The Pastor's Wife


Jennifer AlLee - 2009
    But when "the other woman" in her marriage turned out to be her husband's congregation, she ran. Six years later, she's back in the small community of Granger, Ohio, for the reading of a will that names both her and Nick as beneficiaries. Now, Maura must face the husband - and the congregation - she left behind.

The Children of Main Street


Merilyn Howton Marriott - 2018
    Broken. Suffering. Learning to survive. These are not the clients Katie Collier expected to help when she went to work at the mental-health clinic.But Katie and her husband can't have children of their own, so her natural compassion flows. Still, Katie wonders why God gives babies to some women who seem unwilling to care, feed, love, shelter—even hold, and leaves other women barren.Then one day it happens. A little girl named Bailey walks into Main Street Clinic … walks straight into Katie’s broken heart.Forced to choose between her husband and her career, Katie fights to hold onto both in order to save Bailey. When her husband gives her the ultimate ultimatum, Katie finds the children of Main Street are not the only ones feeling cast out and lost.Written for the General Market (G): Contains little or no; sexual dialogue or situations, violence, or strong language.

Mead Mountain: A Matthew 17:20 Story


B.K. Dell - 2017
    World-famous Christian leader and bestselling author, Riley Ellison invites the press to join him in exactly two weeks, at which time he will tell Mead Mountain to move on live television, and in accordance with the promises revealed in Scripture, he claims it will move. The lines are drawn and everyone must choose a side. If the mountain moves at Ellison’s command, no one could reasonably continue to doubt God’s existence, and America will enter into the next Great Awakening. If it does not move, pews will be emptied, believers will be shamed into silence, and the faithful will be made a laughingstock worldwide. In the meantime, Ellison continues to do what he always does: attempt to shine Christ's joy into a dark and broken world. He encounters a gun-toting drunk, a God-hating celebrity, and a desperate woman trying to save the life of her son. Will Ellison's relentless pursuit to emulate Jesus act as a transforming force in the lives around him, or will the horrendous pain of this world cause Riley's spark to finally burn out? And will any of it be enough to overcome the biases of the reporter assigned to his story? It will take a miracle. "...One of the most uplifting and beautiful books I've ever read. This book is filled with the name of Jesus Christ and totally shows God's glory..." "...Best Christian fiction I have read! The book is riveting, thought provoking, and relevant to today..." "...I like Christian fiction, but it often follows a formula. This book breaks that mold, and will change your heart if you let it..." "...It was a story I will want to read again and there will be underlined parts in red..." "...This book took my breath away and made my heart swell. So many beautiful examples of what would happen if we lived out Christ-like love..." "...A real encouragement to me as a Christian, we must not lose hope in a world that seems to be falling apart. Our Heavenly Father sees all and is in complete control of our circumstances. Wow, the call to love is so real and we are able to love thru Christ!..." "...I doubt my little review will mean much, but if you are in a place where you feel God does not hear your prayers, read it..." "...I'll be thinking about this one for a long time..." "...Whatever you think is going to happen to that mountain, you'll be surprised...".

The Best of Us


Sarah Pekkanen - 2013
    Tina is drowning under the demands of mothering four young children. Allie needs to escape from the shattering news about an illness that runs in her family. Savannah is carrying the secret of her husband’s infidelity. And, finally, there’s Pauline, who spares no expense to throw her husband an unforgettable birthday celebration, hoping it will gloss over the cracks that have already formed in their new marriage.The week begins idyllically, filled with languorous days and late nights of drinking and laughter. But as a hurricane approaches the island, turmoil builds, forcing each woman to re-evaluate everything she’s known about the others—and herself.

Heart's Design


JoAnn Durgin - 2015
    Seth can’t let go of the past. Recent Wellesley College graduate Caroline Prescott’s future is set in stone. After Harvard Law School, she’ll step into place beside her two brothers in their father’s legendary Boston law firm. Caroline secretly longs for the quiet, peaceful life and a career designing jewelry with precious gemstones instead of life as a hotshot Boston attorney. On a hiking trip with her two best friends weeks before entering law school, Caroline meets Seth Barnes in charming Evergreen, Maine. A mineralogist and part-time college professor, Seth drives a truck sporting an I DIG ROCKS license plate, lives in hiking clothes, flannel shirts and jeans, and loves Jesus. Two years later, when they meet again, Caroline and Seth confront both the promise of possibility and the pain of past heartaches. What’s a girl to do when the man she secretly loves has a serious girlfriend and seems determined to hold her at arm’s length? And what’s a guy to do when he can’t stay away from a certain irresistible woman no matter how hard he tries? Does the Lord have His own design for their hearts? Heart’s Design, a story filled with faith, friendship, love, family, and the power of forgiveness.

