminent prosecutor, juggles a difficult teenage son with his high profile career and finds himself lacking. When his son’s school work starts slipping, he decides he needs to take control, but it’s not long before the balls all come tumbling down and Jack finds his family on the wrong side of the law.One event binds them all…

    Amelia Stern became a pediatrician to cure children, not see them die. In a kind of bargain she strikes with herself and fate, she does everything she can to save other women's children, hoping to keep her own child safe from harm.It's never easy. Amelia's hospital life contrasts so starkly with her cozy domestic world that she can't help but bring it home sometimes. Always available for medical emergencies and the needs of her helpless patients, Amelia begins to ignore her own needs. And her family life and marriage fade in importance as she heroically fights to save all of her children.A tender and timely examination of a doctor's world, a mother's world, and a wife's world, OTHER WOMEN'S CHILDREN is a revealing X ray of the complications of women's lives today."Superb . . . A poignant literary page-turner." --The New York Times Book Review

    Includes the stories "Where I Live," "Harrison Bergeron," "Who Am I This Time?," "Welcome to the Monkey House," "Long Walk to Forever," "The Foster Portfolio," "Miss Temptation," "All the King's Horses," "Tom Edison's Shaggy Dog," "New Dictionary," "Next Door," "More Stately Mansions," "The Hyannis Port Story," and "D.P."

    A couple decent boats, and a deep knowledge of fishing and a man can get by without ever having to talk to another soul. It's a nice enough existence, until the one person who ties him to the world of the living, the reason he's still among them even if only on the fringes, asks him for help. Father Steady Capri knows quite a bit about helping others. But he is afraid Katie Quinn's problems may be beyond his abilities. Katie is a world-famous actress with an all too familiar story. Fame seems to have driven her to self-destruct. Steady knows the true cause of her desire to end her life is buried too deeply for him to reach. But there is one person who still may be able to save her from herself. He will show her an alternate escape, a way to write a new life. But Katie still must confront her past before she can find peace. Ultimately, he will need to leave his secluded home and sacrifice the serenity he's found to help her. From the Florida coast, they will travel to the French countryside where they will discover the unwritten story of both their pasts and their future.

    In fact, Panning’s last collection of short stories, Super America, was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. Enter this exciting new novel, the best work yet from a writer whose astute observations of American life are as honest as they are engaging.Butter is a coming of age tale set against the backdrop of small-town Minnesota during the 1970s and told from the perspective of an eleven-year-old girl, Iris, who learns from her parents that she is adopted. The story of Iris’s childhood is at first beguiling and innocent: hers is a world filled with bell-bottoms and Barbie dolls, Shrinky Dinks and Shaun Cassidy records, TV dinners and trips to grandma’s. But as her parents’ marriage starts to unravel, Iris grows more and more observant of disintegration all around her, and the simple cadences of her story quickly attain an unnerving tension as she wavers precariously between girlhood and adolescence. In the end, Iris’s story represents a profound meditation on growing up estranged in small town America—on being an outsider in a world increasingly averse to them. Passionate, lyrical, and disquieting, this intensely moving novel is a rich exploration of a crucial theme in American literature that will confirm Anne Panning’s place as a major figure in the world of contemporary fiction.

    By the end of the night, the parish priest, Father Leo Galvin, is dead.The lives of four teenagers - Tom, Conor, Tess and Nina - who had been drinking beer and smoking in a shed at the back of the house, will never be the same. But one of them carries a secret from that night that he has never shared. The friends go on to lead very different, separate lives - some quiet, others in the media spotlight - but the four remain connected by what happened during the time of the big snow.As the thirty-fifth anniversary of Father Galvin's murder approaches, Conor, now a senior police officer, becomes obsessed with the crime his father failed to solve. He believes that Tom can help identify Father Galvin's killer. But does Tom wish to break his silence? His dilemma draws the four friends back together, forcing them to question their lives and to confront their differences. But only Tom can decide whether Kilmitten's secret will finally be revealed.

    Life has given her every reason to mistrust people, but circumstances force her to trust her neighbor Mitch with watching Leonard while she goes off to work. Then one day Pearl drops her son off…and never returns. They are an unlikely pair: Mitch is a young, unattached business owner, and Leonard is a precocious, five-year-old boy. But together they must find a way to move forward in the wake of Pearl’s unexplained disappearance. Their bond as parent and child shifts and endures, even as Mitch must eventually surrender Leonard to a two-parent home.Is it possible to love the people who can’t always be there for us? The answers will surprise and move you. As their lives unfold, profound questions emerge about the nature of love and family. Ultimately, this novel’s richest reward is watching Mitch and Leonard grow up together, through the power and the magic of the human heart.

