Driven to Distraction


Stuart Bone - 2016
    Apparently it’s fine for Scrimshaw Travel to make last minute amendments to the holiday without incurring any penalties or reducing the price in any way. That’s what the indifferent courier tells him on day one of the tour as she arrives in a clapped-out, old coach being driven by a partially-sighted driver. With the spa hotel replaced by a rundown guest house staffed by a neurotic manager, decrepit waitress and under-sexed, Italian waiter there doesn’t appear to be much of the brochure-described holiday left. Thank goodness for Angela, the rather lovely woman Derek pals up with on the journey down. She might just make the trip bearable. If only the other members of the group would leave them alone long enough to get to know each other, but Derek has always had the ability to attract the eccentric characters to him and he can’t escape them. Still, perhaps they’ll surprise him as he learns about their lives and secrets as they move from one hilarious excursion to another. And maybe Angela will provide one or two surprises herself. Driven to Distraction is a fun romp through the English countryside with characters finding love and friendship while travelling at twenty miles an hour. (Well, it is a clapped-out, old coach).

In the Blink of an Eye


Jesse Blackadder - 2017
    Feeling like foreigners in this land of sun and surf, they're still adjusting to work, school, and life in a sprawling purple clapboard house, when one morning, tragedy strikes.In the devastating aftermath, the questions fly. What really happened? And who's to blame? Determined to protect his family, Finn finds himself under the police and media spotlight. Guilty and enraged, Bridget spends nights hunting answers in the last place imaginable. Jarrah — his innocence lost — faces a sudden and frightening adulthood where nothing is certain.In the Blink of an Eye is a haunting, redemptive story about forgiveness and hope.

If You Must Know


Jamie Beck - 2020
    Amanda follows the rules—at the school where she works; in her community; and as a picture-perfect daughter, wife, and mother-to-be. Erin follows her heart—in love and otherwise—living a bohemian lifestyle on a shoestring budget and honoring her late father’s memory with a passion for music and her fledgling bath-products business.The sisters are content leading separate but happy lives in their hometown of Potomac Point until everything is upended by lies that force them to confront unsettling truths about their family, themselves, and each other. For sisters as different as these two, building trust doesn’t come easily—especially with one secret still between them—but it may be the only way to save their family.

Souls Set Free


Kimmie Easley - 2012
    Actually, she’s not loving at all. Unable to move on from a tormented childhood of abuse she’s now at risk of losing her own family. Hopeless, she goes to bed every night secretly longing to not wake up the next morning. That all changes the day her mother is murdered while living on the streets. Emma must now face all of the pain she has spent years trying to numb with pills and alcohol when she is forced to travel back to her hometown to identify her mother’s body. If only it were that easy…Will reliving the abuse all over again help Emma forgive her mother or send her spiraling back into a world she fought so hard to survive?

Over Easy


Pamela Ford - 2016
    What could possibly go wrong?Allie Parker loves being a dog groomer, but her overachieving family wants her to go to vet school. She’s convinced the only way to get them off her back is to marry a successful man – if only she could find one.So when she learns that hotel continental breakfast is filled with eligible bachelors, she squeezes into her sister’s upscale clothes and pretends to be on a business trip. Before she’s taken her last bite of syrup-laden waffle, she’s met the perfect guy. Everything is fabulous.That’s when everything starts to fall apart. The new man disappears, leaving Allie with a briefcase full of diamonds. A menacing stranger comes to claim it. And Allie is forced to go on the run with a row of dogs in tow.But as she scrambles to uncover the truth so she can return to her regular life, can fate be about to deliver the happily ever after she’s been looking for?OVER EASY is the first book in THE CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST CLUB series – feel-good, laugh out loud romantic comedies about friendship and love.

