Barbara Cutrera

Josie Hollingsworth is beautiful, tenacious, and successful. She's also haunted by her past. For years, her brilliant, mentally ill parents consistently compromised their children's sense of security. But Josie worked diligently to distance herself from them. However, now that her sister has also succumbed to mental illness, Josie fears that all of her efforts were for nothing, that she's doomed to the same fate.Enter Stone Romero, a sexy, charismatic, strong-willed pediatrician. After their unlikely meeting in an Austin, Texas Emergency Room, Stone offers her his help, assuring her that there are no strings attached despite their mutual attraction. Josie soon realizes that Stone, grieving the loss of his identical twin and repressing anger regarding his own childhood issues, needs her help as much as she needs his. As scandals resulting from both Hollingsworth and Romero family secrets come to light, they lead to terrible tragedies and horrific violence. Josie recognizes that Stone is the one man in the world who will never put her in a compromising position. She prays that it's not too late for them to have the storybook ending that she never imagined would be within her grasp.

It's 2034. In 2029, the D Plague struck and killed half the world's population. Those who contracted the virus faced certain death and the disintegration of their bodies afterwards into dust. Unbeknownst to all but a handful of people left on Earth, one person contracted the D Plague and lived. Haunted by survivor's guilt, Aric Rodrigue gave up his dream of attending medical school in order to take over his parents' pharmaceutical company. He knows he's doing good work but can't escape persistent depression and loneliness. Then, he meets and falls in love with Chelsea Capra, a computer genius who suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2033 and remembers nothing of her previous life. All of the doctors who treated her after her accident have died or disappeared. The couple soon comes to the conclusion that their pasts are somehow linked. They become suspicious of CDC employees and the FBI agents supposedly protecting them. Only if Aric and Chelsea can outwit the masterminds of a plot to eliminate them will they be lucky enough to find lifelong happiness together and to understand the surprising hidden truths in their pasts that have led them to be targeted for assassination in their present.

Daniel Nash needs to receive mercy from his family, his friends, and from himself. He's spent most of his life suppressing memories and his rage regarding the severe abuse he suffered during his childhood. The situation for Daniel is critical: He's finally reached his breaking point. Daniel's wife, Sarah, does what she does best - whatever she can to help those she loves. Despite her own emotional struggles and visual impairment, Sarah is the woman who always manages to keep her family going. However, she finally decides that it's time to take care of herself as well. Tristan Maes, Sarah's biological father and Daniel's de facto one, draws upon all of his own tragic life experiences and his resolve to persevere in an effort to save his two eldest children. He works with his family and his son-in-law's therapist as he attempts to keep connecting with the rational part of Daniel's mind. Tristan holds onto hope but knows his grasp is tenuous. Mercy is what Daniel, Sarah, and Tristan need most. It's also what they provide for each other and what they receive from those closest to them. Although many things are beyond their control, their overwhelming love and devotion to one another are their strongest assets in the most difficult struggle of their lives.

Daniel Nash struggles to reconcile his feelings of betrayal with his desire to understand his life. His hopes of uncovering the secrets revealed in his father's journals are quickly dashed, and he works with a private investigator in order to discover the truth. Worry about his wife, Sarah, combines with his efforts to cope with his childhood trauma, an unexpected death, and the recent revelations. His obsession with the past threatens to destroy his stable life. Meanwhile, Sarah and her father, Tristan, continue to combat the lingering discord that developed between them years before but refuse to take their main focus from Daniel. As he reviews his biological father's efforts to be a good man, Daniel searches for a way to comprehend shocking disclosures. He questions his own goodness as he fights not to emotionally withdraw from those around him, especially Sarah and Tristan, the two people he knows will always love him.

Readers begin their journey through this collection of three short stories by immersing themselves in the world of eighteen-year-old Cotton Landry. Her loving father makes his living as a gambler, but Cotton dreams of becoming a doctor. She fears she's destined for a career at Guidry's Handi-mart and Bait Shop unless she can permanently leave her rural Louisiana hometown. When all seems lost, Cotton is forced to face the truth and uncover the real meaning of love and devotion that will both break her heart and set her free. Trained from a young age to work as an assassin, Victor Jones believes in his duty to eliminate targets in order to protect the safety of others in the world. His life is forever altered when the one person he allows himself to truly love is killed because of his family's involvement in the Intelligence Community. As a result, Victor loses his focus and purpose. He finds direction in a most unlikely place and discovers that the person he loved and lost left him a much more rewarding legacy. Emma Jen had an unusual upbringing in her Mississippi town and envisioned an exciting future with a smart, handsome, romantic man. However, that future was not to be. Now middle-aged and a widow for many years, she is raising her granddaughter alone. Longing for the life she never had, she decides to discover if it's not too late to attain the dream that she sought as a girl. Emma Jen journeys toward fulfilling her potential and uncovers new possibilities without losing sight of her renewed hope.