On a scorching August day in 1963, seven-year-old Annie Banks meets the girl who will become her best friend. Skinny, outspoken Starr Dukes and her wandering preacher father may not be accepted by polite society in Jackson, Mississippi, but Annie and Starr are too busy sharing secrets and playing elaborate games of Queen for a Day to care. Then, as suddenly as she appeared in Annie's life, Starr disappears.Annie grows up to follow the path ordained for pretty, well-to-do Jackson wo...

Late one August evening, Amy Conner was awoken from her sleep and given the most devastating news she had ever received. Her husband, Curt, had died (at the painfully young age of thirty-two) in an accident while hunting. She and her two young children, ages four and two at the time, were sent reeling into grief. With the unending support from her friends and family, Amy was eventually able to find herself in a place of healing and hope. She has written this book for her children to remind...

**From the “wholly original” author of The Right Thing comes this heartfelt story of a young woman’s yearning for a better life in the heart of Louisiana (**Bret Lott, New York Times–bestselling author)Eighteen-year-old Lireinne Hooten has always been on the lowest rung of the ladder. Abandoned by her mother, Lireinne lives with her stepfather in an old trailer and spends her days working at the world’s largest alligator farm.Shy and overw...

On a scorching August day in 1963, seven-year-old Annie Banks meets the girl who will become her best friend. Skinny, outspoken Starr Dukes and her wandering preacher father may not be accepted by polite society in Jackson, Mississippi, but Annie and Starr are too busy sharing secrets and playing elaborate games of Queen for a Day to care. Then, as suddenly as she appeared in Annie's life, Starr disappears. Annie grows up to follow the path ordained for pretty, well-to-do Jackson women--ma...

Set in the heart of Louisiana, Amy Conner's spellbinding new novel tells of a young woman yearning for a better existence-and of the secret longings that will change the lives of all those around her. Eighteen-year-old Lireinne Hooten has always been on the lowest rung of the ladder. Abandoned by her mother, Lireinne lives with her stepfather in an old trailer on Million Dollar Road. Every day she walks the long mile, through a canopy of live oaks, to her job at the world's largest alligat...

Since the age of twelve, McKenzie Arnold has spent every summer at Albany Beach, Delaware, with her best friends Aurora, Janine, and Lilly. The seaside house teems with thirty years of memories—some wonderful, others painful—and secrets never divulged beyond its walls. This summer may be the last they spend together, as Janine contemplates selling her family cottage.For now, all four enjoy morning beach walks and lazy evenings on the porch, celebrating Lilly's longed-for pregnancy ...

From New York Times bestselling author Marie Bostwick comes an emotionally rich, inspiring new novel about family, second chances, and the connections that bring women together in hope and healing.Years of long workdays and little sleep as a political campaigner are about to pay off now that Lucy Toomey's boss is entering the White House. But when her estranged older sister, Alice, unexpectedly dies, Lucy is drawn back to Nilson's Bay, her small, close-knit Wisconsin homet...

2011 Carol Award winner for Debut Author from ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers)Jenny Lucas swore she’d never go home again. But being told you’re dying has a way of changing things. Years after she left, she and her five-year-old daughter, Isabella, must return to her sleepy North Carolina town to face the ghosts she left behind. They welcome her in the form of her oxygen tank–toting grandmother, her stoic and distant father, and David, Isabella’s dad . . . Who doesn’t yet k...

A tragic accident: One woman is left dead after she and another woman, both running away from their marriages, collide in the fog on a highway. The survivor, Isabelle, is left to pick up the pieces, not only of her own life but of the lives of the devastated husband and fragile son that the other woman, April, has left behind.Together, they try to solve the mystery of where April was running to, and why. As these three lives intersect, they are left to ask, How well do we really kn...

A gripping novel about a woman who sets out to find the father who left her years ago, and ends up discovering herself.When Eden was ten years old she found her father, David, bleeding on the bathroom floor. The suicide attempt led to her parents’ divorce, and David all butvanished from Eden’s life.Twenty years later, Eden runsa successful catering company and dreams of opening a restaurant. Since childhood, she has heard from her father only rarely, just e...

Early on the morning of her eleventh birthday, on the beach beside her North Carolina home, Daria Cato receives an unbelievable gift from the sea: an abandoned newborn baby. When the infant's identity cannot be uncovered, she is adopted by Daria's loving family.Now, twenty years later, Shelly has grown into an unusual, ethereal young woman whom Daria continues to protect. But when Rory Taylor, a friend from Daria's childhood and now a television producer, returns at Shelly's reques...

A testament to the healing power of unconditional love.Widely acclaimed for her emotionally powerful stories that capture the real lives of women, Heather A. Clark, bestselling author of Chai Tea Sunday, tackles the subject of childhood mental illness and the impact it has on a close family.The story begins from nine-year-old Nate’s point of view, etching the details of an unbalanced mind struggling to make sense of rampant thought patterns and heightened paranoia....