. .Jill Strathern left town for the big city and never looked back-until she returned home years later to run a small law practice. It turns out her childhood crush, Mac Kendreck, a burned-out LAPD cop, has also come back to sleepy Los Lobos. Even though Mac had rejected her back in high school, Jill can't deny the attraction she still feels for him.Now Jill and Mac are tangled up in enough drama to satisfy the most jaded L.A. denizens-Mafia dons, social workers, angry exes and one very quirky eight-year-old can make even the simplest romance complicated. And it all goes to prove that when it comes to affairs of the heart, there's no place like home.

    She discovers that the fictional character that made her a bestselling author is hanging out at her apartment, and meantime a couple of her colleagues meet very untimely deaths.

    Talented, beautiful, just starting out with her first job, new apartment and boyfriend, she had the world in the palm of her hand--until a single phone call altered the course of her life forever. Overnight, she became the mother to her sister's three orphaned children, keeping a promise she never regretted making, even if it meant putting her own life indefinitely on hold.Now, at forty-two, as independent as ever, with a satisfying career and a family that means everything to her, Annie is comfortable being single and staying that way. She appears to have no time for anything else. With her nephew and nieces now young adults and confronting major challenges of their own, Annie is navigating a parent's difficult passage between lending them a hand and letting go, and suddenly facing an empty nest. The eldest, twenty-eight-year-old Liz, an overworked, struggling editor in a high-powered job at Vogue, has never allowed any man to come close enough to hurt her. Ted, at twenty-four a serious and hardworking law student, is captivated by a much older, much more experienced woman with children, who is leading him much further than he wants to go. And the youngest, twenty-one-year-old Katie--impulsive, artistic, rebellious--is an art student about to make a choice that will lead her to an entirely different world she is in no way prepared for but determined to embrace.Then, just when least expected, a chance encounter changes Annie's life yet again in the most unexpected direction of all.From Manhattan to Paris and all the way to Tehran, Family Ties is a novel that reminds us how challenging and unpredictable life can be, and that the powerful bonds of family are the strongest of all.

    Until she learns his gambling debt threatens her beloved farm and the child she wanted to protect from the rootless existence she grew up with.The last straw? Her husband s brother demands a meeting. When she charges into his office to tell him she won t let another Grainger screw up her life, the startlingly handsome, former oil rig wildcatter goes for the jugular. He s claimed legal guardianship of her daughter, bought her mortgage and he s moving in. The final email Mac received from his suicidal brother blamed Leah for everything. If it s the last thing he does, he plans to protect his niece. Even if it means using his millions to gain the upper hand. And hardening his heart against the beautiful Leah s protests of innocence. Yet something seems off. Leah is nothing like the uncaring woman his brother described. She s warm, loving and when a new threat to her child surfaces and she reaches out to him in need, his body won t let him say no. Even when her last secret forces him to make a decision that exposes his most closely guarded possession. His heart.Contains tug-your-heart love, raise-the-roof lust, a marriage of convenience and hot sex that will give a whole new meaning to the word wildcatter ."

    'Tis the season for mischief and matchmaking!A Family for Christmas by Jean BrashearNASCAR crew chief Gib Cameron gets a crash course in life's little surprises when he sees his first love, Cassie Wheeler.Just what - or who - has she been keeping under wraps?

    Talking about sex, that is....Ian Carlisle has already seduced Erica's imagination. Now he's trying for the rest of her....Erica knows firsthand that you can hide a lot behind a microphone. Although she's earned a reputation for discussing every aspect of sex on her show, she's never had to back it up...until a sexy mystery caller proves to be even more irresistible in person. Their on-the-air chemistry sizzles and they heat up the airwaves, debating any and all provocative issues possible. As the ratings soar, so does the sexual tension. But what will Ian do when he discovers Erica's not the sex expert she professes to be?

