The City Baker's Guide to Country Living


Louise Miller - 2016
    But the getaway turns into something more lasting when Margaret Hurley, the cantankerous, sweater-set-wearing owner of the Sugar Maple Inn, offers Livvy a job. Broke and knowing that her days at the club are numbered, Livvy accepts.Livvy moves with her larger-than-life, uberenthusiastic dog, Salty, into a sugarhouse on the inn’s property and begins creating her mouthwatering desserts for the residents of Guthrie. She soon uncovers the real reason she has been hired—to help Margaret reclaim the inn’s blue ribbon status at the annual county fair apple pie contest.With the joys of a fragrant kitchen, the sound of banjos and fiddles being tuned in a barn, and the crisp scent of the orchard just outside the front door, Livvy soon finds herself immersed in small town life. And when she meets Martin McCracken, the Guthrie native who has returned from Seattle to tend his ailing father, Livvy comes to understand that she may not be as alone in this world as she once thought.But then another new arrival takes the community by surprise, and Livvy must decide whether to do what she does best and flee—or stay and finally discover what it means to belong. Olivia Rawlings may finally find out that the life you want may not be the one you expected—it could be even better.

The Toymakers


Robert Dinsdale - 2018
    It is the same every year. Across the city, when children wake to see ferns of white stretched across their windows, or walk to school to hear ice crackling underfoot, the whispers begin: the Emporium is open! It is 1917, and London has spent years in the shadow of the First World War. In the heart of Mayfair, though, there is a place of hope. A place where children’s dreams can come true, where the impossible becomes possible – that place is Papa Jack’s Toy Emporium.For years Papa Jack has created and sold his famous magical toys: hobby horses, patchwork dogs and bears that seem alive, toy boxes bigger on the inside than out, ‘instant trees’ that sprout from boxes, tin soldiers that can fight battles on their own. Now his sons, Kaspar and Emil, are just old enough to join the family trade. Into this family comes a young Cathy Wray – homeless and vulnerable. The Emporium takes her in, makes her one of its own. But Cathy is about to discover that while all toy shops are places of wonder, only one is truly magical...

Meet Me at Fir Tree Lodge


Rachel Dove - 2020
    But when an accident on the slopes brings her crashing down in the snow with a catastrophic thud, everything changes. Her career is over, and her fiancé turns out to be, well, not so perfect.With the chance to start afresh, Rebecca does what anyone else in her position would do… She turns to baking and manages the Alpine Bites café, nestled in the French Alps.But when handsome stranger Luke Sommersby becomes Rebecca’s unexpected lodger, her plan to completely forget about love is thrown into jeopardy. Guarding her heart since the accident, Fir Tree Lodge is strictly a man-free-zone.Luke is kind, caring and gorgeous, but the emotional scars from her fall still run deep, and she fights to keep the sparks catching her heart at bay.Will Rebecca be able to find a second chance in the snow and step into a bright new future with Luke by her side?

The Last Piece of My Heart


Paige Toon - 2017
    But, after numerous rejections from publishers, she accepts an alternative proposition: Nicole Dupre died leaving behind a bestselling novel and an incomplete sequel, and the family need someone to finish it. Bridget is just thankful to have her foot in the publishing door. But as she gets to know Nicole’s grieving family, and the woman behind the writing, Bridget’s priorities begin to change …

Snow in Love


Melissa de la Cruz - 2018
    What's better than one deliciously cozy, swoon-worthy holiday story? Four of them, from some of today's bestselling authors.From KASIE WEST, a snowy road trip takes an unexpected detour when secrets and crushes are revealed.From AIMEE FRIEDMAN, a Hanukkah miracle may just happen when a Jewish girl working as a department store elf finds love.From MELISSA DE LA CRUZ, Christmas Eve gets a plot twist when a high school couple exchange surprising presents.From NIC STONE, a scavenger hunt amid the holiday crowds at an airport turns totally romantic.So grab a mug of hot cocoa, snuggle up, and get ready to fall in love...

The Status of All Things


Liz Fenton - 2015
    So when her fiancé, Max, breaks things off at their rehearsal dinner—to be with Kate’s close friend and coworker, no less—she goes straight to Facebook to share it with the world. But something’s changed. Suddenly, Kate’s real life starts to mirror whatever she writes in her Facebook status. With all the power at her fingertips, and heartbroken and confused over why Max left her, Kate goes back in time to rewrite their history.Kate's two best friends, Jules and Liam, are the only ones who know the truth. In order to convince them she’s really time traveled, Kate offers to use her Facebook status to help improve their lives. But her attempts to help them don’t go exactly as planned, and every effort to get Max back seems to only backfire, causing Kate to wonder if it’s really possible to change her fate.In The Status of All Things, Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke combine the humor and heart of Sarah Pekkanen and Jennifer Weiner while exploring the pitfalls of posting your entire life on the Internet. They raise the questions: What if you could create your picture-perfect life? Would you be happy? Would you still be you? For anyone who’s ever attempted—or failed—to be their perfect self online, this is a story of wisdom and wit that will leave you with new appreciation for the true status of your life.

Allie and Bea


Catherine Ryan Hyde - 2017
    After falling for a telephone scam, she loses everything and is forced to abandon her trailer. With only two-thirds of a tank in her old van, she heads toward the Pacific Ocean with her cat—on a mission to reclaim what’s rightfully hers, even if it means making others pay for what she lost.When fifteen-year-old Allie’s parents are jailed for tax fraud, she’s sent to a group home. But when her life is threatened by another resident, she knows she has to get out. She escapes only to find she has nowhere to go—until fate throws Allie in Bea’s path.Reluctant to trust each other, much less become friends, the two warily make their way up the Pacific Coast. Yet as their hearts open to friendship and love from the strangers they meet on their journey, they find the courage to forge their own unique family—and begin to see an imperfect world with new eyes.

The Twelve Dates of Christmas


Jenny Bayliss - 2020
    But then her best friend signs her up for a dating agency that promises to help singles find love before the holidays. Twenty-three days until Christmas. Twelve dates with twelve different men. The odds must finally be in her favor . . . right? Yet with each new date more disastrous than the one before--and the whole town keeping tabs on her misadventures--Kate must remind herself that sometimes love, like mistletoe, shows up where it's least expected. And maybe, just maybe, it's been right under her nose all along. . . .

The Friendship Pact


Tara Taylor Quinn - 2014
    “Tara Taylor Quinn tackles the subject of friendship—especially friendship between women—with the emotional investment she brings to all her books. Her writing is dramatic, her characters realistic, her stories involving.”--This is a story for every woman who has a best friend...Bailey Watters and Koralynn Mitchell consider themselves "sisters of the soul." Their circumstances growing up couldn't have been more different; Kora came from a wealthy, privileged family, while Bailey's home life was hard. They'd do anything for each other. "I'd give you a kidney," they always say. There are no secrets between them--until there's one secret Bailey can't share.This is a story for every woman who's been in love.Danny Brown is the only man Kora's ever wanted, ever loved, and her marriage seems as flawless as everything else in her life. Bailey, however, doesn't want a husband. She does want a baby--but only by IVF. And the perfect donor, the perfect biological father, would be a man like...Danny.What happens when love and friendship collide?Kora might be willing to give Bailey a kidney. But what about a baby?

The Cosy Teashop in the Castle


Caroline Roberts - 2016
    Life is definitely on the rise as Ellie replaces spreadsheets for scones, and continues her Nanna’s brilliant baking legacy.When Lord Henry, the stick-in-the-mud owner, threatens to burst her baking bubble with his old-fashioned ways, Ellie wonders if she might have bitten off more than she can chew. But cupcake by cupcake she wins the locals over, including teashop stalwart, Doris, and Ellie’s showstopping bakes look set to go down in castle history!Now all that’s missing in Ellie’s life is a slice of romance – can Joe, the brooding estate manager, be the one to put the cherry on the top of Ellie’s dream?

The Xmas Factor


Annie Sanders - 2006
    Beth: it's only September and already she has performance anxiety. Not surprising when she has agreed to lay on the annual Christmas Eve village bash - the piece de resistance of her husband's former wife - not to mention having to host Christmas for his difficult offspring. New to this frenzied build-up to the festivities, Beth begins to lose sight of what it all means. To her the Christmas lights are looking more like the headlamps of an oncoming train. Carol: glamorous magazine editor, who put her aspirational Christmas issue to bed sometime in July and is so involved in finding a scoop to save her ailing magazine that she fails to notice the impending festive rush. Panicked and wracked with guilt, she is determined to make it a picture perfect time for her little boy and, opting for convenience, books a lovely-sounding cottage in a quaint village. Even the best laid plans have a habit of unravelling - and no plan at all is a recipe for disaster. So when these two Christmases collide, it looks like it's going to be anything but goodwill towards men...

