Kirjahaku

Four sisters, torn apart by time and secrets. Can they mend the broken fences that separate them?When their father divorced their mother ten years ago, while she was in the early stages of cancer, the Michaels sisters were torn apart. Sharon, much like their mother, with an accepting, forgiving heart, and youngest sister, Helen, a fledgling actress driven by self-interest, live and work on their dad's Friesian horse ranch in northern California. Kathy has struggled with insecurities, with men and while developing her first video game in San Diego. And Patti has nursed her mother all those years to her eventual passing. After their mother's tension-filled funeral, which their father has the nerve to attend, Patti and Kathy begrudgingly accept his invitation to come to the ranch for a weekend.Patti and Kathy have no idea what awaits them at the ranch house they once called home. There's much the girls don't know, about their father, their parents' divorce, and their scheming baby sister. And what is driving Patti in her sudden plans to seek revenge against a long-ago boyfriend?Can the sisters find it in their hearts to forgive and mend the broken fences that separate them, or will old transgressions keep them forever apart?

When his wife and daughter disappear, Jessee Bradford fears they have been kidnapped. Or worse. But as soon as FBI investigators learn his wife is the only child of a wealthy philanthropist who never approved of their marriage, they are convinced she simply took the child with no intention of returning.After months of searching, Jessee reluctantly decides to get on with his life and relocates to his grandparents' home in Iowa, where he finds the family closeness he's been missing.When he attends a gallery opening with his new love, he spots the artist named She, a mysterious woman he comes to believe is his wife. But does he really want to find her? And if he does, what will happen to the new life he's made for himself? As Jessee searches for the truth, he uncovers a shocking secret that will change his life forever.

Brandy Chambers was looking forward to the birth of her first child. She and Weston move from San Francisco to the small town of Alameda to start a family, she's writing her second book, and Weston has a fantastic job working on the Oakland/San Francisco Bay project. Having this baby would make her already wonderful life perfect. But when the baby dies after a difficult birth, Brandy's perfect life blows up in her face. Stricken with grief, she and Weston pull apart. This new distance leads them both to disaster. Not until a chance encounter with her high school friend, Edward Barnes, does Brandy pull herself together. Brandy and Weston agree to recommit to each other, striving to forgive infidelity and recreate their previous existence. Everything is once again going according to plan - until Brandy discovers she's pregnant. While she struggles to cope with this new obstacle, Edward Barnes returns to town and discovers she's having a baby, while Weston is torn between his love for his wife and his anger at her betrayal. Can Brandy manage to keep her marriage to Weston together? Will Edward be a part of Brandy's life if she and Weston separate?

After the tragic loss of her husband, Annie and her young son search for a new life full of meaning and hope. Fate nudges Annie into the arms of a man whose wife disappeared with his child years ago. Annie's life spins out of control when first the pregnant teenager she hires to help her with her garden asks Annie to adopt her baby and shortly afterwards the long-lost wife of the man Annie loves reappears. Riddled with grief and heartache, the experiences demonstrate how, even in the face of overwhelming sorrow, opening her heart and home to those most in need of love has reaped unexpected joy for Annie and her son.

Maddy McCray lives a hard scrabble life, working as a waitress at the Monte Rio Caf in a little town on California's Russian River. Abandoned by her mother when she was a teenager, then by her two worthless boyfriends, she is nonetheless grateful for the rustic cabin where she lives-and for Cheryl, the older and wiser waitress who watches over her while Maddy anticipates the birth of her baby.Then one night Maddy goes into labor prematurely and loses her precious baby. The loss is almost more than the distraught 22-year-old can bear. A few days later he discovers a tiny infant in the dumpster behind the caf . An abandoned baby, a baby no one wants, a baby who will wind up in a string of foster homes. But Maddy wants the baby. She names her Judith.Maddy resolves to take the money in her tip jar and move to the Bay Area, where she can get a better-paying job and study to become a nurse, to be better than the things her momma said about her. But how can Maddy take care of little Judith, work and go to school?

Leena Coughlin is simply eye-candy to her husband Steven's sky-rocketing career. Steven may be a brilliant cardiac surgeon, but the self-absorbed man is more focused on other people's hearts-and his own pleasure-than on the emotional heart of his family. He's a God-like man, after all, saving lives every day. And a man like him has needs. More than Leena can provide. To fend off the growing loneliness of her marriage, Leena strikes up a relationship with a stranger, Michael Casspi, through a letters-to-prisoners program. Michael was also once a cardiac surgeon. He claimed that assisting his dying wife with suicide was an act of mercy. The state called it murder. Can a man imprisoned behind bars fill Leena's emotional void? Focused on their own strained relationship, neither Steven nor Leena has noticed the deteriorating mental health of their college-aged daughter, Joy. Two men. One woman. And a fragile girl teetering on the knife-edge of depression. But when Michael is unexpectedly released from prison, the precarious balance of all their lives will be dramatically altered forever.

All Stella wants is to escape her abusive and controlling husband, Robert, the department head at a local Oregon university. So when the opportunity arises, Stella takes her teenage twins, Loreen and Gabriel, and breaks free. They move in with her long-lost sister Katrina and Katrina's husband Marcus, a long-haul trucker, in the small, beachside town of Monarch Bay, California.What happens to Stella and the people she loves most is a drama filled with surprises of unexpected love and compassion, longed-for family loyalty, and unforeseen caring.Stella finds a job working for David, a recent widower and owner of Patti's Pastries, and she volunteers to be a surrogate for Kat and Marcus. The twins adjust well to their new home, although Loreen's biker boyfriend, Harley, gives Stella reasons to worry for her daughter's future.Just as Stella, David, and the twins find footing in Monarch Bay, Robert shatters their newfound peace and threatens them all. Will Stella ever escape the monster who has brutalized her for years? Will they all survive to enjoy the life they richly deserve?

Stella' life in the small coastal town of Monarch Bay, California feels idyllic. She's running a pastry shop with her husband David, they have a son, and her abusive ex-husband, Robert, is out of their lives forever, in prison for trying to murder David. Then two events upend Stella's life: David suffers traumatic brain injury in a car accident, and Robert gets an early release from prison. The changes in both men have a profound impact on Stella. David no longer recognizes her or his family and his new abusive behavior is eerily reminiscent of Robert's. Robert, on the other hand, has undergone intense psychotherapy during his time in prison and is ready to atone for the past. People can and do change, but can Stella risk letting Robert back into her life? As Robert and Stella grow closer, old feelings are rekindled. Can David recover enough to reclaim Stella's heart, or will she find a new future with the man from her past? Stella will have to choose: the man who no longer loves her or the man she used to love.