    In this classic tale, a woman is reunited with the man she has loved for years—and must reveal the secret that will jeopardize her chance for happiness at last. He arrived out of the blue—a flesh-and-blood phantom from the past in a sports car as sleek and sexy as Law Kincaid himself. The world-famous astronaut was as devastatingly attractive as the first time Marnie Hibbs had laid eyes on him, seventeen years before. But she well knew the perils of falling for a ladies’ man like Law. And this time she had someone besides herself to protect. Law is determined to discover who is sending him anonymous letters claiming he’d fathered a son he knows nothing about. Showing up at the Hibbs’s return address from the letters seemed like a step in the right direction. Marnie swears she isn’t the guilty party, but when Law meets her son, it’s like a one-two punch to his solar plexus. The boy is nearly the spitting image of Law. Law can’t remember sleeping with Marnie—then again, he can’t remember much about his crazy past. But there’s more to it than that: Marnie claims the boy isn’t biologically hers. As the tension between them becomes unbearable and the attraction undeniable, Marnie is forced to reveal a long-held secret...one that might cause her to lose both the boy she loves more than anyone—and the man she desires more than anything.From the Hardcover edition.

    The first step toward getting his life back together is meeting up with his beautiful magazine mogul girlfriend, Barbara, on Harbor Island in the Bahamas. But making it out of Florida proves to be more trouble than a gator with a toothache--and even deadlier. Zack barely leaves the state alive before he discovers Barbara's been kidnapped and her ex-lover, a photographer, murdered. Once again trouble has come knocking on Zack's door. But this time he's fighting back, with the help of a Royal Bahamanian police superintendent, his trusted mystical Taino Indian friend Boggy, and a cast of the most colorful characters ever to step into the warm Bahama sun.As unpredictable as island trade winds, Bahamarama twists and turns its way to a stunning conclusion and announces the arrival of a writer who is sure to surprise and delight mystery fans for years to come. Bahamarama is a 2005 Edgar Award Nominee for Best First Novel.

    Did I happen to mention that I caused a scandal in town when I got pregnant at seventeen? No one has ever forgiven me -- not my hard-hearted father, my brother Mr. Perfect, or my pregnant-for-the-first-time-at-forty sister who's gone totally hormonal.As if this weren't enough, who should also be back in town but Max Cooper, the former high school football star, who is my teenage son's father. And now he wants to date me?!Who ever thought that so many new horizons and second chances would open for me during one long, hot Texas summer?Kate

    Now the killer had resurfaced, but this time Jo had Levi Cooper to protect her. Even if he was disobeying direct orders from the U.S. Marshal service to do so….Levi had vowed years ago to always keep the innocent beauty safe. So when Jo insisted on finally getting some answers, Levi had no choice but to help her. But watching as the pain of the past threatened to crush a spirited Jo, Levi ignored every professional instinct and pulled her into his arms. After one night together, Levi was more determined than ever to close this case. Because that one night would never be enough….

    This short story was originally published in Joe Hill's collection 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS.Eddie Carroll is sick to death of editing the collection America's Best New Horror, sick of reading through second-rate stories in order to find the few "best new." But one afternoon he stumbles across a new story so remarkable that he soon embarks on a quixotic quest to find its author - a quest he may not live to regret.

    He was never acknowledged by his father-until now. Suddenly, Slade has inherited half of Whisper Creek Ranch, one of the most prosperous in Parable, Montana. That doesn't sit well with his half brother, Hutch, who grew up with all the rights of a Carmody. Including the affections of Joslyn Kirk, homecoming queen, rodeo queen, beauty queen-whom Slade has never forgotten but Joslyn is barely holding her head up these days as she works to pay back everyone her crooked stepfather cheated. With a town to protect-plus a rebellious teenage stepdaughter-Slade has his hands full. But someone has to convince Joslyn that she's responsible only for her own actions. Such as her effect on this lawman's guarded heart.

    It's calculating and completely devoid of any tenderness, just like the man himself. But things soon get very complicated as secrets and mistrust, jealousy and ultimatums take over, threatening Jessica's ability to maintain her emotional distance. Worst of all, the sizzling attraction between them is suddenly making this marriage of convenience decidedly inconvenient!