In 2005, three years after our five-year-old daughter, Grace, died suddenly from a virulent form of strep, my husband, Lorne, our eleven-year-old son, Sam, and I found ourselves on a plane heading to China to adopt a baby girl. Our journey into adoption came from a belief that, even in such heartbreak and despair, we could love again. As soon as they placed eleven-month-old Annabelle in my arms, I knew that our hope of rebuilding our family again was indeed possible.
During the adoption process—the orientation, the miles of paperwork, the home visits, the long waits at the INS,
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Italy, 1456. The Renaissance is in glorious bloom. A Carmelite monk, the great artist Fra Filippo Lippi acts as chaplain to the nuns of the Convent Santa Margherita. It is here that he encounters the greatest temptation of his life, beautiful Lucrezia Buti, who has been driven to holy orders more by poverty than piety. In Lucrezia’s flawless face Lippi sees the inspiration for countless Madonnas and he brings the young woman to his studio to serve as his model. But as painter and muse are united in an exhilarating whirl of artistic discovery, a passionate love develops, one that threatens to destroy them both even as it fuels some of Lippi’s greatest work.
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Kit Hargrove is trying to reinvent herself. Following her divorce, she is shedding the skin of her former life as the wife of a Wall Street high-roller and embracing both a new home and a new job as assistant to world famous novelist Robert McClore, all the while remaining close to her children and friends in the affluent Connecticut town of Highfield. Her transition seems to be going well until a series of events dramatically reminds her that nothing is ever quite as it seems. Kit’s friend Charlie and her husband lose everything as they become victims of the recession,
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Nancy writes medical newsletters for a living, but she’s begun to write a novel. Her book is based loosely on an important decision her father made in his youth, one that shaped his character from that point on, and also influenced his daughter as she made decisions about the course of her own life. This isn’t just a story she wants to write; it’s a story she must write, to honor her father and to work through her grief over his death.
So when she’s asked to join a writing group consisting of several prominent authors,
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When Tillie Harris goes into labor with her first child, nothing is right. Her husband is away on business, the boxes in her new home aren’t unpacked, and the telephone isn’t even connected yet. Forced to reach out to her estranged father for help, Tillie must face the painful memories she’s been running from since she was a little girl – the memories of her own mother and the year that changed everything.
Tillie’s childhood home was a manic and messy world with her mother, Mara, at its center. Some days brought dancing, dress-up, and laughter,
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Safe From the Sea is the story of a man returning home to Duluth to help his ailing father. But returning home makes Noah tense and uncertain. He and his father have been estranged for years, an estrangement that began after his father survived the sinking of his Great Lakes ore boat during Noah’s youth. Survived in body, but not in spirit. Once Noah arrives, though, it’s clear that his father is not simply ill but dying—which the father knows, though he hasn’t been explicit. He doesn’t want sympathy. And so the two begin an awkward journey toward the end of Olaf Torr’s life and,
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