Christmas Keepsakes: The Christmas Shoes & The Christmas Blessing


Donna VanLiere - 2013
    His family is living a simple yet full life, struggling to hold on to every moment that they have together. Robert is a successful attorney who has everything-but has lost sight of what truly matters. When their paths cross on Christmas Eve, Robert is shopping for a family he hardly knows, and Nathan is shopping for the mother he is soon to lose. Through their meeting they will learn that the smallest things can make all the difference."Has precious gifts for all of us."-The Washington Times The Christmas Blessing Nathan is now a medical student in his third year, and he realizes that there are still things to be learned about faith, blessings, and sacrifice. Lessons he will learn from Meghan Sullivan-a young woman born with a hole in her heart that has not kept her from becoming a champion runner. And lessons learned from a young boy named Charlie, who teaches him how to live with true courage. Together, they will help guide Nathan through one of the most challenging times of his life..."A story of tragedy and, of course, ultimate triumph."-New York Daily News

Desire of my Heart


Heidi Gray McGill - 2020
    How could God grant her the desire of her heart, then do nothing to prevent it from being taken away? Can she wait for God’s perfect timing, or will she take matters into her own hands…again? About to age out of a Missouri orphanage in 1858, shy Rachel listens with terror as the orphanage matron tells her she’s practically auctioning her off to the highest bidder for her hand in marriage. Rachel prays, asking God to help her and her younger brother Charlie escape, but how? When God provides what Rachel believes to be her liberator, the seed of an idea sets in motion an adventure that will bring happiness and heartbreak and nearly cost Rachel her health. When trouble comes, it comes in a big way and those who care for Rachel wonder if she will ever recover. Rachel and Charlie face danger and sorrow, see new territory, and grow in their faith. They just might even find the desire of their hearts and realize God had bigger plans than they ever imagined.

The Remedy for Regret


Susan Meissner - 2005
    When an old friend asks Tess Longren to accompany her to their childhood home to resolve a situation left unsettled 15 years ago, Tess falsely imagines that by helping her friend find peace, she will find contentment for herself.

The Writing Desk


Rachel Hauck - 2017
    Now that her second book is due, she’s locked in fear. Can she repeat her earlier success or is she a fraud who has run out of inspiration?With pressure mounting from her publisher, Tenley is weighted with writer’s block. But when her estranged mother calls asking Tenley to help her through chemotherapy, she packs up for Florida where she meets handsome furniture designer Jonas Sullivan and discovers the story her heart’s been missing.A century earlier, another woman wrote at the same desk with hopes and fears of her own. Born during the Gilded Age, Birdie Shehorn is the daughter of the old money Knickerbockers. Under the strict control of her mother, her every move is decided ahead of time, even whom she’ll marry. But Birdie has dreams she doesn’t know how to realize. She wants to tell stories, write novels, make an impact on the world. When she discovers her mother has taken extreme measures to manipulate her future, she must choose between submission and security or forging a brand new way all on her own.Tenley and Birdie are from two very different worlds, but fate has bound them together in a way time cannot erase.

Miramar Bay


Davis Bunn - 2017
    He had not come all this way just to break another woman's heart. When Connor Larkin boards a late night bus in downtown LA, he's not sure where he's going or for what he's looking. Putting his acting career and his fiancee on hold, he's searching for something he can't define, a part of himself he lost on the road to success. Once he dreamed of being a singer in the classic style of Sinatra and Bennett. But his lean good looks soon landed him in movies as the sexy bad guy and in the arms of a famous young heiress. Now, with his wedding day approaching, Connor finds himself stepping into the sleepy seaside town of Miramar Bay where one remarkable woman inspires him to rethink all of his choices.She needed to know his secrets, and to see if he'd tell her the truth. Sylvie Cassick is nothing like the pretentious starlets back in Hollywood. The daughter of a nomadic painter, she's had to work hard for everything unlike Connor's fiancee. When Connor hears familiar music drifting out of Sylvie's restaurant, he feels as if he's finally come home. Sylvie isn't sure what to think when this impossibly handsome stranger applies for a waiter's job. Yet once he serenades her customers and slowly works his way into her heart she realizes there's more to him than he's letting on. And Connor realizes he's found his destiny. But as the outside world encroaches, threatening their fragile bond, Connor will have to risk losing everything to gain the life he longs for, and be the man Sylvie deserves.Filled with bittersweet longing, Miramar Bay is an unforgettable journey through doubt and desire to the truth that can be discovered along the road less taken.

The Christmas Card


Amanda Tru - 2015
     Cole Nikols had spent months planning the perfect night for his girlfriend, Sarah Whitman. But when Sarah abandons their date for yet another emergency with her ever-demanding charitable work, everything falls apart. Now, instead of planning their future, Cole is worried he’s ruined any chance he had with Sarah. Wanting to prove his love for Sarah, Cole writes a Christmas card. He sends it to everyone he knows, spreading the message of Sarah’s generous life and dedication to God, while asking others for help in his project of winning the woman he loves. However, never does he imagine the far reach and impact one Christmas card can make. Landing in the hands of so many different people, it produces a chain that changes lives forever. As the Christmas card’s stories come full circle, will Cole’s plan work? Will a Christmas card be enough to win Sarah’s heart? 'The Christmas Card' is a Inspirational Romance novella.