Midnight Beach: A Port Stirling Mystery


Kay Jennings - 2020
    

The Summer Place


Jennifer WeinerJennifer Weiner
    When her twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Sarah Danhauser is shocked. But the wheels are in motion. Headstrong Ruby has already set a date (just three months away!) and spoken to her beloved safta, Sarah’s mother Veronica, about having the wedding at the family’s beach house on Cape Cod. Sarah might be worried, but Veronica is thrilled to be bringing the family together one last time before putting the big house on the market. But the road to a wedding day usually comes with a few bumps. Ruby has always known exactly what she wants, but as the wedding date approaches, she finds herself grappling with the wounds left by the mother who walked out when she was a baby. Veronica ends up facing unexpected news, thanks to her meddling sister, and must revisit the choices she made long ago, when she was a bestselling novelist with a different life. Sarah’s twin brother, Sam, is recovering from a terrible loss, and confronting big questions about who he is—questions he hopes to resolve during his stay on the Cape. Sarah’s husband, Eli, who’s been inexplicably distant during the pandemic, confronts the consequences of a long ago lapse from his typical good-guy behavior. And Sarah, frustrated by her husband, concerned about her stepdaughter, and worn out by challenges of life during quarantine, faces the alluring reappearance of someone from her past and a life that could have been. When the wedding day arrives, lovers are revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings take on a life of their own, and secrets come to light. There are confrontations and revelations that will touch each member of the extended family, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same. From “the undisputed boss of the beach read” (The New York Times), The Summer Place is a testament to family in all its messy glory; a story about what we sacrifice and how we forgive. Enthralling, witty, big-hearted, and sharply observed, this is Jennifer Weiner’s love letter to the Outer Cape and the power of home, the way our lives are enriched by the people we call family, and the endless ways love can surprise us.

Montpelier Tomorrow


Marylee MacDonald - 2014
    When her daughter's husband falls ill with ALS, Colleen rolls up her sleeves and moves in, juggling the multiple roles of grandma, cook, and caregiver, only to discover that even her superhuman efforts can't fix what's wrong. "An affecting, deeply honest novel; at the same time, a lacerating indictment of our modern health care system."--Kirkus Reviews"A heartrending story of love, loss and the endurance of the human spirit."--Literary Fiction Book Review"Characters are vivid, relatable, and all too imperfectly human." --Jewell Parker Rhodes "Each time I have reread this novel, I have felt rewarded by the connection it offers to the central character, Colleen. I can think of no single page in which her voice is not an irreplaceable gift to the reader." --Kevin McIlvoy "An engrossing account of the impossible choices faced by caregivers..." --Kathryn Shonk

Losing Cadence


Laura Lovett - 2016
    Ten years later, she has an ideal job and a wonderful fiance, Christian. She is building the life of her dreams-until the day Richard resurfaces out of the blue, abducts her from her San Francisco apartment, and returns her to his mansion where he holds her captive. Cadence can hardly believe her ears when Richard professes his undying love and reveals his plans to build a life together. Terrified to fight back for fear he will have Christian murdered, Cadence must determine how to reason with a mentally unstable man who is obsessed with making her his forever. But even if she manages to escape, will she ever really be free of the man who hunts her heart?In this psychological thriller, a young woman must rely on perseverance, courage, and inner strength to survive after she is kidnapped by her deranged ex-boyfriend."

Just Went Out for Milk


Tommy Cotton - 2014
    While Kayla is forced to fight for her life in hospital, Dane is thrown back into a world he fled from years before.Kayla tells her story through a series of quirky, unsent letters to Dane and relives her rollercoaster past in her childhood diaries, a past she must face if she is to survive. At the same time, Dane must confront his own violent past and the person who hates him most – the one he was once closest to – if he is to make it back to the woman he loves.Just Went Out For Milk is a physical and emotional journey, the raw love story of two scarred people, who long to find their place in the world.Will Dane make it back to Kayla? Will she be alive if he does?

Are We There Yet?


Kathleen West - 2021
    On the same day she learns her daughter is struggling in second grade, a call from her son's school accusing him of bullying throws Alice into a tailspin.When it comes to light that the incident is part of a new behavior pattern for her son, one complete with fake social media profiles with a lot of questionable content, Alice's social standing is quickly eroded to one of "those moms" who can't control her kids. Soon she's facing the very judgement she was all too happy to dole out when she thought no one was looking (or when she thought her house wasn't made of glass).Then her mother unloads a family secret she's kept for more than thirty years, and Alice's entire perception of herself is shattered.As her son's new reputation polarizes her friendships and her family buzzes with the ramification of her mother's choices, Alice realizes that she's been too focused on measuring her success and happiness by everyone else's standards. Now, with all her shortcomings laid bare, she'll have to figure out to whom to turn for help and decide who she really wants to be.

