"Best friends Unity and Ellen are in serious ruts. High school teacher Ellen, whose son's dream of going out of state for college is arousing financial anxiety, hasn't dated since she became pregnant on the night of her junior prom. Unity, a successful handyman, is grieving after her soldier husband was killed three years ago. Each woman goads the other to venture out of her restrictive comfort zone, daring the other to take on a list of challenges,...

Katy, the precocious ten-year-old daughter of the town doctor, befriends a retarded boy.

Amish single mother Carolyn Lapp longs for love and a traditional family, but she suspects that the widower her brother wants her to marry only wants her to help raise his daughter.

"Rosamund Stacey finds herself pregnant after her only sexual encounter. Despite her fierce independence and academic brilliance, Rosamund is naive and unworldly, and the choices before her are terrifying."--Back cover

After Julia DeSmit's boyfriend, Parker, left her in a college parking lot six years ago, she made a new life with her son, younger brother, grandmother, and new boyfriend. She works hard at a grocery store to bring in a meager income and takes classes toward her associate's degree. Overall, Julia is happy. But when she receives an email from Parker, her son's father, wanting to know if he has a child, her world is turned upside down.

"More than two decades ago, Ashley Baxter Blake made her most grievous mistake in Paris. Now, a forgotten voice brings new information about that terrible time, causing Ashley to see that experience in a new light. Can she finally lay down yesterday's pain and move on? In Paris, Alice Michel is having dinner with her son Gabe and his new friend, Jessie Taylor, an Indiana girl who is studying abroad for the semester. Alice's life is so good now, totally...

The McCloud Home for Wayward Girls was once a haven for unwed mothers. Now it is a bed-and-breakfast that Ruby runs with her daugher Jill. When Jill's fourteen-year-old daughter searches for the identity of her father, she sets in motion events that will test the bonds of the family. And then Jill agrees to host the wake of the town matriarch. But the convergence of people and memories reveals a shocking family secret.

Jenny Harris always expected that she'd fall in love, get married, and have a baby--in that order. Now, very pregnant and not quite married, she actually doesn't mind that she and her live-in fiance, Dean, started their family earlier than planned. But then one night Dean runs out for cigarettes and just doesn't come back, and the very next day, Jenny goes into labor. She never anticipated single motherhood--but at least there's not much time to dwell...

Traces the intersections of three women five years after a fateful love affair, including a searching woman who gave up her baby for adoption, an adoptive mom who questions her suitability as a parent and a married woman who views her husband's affair differently upon learning about the baby.

When she receives the news in late 1944 that her baby's father was shot down in the South Pacific, Amelia Richards loses hope. Jobless and broke, she has nowhere to turn for help but her infant's paternal grandparents. The only problem is, they don't know that she -- or their grandson -- exists. When Amelia discovers that the family is wealthy and influential, dare she disclose the truth of her relationship with their son? Or could the celebration...