The Island


Elin Hilderbrand - 2010
     Birdie Cousins has thrown herself into the details of her daughter Chess's lavish wedding, from the floating dance floor in her Connecticut back yard to the color of the cocktail napkins. Like any mother of a bride-to-be, she is weathering the storms of excitement and chaos, tears and joy. But Birdie, a woman who prides herself on preparing for every possibility, could never have predicted the late-night phone call from Chess, abruptly announcing that she's cancelled her engagement. It's only the first hint of what will be a summer of upheavals and revelations. Before the dust has even begun to settle, far worse news arrives, sending Chess into a tailspin of despair. Reluctantly taking a break from the first new romance she's embarked on since the recent end of her 30-year marriage, Birdie circles the wagons and enlists the help of her younger daughter Tate and her own sister India. Soon all four are headed for beautiful, rustic Tuckernuck Island, off the coast of Nantucket, where their family has summered for generations. No phones, no television, no grocery store - a place without distractions where they can escape their troubles. But throw sisters, daughters, ex-lovers, and long-kept secrets onto a remote island, and what might sound like a peaceful getaway becomes much more. Before summer has ended, dramatic truths are uncovered, old loves are rekindled, and new loves make themselves known.

The Last Time They Met


Anita Shreve - 2001
    Seen through the eyes of young Linda Fallon and the young man who loves her.Anita Shreve, the bestselling author of The Pilot's Wife, returns with a dazzling new novel about love, forgiveness, and paths not followed. Linda Fallon encounters her former lover, Thomas Janes, at a literary festival where both have been invited to give readings from their work. It has been years since their paths crossed, and in that time Thomas has become a kind of literary legend. His renown is enhanced by his elusiveness; for most of the past decade, he has remained in seclusion following a devastating loss. This is no chance meeting. Thomas learned that Linda was reading at the festival and chose this moment to reestablish contact with a woman he passionately pursued years earlier. Their affair was disastrous, and a turning point in both their lives. Neither the intensity of their relationship nor the damage it did has ever been far from his memory. From the moment they speak, The Last Time They Met unfolds the story of Linda and Thomas in an extraordinary way: it travels back into their past, bypassing layers of memory and interpretation to present their earlier encounters with unshakable immediacy. In Africa, when Linda and Thomas were twenty-seven, and in Massachusetts, when they were in high school, the novel re-creates love at its exhilarating pinnacle - the kind of intense connection that becomes the true north against which all relationships are measured. Moving backward through time, The Last Time They Met traces the extraordinary resonance a single choice, even a single word, can have over the course of a lifetime. At the same time, the novel creates an almost unbearable mystery, a mystery that can only be understood fully in the novel's final pages, in the eyes of young Linda Fallon and the young man who loves her. With a master's control of phrase, observation, emotion, and character, Anita Shreve has written a beautiful and unforgettable exploration of intimacy, loss, and lifelong desire.

Sweet Olive


Judy Christie - 2013
    She would rather be anywhere than Samford, Louisiana, the small southern town where she once spent the worst month of her life. Most of all, she wants to move on to the art gallery job that is waiting for her in Denver. To fulfill the obligation she feels to her uncle and get on with the life she dreams of, Camille needs to entice a group of rural landowners to sell their mineral rights---and allow use of their precious water for the drilling of natural gas. Instead, she finds herself drawn to the local folk art created by those same landowners, and attracted to Marsh Cameron, the attorney representing them. Camille must decide whether family obligation---and her own plans for her future---are more important than the lives and tradition of this small community.

Tending Roses


Lisa Wingate - 2001
    Her sensitive and able crafting of language, character, and situation pierces through the turmoil and stress of everyday life, illuminating its message with almost painful intensity: "Maybe you should start wanting less." Wingate's words resonate as readers are introduced to Kate Bowman, her architect husband Ben, and their infant son. Kate, on maternity leave from her high-profile Chicago job, has been given the unenviable task of convincing her increasingly frail and forgetful grandmother that she can no longer live alone on the Missouri farm that has been her home for almost half a century. Kate and Ben are struggling to deal with mounting debts and medical bills as they strive to build a lifestyle, rather than a life. Frustrated by dealing with her stubborn, if well-meaning, grandmother, Kate finds solace and clarity in Grandma Rose's handwritten journal. The simple stories of earlier, less complicated times renew Kate's understanding of the truly important things in life. Through the journal, Kate discovers the essence of the remarkable Grandma Rose and is forced to reevaluate her priorities and those of her family. Simply put, Wingate's aim is to exhort readers to "stop and smell the roses." The daily race to achieve and have more, more, more is clearly and all-too-accurately portrayed in these pages. I guarantee readers will stop to think of their own lives and where they are spending their energies. Let's hope Lisa Wingate has other relatives as inspiring as Grandma Rose for future novels.