    After accidentally overhearing her so-called best friend verbally destroy her, Briana feels as if her world has fallen apart. Then she meets Jill and Miquelle and the three girls soon become inseparable. Join the girls as their friendship is put to the test through prejudices and misconceptions, a food fight, a car crash, missionary work, disastrous homecoming dates, crushes, first kisses, and everything else that comes with true friendship.

    This is a novel that will leave you taking stock of what's important in your own life . . . and never letting it go.It didn't start out as the worst day of Natalie Miller's life. At 30, she is moving up the political ladder, driven by raw ambition and ruthless determination. As the top aide to New York's powerful female senator, she works hard, stays late, and enjoys every bit of it, even if the bills she's pushing through do little to improve the lives of the senator's constituents. And if her boyfriend isn't the sexiest guy alive, at least he's a warm body to come home to.Then he announces he's leaving. But that news is barely a blip compared to what Natalie's doctor tells her: She has breast cancer. And she can't cure it by merely being headstrong. Now the life Natalie must change is her own.All her energy, what little of it she has left, must go into saving herself from a merciless disease. So when she's not lying on the sofa recovering from her treatments and indulging in a curious addiction to The Price Is Right, she realizes it's time to take a hard look at her choices. She begins by tracking down the five loves-of-her-life to assess what went wrong. Along the way, she questions her relationships with her friends, her parents, her colleagues, the one who got away, and, most important, with herself: Why is she so busy moving through life that she never stops to embrace it?As Natalie sleuths out the answers to these questions, her journey of self-discovery takes her down new paths and to unexplored places. And she learns that sometimes when life is at its most unexpected, it's not what you lose that makes you who you are . . . it's what you find.

    The Empty House is about being in love with the wrong man; The Day of the Storm is about discovering family—and its secrets; and Under Gemini is about deception. A wonderful new omnibus edition of three full-length novels by one of America's favorites.

    We Follow The Ups And Downs Of Mr Starlight's Career As He Heads To The Bright Lights Of America, As Seen Through The Eyes Of Cled, His Brother.

    His two children work abroad and he is alone after the funeral and grows deliberately recluse. A few weeks later he’s puzzled and annoyed when a lady arrives at his home delivering a schnauzer puppy. Called Rosie, it was ordered by his wife to be delivered to him after her death, together with a note from her. His wife had always wanted a dog but Will didn’t like them and had never agreed. But after a very difficult initial spell, he gradually grows to love Rosie and appreciate the companionship his little new friend brings to his life. Rosie also helps him overcome his grief and appreciate more than ever the wise and loving foresight of his wife. Two travel adventures follow in Switzerland and Austria where doggie-centred dramas ensue - including the injury and loss of Rosie. All dogs have a small monetary market value and many are worth nothing at all. But to their loving owners they are priceless.

    This enjoyable read handles with heart and a light touch such issues as marriage, family, home ownership, illness, and death.

    The bridge holds many secrets.Two hurting women face each other on this night, destinies merging. Mistakes have been made, people have been hurt, and these two are the victims. After the many years, they are ready to give up, ready to end it all. But one thing keeps them from giving up.The bridge holds many secrets, and the city breeds scum. But together, they can heal and help.This passionate, emotional story about the power of forgiveness takes you far away, to a city you'll always remember and never forget. Follow me to the place where mercy and grace mingle, where love and pain go hand-in-hand. Follow me to the bridge.

    Morty Martinez is known in the industry of estate liquidation as a "feeler."  If you were to look him up in the Brooklyn yellow pages, he would be listed under "home content removal," but his real job is looking for stashes of cash crammed into tin cans that have been left out of wills, kept out of banks, and hidden away for decades by the frugal elderly suspicious of ATMs and the IRS.  When Morty hits upon the biggest score of his life, over $800,000.00, he knows that news travels fast and he must operate quickly and carefully to safeguard his booty, his life and his destiny as patrician of a seaside Mexican village.  But what he doesn't know is that there are others after the same buried treasure, including the recently paroled prison assassin Danny Kessel.