A Suite Deal (Suite Love Series Book 1)


Sue Gibson - 2008
    But when she finds an enormous, new-age hotel spoiling the view from her cherished inheritance, the tiny and pristine Osprey Island, Lily decides that the Nirvana Hotel's handsome owner warrants closer scrutiny. Ambitious hotelier Ethan Weatherall cut his teeth in the hotel industry and is determined to buy Lily's treasured island and convert it to a concrete helipad. Career-climbing, cosmopolitan Ethan cannot risk falling for a woman who could never be happy away from the wilds of nature. But it seems that boat may have already sailed, as he falls into the deep end for Lily's sweet soul and independent spirit. Lily must figure out a way to stop Ethan from destroying the tranquility of Loon Lake while trying to resist his charming city-bred manners. If she can't, there's more than just Osprey Island at stake. A Suite Deal is the first book in the Suite Love Series by Sue Gibson.

Phoenix (Book 1)


Kimberly Packard - 2012
    The road to revenge is ahead. But the pit stop she makes along the way could reroute her life. Amanda Martin refuses to burn for the crimes of her manipulative ex-boyfriend. After all, he was the one who strong-armed her into committing fraud and left her to shoulder the blame. When an enraged investor sets fire to their office building, she scrambles onto the first bus out of the city. With the authorities hunting for her, she hides out to plot her revenge in the last place anyone would look—the tiny Texas town of Phoenix.But when Amanda uncovers a hidden talent for reporting at the local paper and starts a sweet romance with a charming cop, she starts to question whether she’d be better off building a new life than tearing her ex a new one. Just as she starts settling in, her work at the paper unearths a decades old cold case that threatens to turn the town against her and expose her criminal past. With time running out before the townsfolk discover her true identity, Amanda is faced with an impossible choice—turn her back on a fellow victim of crime or stand her ground and lose her precious freedom. Phoenix is the first book in an enthralling women’s fiction series. If you like compelling characters, nail-biting suspense, and a dash of romance, then you’ll love Kimberly Packard’s small-town mystery.

Little Pieces of Me


Alison Hammer - 2021
    When a DNA test reveals a long-buried secret, a woman must look to the past to understand her mother and herself.When Paige Meyer gets an email from a DNA testing website announcing that her father is a man she never met, she is convinced there must be a mistake. But as she digs deeper into her mother's past and her own feelings of being the odd child out growing up, Paige begins to question everything she thought she knew. Could this be why Paige never felt like she fit in her family, and why her mother always seemed to keep her at an arm's length? And what does it mean for Paige's memories of her father, a man she idolized and whose death she is still grieving? Back in 1975, Betsy Kaplan, Paige's mom, is a straightlaced sophomore at the University of Kansas. When her sweet but boring boyfriend disappoints her, Betsy decides she wants more out of life, and is tired of playing it safe. Enter Andy Abrams, the golden boy on campus with a potentially devastating secret. After their night together has unexpected consequences, Betsy is determined to bury the truth and rebuild a stable life for her unborn child, whatever the cost.When Paige can't get answers from her mother, she goes looking for the only other person who was there that night. The more she learns about what happened, the more she sees her unflappable, distant mother as a real person faced with an impossible choice. But will it be enough to mend their broken relationship?Told in dual timelines, Little Pieces of Me examines identity and how the way we define ourselves changes (or not) through our life experiences.

We Are the Brennans


Tracey Lange - 2021
    But it's not easy. She deserted them all—and her high school sweetheart—five years before with little explanation, and they've got questions. Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the east coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them. When a dangerous man from her past brings her family's pub business to the brink of financial ruin, the only way to protect them is to upend all their secrets—secrets that have damaged the family for generations and will threaten everything they know about their lives. In the aftermath, the Brennan family is forced to confront painful mistakes—and ultimately find a way forward, together.In the vein of Mary Beth Keane's Ask Again, Yes and Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest, Tracey Lange's We Are the Brennans explores the staying power of shame—and the redemptive power of love—in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets.