Contemporary Fiction
SOMETHING LIKE FAMILY
Abandoned by his mother when he was young, twenty-two-year-old Rave Wayne knows all about loss. That doesn’t mean he’s used to it. After he’s dumped by the girlfriend he assumed he’d spend his life with, Rave is longing more than ever to connect.
Then, as if by miracle, he receives an invitation from his grandfather, a man he thought was long gone, to come for a visit in rural Tennessee. Loyal, honest, and loving, dear old Tuck is everything Rave could have hoped for. He’s family. Soon, Rave finds himself falling for a down-to-earth local girl, and he thinks his life is finally coming together.
But the past isn’t through with Rave. When his mother returns after many long years, looking to reconcile the terrible mistakes that once defined her, Rave struggles to put together the unsettled pieces of his heart. Will this once-estranged family be able to come together to understand the meaning of unconditional love, the fragile bonds of family, and the healing power of letting go?
IN THE LIGHT OF THE GARDEN
Inheriting her grandparents island estate on Floridas gulf coast is a special kind of homecoming for thirty-one-year-old Charity Baxter. Raised by a narcissistic single mother, Charitys only sense of a loving home comes from childhood summers spent with Gramps and Grandma. But piercing her fondest memories is her sharpest griefthe death of her beloved grandmother when Charity was eleven, the year she stopped believing in the magical healing power of the weeping willow that still casts a shadow on their property.
Now that she has returned, Charity finds herself full of longing and regret. She bonds with her neighbor, Dalton Reynolds, who has come to Gaslamp Island carrying his own heartache. As other exiles begin to arrivea great uncle harboring secrets, a teenage runawayCharity begins to reconsider what makes a family. When her own estranged mother shows up in crisis, Charity is challenged to search her heart for forgiveness. But forgiving herself may require a little magic from the last place shed expect to find it
ONE LAVENDER RIBBON
Can a stack of long-hidden love letters from a WWII war hero inspire a heartbroken woman to love again?
Reeling from a bitter divorce, Adrienne Carter abandons Chicago and retreats to the sun, sand, and beauty of Southern Florida, throwing herself into the restoration of a dilapidated old Victorian beach house. Early into the renovations, she discovers a tin box hidden away in the attic that reveals the emotional letters from a WWII paratrooper to a young woman who lived in the house more than a half-century earlier.
The old letters—incredibly poetic and romantic—transcend time, and they arouse in Adrienne a curiosity that leads her to track down the writer of the letters. William “Pops” Bryant is now an old man living in a nearby town with his handsome but overprotective grandson, Will. As Adrienne begins to unravel the secrets of the letters (and the Bryants), she finds herself not yet willing to give up entirely on love.
ALONG THE BROKEN ROAD
(The Roads To River Rock)
Armed with only a journal and a promise, soldier Ian Carlisle returns home to fulfill his friend’s dying wish: to find the man’s daughter and read her his journal, one page at a time. The woman he finds in River Rock, Missouri, is just as warmhearted, artistic, and feisty as her father described. Ian had fallen in love with Charlee McKinley before he even met her, but he has no idea if she’ll ever return his feelings.
Charlee loved her father—but she didn’t like him very much. Regimental and strict, Major Mack never approved of his daughter’s choices. So when a down-on-his-luck soldier arrives on Charlee’s doorstep, she’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but not her heart. It isn’t until he starts reading to her that the beautiful, touching words begin to unlock something deep inside. But when Ian reveals a secret that shakes Charlee to her core, will she close herself off to love out of fear?
DOWN THE HIDDEN PATH
(The Roads to River Rock, Book 2)
Jeremiah McKinley is the first of his enlisted brothers to return home to River Rock, Missouri—their sleepy but charming hometown in the Ozarks—in the wake of their father’s death in combat. While he’s grateful to be home with his sister nearby, his grief over losing the man known as Major Mack proves almost overwhelming, especially without his brothers around.
After years of guilt and tireless effort, Mary Grace “Gray” Smith finally has her life on track. The last person she wants to see is Jeremiah: her former best friend, former crush, and the man who could easily destroy the one thing she holds most dear. But after one of Jeremiah’s brothers returns home with a head injury, Gray becomes his therapist—and a long-kept secret threatens to reveal itself and alter the course of several lives forever. Could this secret also give Jeremiah and Gray the chance to finally have the future together they always longed for?