Yet Miranda Klassen and Ted Wiebe must find a way to make peace to meet their common goal to open the doors of Ted's Old Order Mennonite church and community. Will they also find love in the process?

    Now in her late thirties, Anna has given up on the hope of motherhood after heartbreaking miscarriages and shattered dreams. As Christmas nears, she has to consider the possibility that it might be time to empty out the nursery and convert it to a guest room. Amidst her heartache, Anna secretly struggles with strange health problems that have her very worried. But, as often happens at Christmastime, there are miracles in store for Anna and Michael. As each tries to give the other the perfect Christmas gift the magic of Christmas is working its way into their lives. And what each of them unwraps for Christmas will surprise everyone.

    A sudden, inexplicable event leaves the daughter of her childhood friend in her care. Pressured by her community to allow her former fiancé to raise the child, Dottie must face the past she has worked fifteen years to forget.Spanning a decade, This Heavy Silence explores the power of the vows we make to others, and, more binding, those we make to ourselves. Evoking the hardship, spring-fed beauty, and the complexities of community in the rural Midwest, this award-winning, beautifully observed novel leads us to question our ideas about motherhood, faith, and the debts we owe. "Like the land she inhabits and the people she attends, Nicole Mazzarella offers a subtle and enduring beauty, born of intense interiority, and vision both broad and deep." -Scott Cairns, author of Philokalia: New & Selected Poems

     The first has two children--twins, a boy and girl, who are seniors in high school. She wants their last Christmas as a family living in the same home to be perfect, but her husband is delayed returning from a business trip abroad. And then there's an accident--a fatal one involving a drunk driver. Meanwhile, the other mother has a daughter who needs a new heart, and so the loss of one woman becomes the miracle the other has desperately prayed for. While one mother grieves, and pulls away from her family, the other finds that even miracles aren't always easy to receive.

    Just before losing a battle with cancer, Suzanne Carter sent letters to childhood friends from her hometown of Sweethaven, Michigan. Suzanne's three friends -- Lila, Jane, and Meghan -- haven't spoken in years, yet each has pieces of a scrapbook they made together as girls. Suzanne's letters have lured them all back to the idyllic lakeside town, where they meet Campbell and begin to remember what was so special about their long Sweethaven summers. As the scrapbook reveals secrets from the past, old wounds are mended, lives are changed, and friendships are restored -- just as Suzanne intended.

    She was the beautiful only child of South Carolina’s most powerful senator. Yet once Doss Michaels and Abigail Grace Coleman met by accident, they each felt they’d found their true soul mate. Ten years into their marriage, when Abbie faces a life-threatening illness, Doss battles it with her every step of the way. And when she makes a list of ten things she hopes to accomplish before she loses the fight for good, Doss is there, too, supporting her and making everything possible. Together they steal away in the middle of the night to embark upon a 130-mile trip down the St. Mary’s River—a voyage Doss promised Abbie in the early days of their courtship.Where the River Ends chronicles their love-filled, tragedy-tinged journey and a bond that transcends all.

    Now twelve new couples will find themselves in the wedding spotlight in the second Year of Weddings novella collection.Love at Mistletoe Inn by Cindy KirkSometimes the road to happiness is paved with youthful mistakes.Ten years after what she thought was her almost-wedding, Hope Prentiss discovers that the ceremony counted—and, as fate would have it, the jilted John Burke has just ridden back into town. After spending some time with John and helping plan a Christmas wedding for a mystery couple, Hope begins to wonder if she really wants a divorce . . . or a real wedding of her own.A Brush with Love by Rachel HauckRevealing the beauty in other women might be Ginger Winters’s specialty—but it will take an unexpected kind of love to help Ginger see the beauty in herself.Ginger Winters will be the “beauty-maker” for the Alabama society wedding of the decade.But when high-school crush Tom Wells shows up looking for a haircut, Ginger’s thinly veiled insecurities threaten to keep her from love once again . . . despite Tom’s best efforts.Serving Up a Sweetheart by Cheryl WyattMeadow knows how to serve delicious food to match any wedding theme. But can she accept love when it's served up on a silver platter?Meadow Larson is having the mother of all Mondays when her roof caves in during a blizzard, right before the most important wedding contract of her career.Renovation contractor Colin McGrath offers to fix Meadow’s roof, even though he knows he is the last person she would accept help from.But the more Meadow gets to know the new Colin, the more she realizes God may have something more permanent in store than a new catering kitchen.

