Gail and Jon Durbin moved to the Chicago suburbs to set up house as soon as Gail got pregnant. But then she miscarried -- once, twice, three times. Determined to expand their family, the Durbins turn to adoption. When several adoptions fall through, Gail's desire for a child overwhelms her. Carli is a pregnant teenager from a blue-collar town nearby, with dreams of going to college and getting out of her mother's home. When she makes the gut-wrenching...

"Charles and Lizzie Peterson love puppies. Their family fosters these young dogs, giving them love and proper care, until they can find the perfect forever home. Lizzie can't wait to get to her best friend Maria's cabin for some rest and relaxation. When they arrive, the girls discover a box of three puggle puppies waiting for them. Lizzie loves taking care of the sweet dogs but it is a lot of hard work. Will Lizzie be able to find these cute cuddly...

"Count Falier was urging his Venetian son-in-law to investigate, and preferably intervene in, the seemingly innocent plan of the Count's best friend, the elderly Gonzalo Rodríguez de Tejada, to adopt a much younger man as his son. Under Italian inheritance laws this man would then be heir to Gonzalo's entire fortune, a prospect Gonzalo's friends find appalling. For his part, Brunetti wonders why the old man, a close family friend, can't be allowed...

"When the man she loved years ago returns to town, one young woman's complicated past rises again, threatening to expose her well-kept secrets. If Maxine could put her finger on the moment when her life went into a tailspin, she would point back twenty years to the day her daddy died. She tells herself he's the only person who ever really knew and loved her, and if he hadn't left her behind, her future would've taken a different path. No absentee...

What is the cost of motherhood? When The Risk of Us opens, we meet a forty-something woman who deeply wants to become a mother. The path that opens up to her and her husband takes them through the foster care system, with the goal of adoption. And when seven-year-old Maresa comes into their lives, with her inch-deep dimples and a voice that can beam to the moon, their hearts fill with love. But her rages and troubles threaten to crack open their marriage....

"'People were forever telling her how lucky she was. But what did people know?' Dublin 1965. When Joan Quinn, a factory girl from the Cranmore Estate, marries Martin Egan, it looks like her dreams have come true. But all is not as it seems. Joan lives in the shadow of a secret - the couple's decision to give up their first daughter for adoption only months before. For the next three decades, Joan's marriage and her relationship with her second child...

"In 1960s Glasgow, anti-nuclear activists Judith and Jimmy fall in love. But their future hopes are dashed when their protestors' squat is raided and many, including Jimmy, are sent to prison. Pregnant and with no word from Jimmy, Judith is forced to enter an unmarried mothers' home, give up their baby and learn to live with her grief. More than half a century later, Judith's Mending Shop restores broken treasures, just as Judith herself has been...

No-one knew their names, the bodies found in the water. There are people here, in plain sight, that no-one ever notices at all. DS Alexandra Cupidi has done it again. She should have learnt to keep her big mouth shut, after the scandal that sent her packing - resentful teenager in tow - from the London Met to the lonely Kent coastline. Even murder looks different in this landscape of fens, ditches and stark beaches, shadowed by the towers of Dungeness...

"When Josh's longtime partner, Grace, dies in a tragic accident, he is left with a mess of grief -and full custody of her seven-year-old son, Logan. While not his biological father, Josh has been a dad to Logan in every way that counts, and with Grace gone, Logan needs him more than ever. Wanting to do right by Logan, Josh begins the process of becoming his legal guardian -something that seems suddenly urgent, though Grace always brushed it off as...

"Lara Madigan has a gift: She can help you find your soul mate--your canine soul mate, that is. As a dog trainer with a soft spot for strays, she's found the perfect home for sulky Shih Tzus, broken-down Border collies, and diabolical Dalmatians. But while she'll always make room for one more rescue mutt, she's not sure she's ready to commit to another human being--especially after her long-term boyfriend drops the bomb: He's not a dog person. Horrified...