Merrily Ever After


Julia Keanini - 2016
    But to Eliana's distress, there is only one way to ensure that she can spend her first holiday season as a divorced woman near her daughter. She has to go home not only in time for Christmas but also for Drake's wedding ... to Eliana's stepsister.NFL quarterback Drake Charming is about to marry his girlfriend of a decade, but returning home for the wedding at Christmas reminds him of the girl who stole his heart, Eliana. But Eliana made her choice fifteen years ago and it wasn't Drake.Can a little Christmas cheer and a meddling "Fairy Godmother" spin together enough romance to give this second chance fairy tale a happily ever after? A Modern-Day Cinderella inspired Sweet Romance. Each book is a stand-alone romance with a promised happily ever after.Read all of the Second Chance Fairy Tale romances by Julia Keanini:1. Merrily Ever After2. Snow and the Seven Teenagers3. A Royal (Fake) EngagementRead all of Julia Keanini's Sweet Romances!Second Chance Fairy Tale:1. Merrily Ever After2. Snow and the Seven Teenagers3. A Royal (Fake) EngagementPrinces of Valdoria:1. The Noble Heir2. The Captivating Prince

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Cafe


Jenny Oliver - 2015
    Not that she can bear the idea of letting her dedicated, if endearingly disorganized staff lose their jobs. Plus café life does also have the added bonus of working a stone’s throw away from millionaire Matt and his disarmingly charming smile!One (shoestring budget) café makeover, a few delightful additions to the somewhat retro menu and a lot of cherry pie tastings later, The Dandelion Café is ready for its grand reopening! But once she’s brought the dilapidated old café back to life, Annie finds herself wishing her stay on the island was just a bit longer. She always intended to go back to the big city…but could island living finally have lured her back home for good?

All Is Bright


Sarah Pekkanen - 2010
    . . Thirty-year-old Elise Andrews couldn’t bring herself to marry Griffin, her childhood friend turned sweetheart, so she let him walk away. Eight months after their breakup, she arrives in her hometown of Chicago on Christmas Eve and hears a voice from the past calling her name in the grocery store. It’s Griffin’s mother, Janice, who invites Elise over for a neighborhood gathering of eggnog and carols. Walking into Janice’s house sends Elise tumbling headlong into memories of her relationship with Griffin—and with Janice, who exudes the kind of warmth Elise ached for after her own mom passed away when she was six. But Griffin has moved on, and suddenly Elise doubts her decision to give him up and lose her chance at being folded into his wonderful family. Confused and reeling, she goes in search of an answer to a universal question: How do we say good-bye to people we’ve loved without losing everything they’ve meant to us? Heartwarming and witty, All Is Bright is a charming story about coming home for the holidays—and finding gifts in the most unexpected of places.

The Nantucket Inn


Pamela M. Kelley - 2019
    Thanks to her dead husband’s gambling addiction, their savings is almost gone. In her early fifties with a large, waterfront home on Nantucket to support, Lisa hasn’t worked in over thirty years, has no in-demand skills and is virtually unemployable.Her only options are to sell the house and move off-island, or, she could use her cooking and entertaining skills and turn her home into a bed and breakfast. She desperately needs it to succeed because she has four grown children with problems of their own and wants to stay close to them. Her oldest daughter, Kate, has a fabulous career in Boston--working as a writer for a popular fashion magazine and engaged to a dangerously handsome, photographer, who none of them have met.Kate's twin, local artist, Kristen, has been reasonably content with her on-again off-again relationship with an older, separated businessman. Her son, Chase, runs his own construction business and is carefree, happily dating here and there but nothing serious. Youngest daughter, Abby, is happily married to her high school sweetheart, and they've been trying to have a baby. But it hasn't happened yet, and Abby wonders if it's a sign that maybe their marriage isn't as perfect as everyone thinks.Come visit Nantucket and see how Lisa's new bed and breakfast has an impact on almost everyone in her family. It's the first book in a new series that will follow the Hodges family, friends, and visitors to Nantucket's Beach Plum Cove Inn.