    Shelley Calhoun was a single mother of three children and a hair stylist. Harry left two lottery tickets and an invitation to church as a tip for Shelley. A short time later, Shelley was fired—again.Darcy Tatum was a server at Daisy's Diner, but today she was distracted and worried, so Harry prayed that God would bless the young woman. When he finished his meal, he left the last few lottery tickets on the table as a tip.Daisy Pearl Benson, the owner of Daisy's Diner, had seen The Lottery Tickets left under a glass on the old man’s table. That tip should have been hers—after all he’d left without paying for his meal. But when she confronted Darcy Tatum, the tickets had disappeared. Lottery tickets—little slips of hope or more troubles for three women?

    Since her divorce from Eric, Hilary has done everything she can to control life for herself and her son. Beneath a calm surface, she is terrified of failing Seth. She's worked hard to raise him on her own, and she's succeeded -- he's now set to graduate from high school and enroll at the University of Illinois with a full scholarship.But Hilary's worst fears are realized when there is a rock-climbing accident at a post-graduation campout. A young girl is hurt, and Seth is arrested. Pamela, Eric's new wife and Seth's stepmother, blames Hilary for letting Scott go to the campout in the first place. With Seth's college scholarship now just a distant memory and his entire future at stake, the two women must come together for Seth's sake.Is Hilary's love strong enough to save her son and release him to her ex-husband's other wife?

    Has she been caught in the perfectly designed crime?

    "You hide behind your camera instead of stepping out and engaging life with both hands. You're so afraid you'll fail at something, you won't even try." For some people, Alaska is a breathtaking wilderness adventure, full of light and beauty. For Haley, it is a dangerous world of dark dreams and tortured memories. On the surface, she's here to document wildlife activist Kipp Nowak's bear encounters. But her real reason is to unearth the truth about a past murder. The suspense mounts when another body turns up, and Haley beginst to wonder if the tragedies she experienced in the past are connected to the dangers and mysterious incidents of the present. From behind the viewfinder of her camera, Haley observes it all, including Tank Lassiter, the bear biologist who has been forced to lead Kipp and his team into the Alaskan backcountry. As she watches him with his work, she feels a growing attraction. It will take great courage and faith to confront the truth she once ran away from. Before it's over, Haley may be viewing herself from an entirely new angle. Alaska Twilight is the story of a young woman's emergence from the shadows of past sorrow into the light of forgiveness and grace.

    But when a scandal rocks her firm she finds herself on a collision course with the one person she has spent five years trying to forget. Only to discover he doesn’t even remember her…Victor Carlisle has spent the last three years trying to convince his family he’s no longer the playboy alcoholic who tore their life apart. When a company merger is announced with a US sister firm, he’s presented with the perfect opportunity to prove he’s changed. Only to find himself falling for his competition and the one woman his family will never accept.As the competition intensifies the choice looms between the professional and the personal. Can they find a way beyond their past decisions and present aspirations to take a chance on the one thing they’re not looking for?

    Jen Covington, the career nurse whose long, painful journey to motherhood finally resulted in adoption but she is struggling with a happily-ever-after so much harder than she anticipated. Twenty-two-year-old Anaya Jones--the first woman in her family to graduate college and a brand new teacher at Crystal Ridge's top elementary school, unprepared for the powder-keg situation she's stepped into. Tensions rise within and without, culminating in an unforeseen event that impacts them all.

    Sure, her boyfriend hasn't managed to pop the question just yet, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't enter a contest in "Texas Bride" magazine to win the dress of her dreams, right? But when her boyfriend breaks up with her and takes a job in another town--the very same day Katie wins her dream dress--her world is turned upside down. Should she claim her prize? And will the hunky former pro-basketball player who runs the swanky Dallas bridal shop--yeah, you read that right--catch on to her humiliation if she does? Janice Thompson designs a romance sure to delight, with plenty of fish-out-of-water moments, a hilarious supporting cast, and more of the wedding biz world her readers adore.

    This book's "secret underground society" is not Nazi war criminals, however-it's the persecuted Christian church. Yuri and Alexander Deyneko, separated as teens in postwar times, are reunited thirty-five years later in 1980s Bucharest. Now on separate sides of Nicolae Ceausescu's Iron Curtain, the secret life of one brother, a top army official and clandestine Christian, and the ambition of the other- now the American Ambassador to Romania-puts them on a collision course with each other. Fates hang on an issue of conscience. Great writing propels readers through the plot toward a gripping climax.