Maxon Chambers has a way of stealing all the attention. All my affection, and all my dreams. What I needed to remember was he'd stolen my good judgment and my virginity, too. When he broke up with me, I ran across the country and swore I'd never return to Broadshire Rim. But here I am, thirteen years later. Maxon is all grown up. Sexier than sin and more tempting than ever. A detective on the Charleston force, he lives on the outside of safety, devoted to protecting the people of his city. But with the way he's looking at me now? I'm pretty sure what needs protecting is my heart. Can we mend the pieces of us? Or will he leave my heart shattered forever . . .
Charlotte Barnes believed her life was perfect until a betrayal forced her from everything she knew and loved. Devastated and trying to put the past behind her, Charlotte sought a new life in a new town. Now, five years later, her fiancé has convinced her it's time to return home and face her past. But will the truth she learns and the people she reconnects with destroy her carefully crafted happiness? Hannah Downing has created an emotional roller coaster about lost love and the way one indiscretion can change the course of your life. Charlotte questions every decision she's ever made, but she may discover that when you lose everything, you can truly find yourself.
Four teenagers from two families--sisters Katie and Julie and brothers Alex and Kyle--meet every summer at a lakeside community in upstate New York, where they escape their everyday lives and hide disturbing secrets.
There’s a time in life where you need to be selfish. A time where you need to make a sacrifice. A point in life where you find yourself at a crossroads. Knowing that whichever path you choose, someone will end up hurting. I’m stuck with this predicament. Am I selfish enough not to care? Or am I selfless enough to sacrifice my own happiness? Hurting the only man that had me—body and soul.
From the author of The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland comes a hilarious and heartbreaking novel about coming apart, getting it together--and moving on. It's just a two-hour drive... Pondering math problems is Esther Ainsworth's obsession. If only life's puzzles required logic. Her stepfather's solution? Avoidance. He's exiled the family to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, to erase a big secret from Esther's past. So much for the truth. Now for the consequences: an empty swimming pool, a water-sucking cactus outside her window, a goldfish rescued from a church festival, and Esther's thirst for something real. Step one: forget about her first love. Step two: make allies. Esther finds them in Jesús from the local coffee bar; a girl named Color who finds beauty in an abandoned video store; Beth, the church choir outcast; and Moss, a boy with alluring possibilities. Step three: confess her secret to those she hopes she can trust. Esther's new friends do more than just listen. They're taking Esther one step further. Together, they hit the road to face Esther's past head-on. It's a journey that will lead her to embrace her own truth--in all its glory, pain, and awesomeness.
Pieces of the Frame is a gathering of memorable writings by one of the greatest journalists and storytellers of our time. They take the reader from the backwoods roads of Georgia, to the high altitude of Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico; from the social decay of Atlantic City, to Scotland, where a pilgrimage for art's sake leads to a surprising encounter with history on a hilltop with a view of a fifth of the entire country. McPhee's writing is more than informative; these are stories, artful and full of character, that make compelling reading. They play with and against one another, so that Pieces of the Frame is distinguished as much by its unity as by its variety. Subjects familiar to McPhee's readers-sports, Scotland, conservation-are treated here with intimacy and a sense of the writer at work.
A novel of five lifelong friends who, in their sixties, decide to live together on a cocoa farm in Fiji, where they not only start a chocolate business but strengthen their friendships and rediscover themselves. "I've planted my feet on Fijian earth and I intend to stay here until the last sunset. Why don't you join me? Leave behind everything that didn't work out!" When Sina, Maya, Ingrid, and Lisbeth each receive a letter in the mail posing the same question, the answer is obvious. Their old high school friend Kat—Kat the adventurer, Kat who spread her wings and took off as soon as they graduated—has extended the invitation of a lifetime: Come live with me on my cocoa farm in Fiji. Come spend the days eating chocolate and gabbing like teenagers once again, free from men, worries, and cold. Come grow old in paradise, together, as sisters. Who could say no? Now in their sixties, the friends have all but resigned themselves to the cards they've been dealt. There's Sina, a single mom with financial woes; gentle Maya who feels the world slipping away from her; Ingrid, the perennial loner; Lisbeth, a woman with a seemingly picture-perfect life; and then Kat, who is recently widowed. As they adjust to their new lives together, the friends are watched over by Ateca, Kat's longtime housekeeper, who oftentimes knows the women better than they know themselves and recognizes them for what they are: like "a necklace made of shells: from the same beach but all of them different." Surrounded by an azure-blue ocean, cocoa trees, and a local culture that is fascinatingly, joyfully alien, the friends find a new purpose in starting a business making chocolate: bittersweet, succulent pieces of happiness. A story of love, hope, and chocolate, PIECES OF HAPPINESS will reaffirm your faith in friendship, second chances, and the importance of indulging one's sweet tooth.
After being held captive for over eight years by a brutal, vicious monster, Olivia Byrd escaped, only to find everything she once knew, gone.Scarred, but not broken she fought to overcome the horror of her ordeal, and find the life that had been stolen from her for so long. But with the shadows of her past still chasing her she faces a long and terrifying journey to find the happiness and peace she longs for.This time though, she is not alone. With help, she has found the embrace of a welcoming home, an adoring family, and the four guys who surround her with the love and safety she so desperately needs.Together Olivia and the men she has fallen for have begun to heal and have found strength in each other.Darkness still lingers though. With the guy's pasts still haunting them, Olivia's memories resurfacing and threatening to shake her world once again, and The Shadow close by in search of his next victim, can they all hold on to what they have built or will it be what finally breaks them all?
A sexy, angsty, excruciating emotion MM friends to lovers rockstar romance by USA Today Bestselling Author Claudia Burgoa. The Sinners of Seattle are the only family I knew. Music brought us together. Tragedy bonded us forever. That’s where I met Ethan. Both of us had bad childhoods. We knew all about unrequited love. You know what they say, misery loves company. We shared firsts. We shared nights. One of us fell in love. It wasn’t him. After my world crumbled and the band broke up I spiraled out of control. Ethan Killion (Kill) became the CEO of a communications conglomerate. I...I’m trying to stay sober. It’s so hard when I don’t have a future. It’s harder when the guy who makes me want to be better is engaged. He’s marrying someone who can’t understand him. One call from him becomes a lot more. He wants to remember what we once had. I desperately desire him. Unrequited love can destroy you. I know. Things get dark between us. Now there’s no stopping it. I don’t care if I am shattered into pieces. I just need one last time. The first book in the Second Chance Sinners duet will leave you with a cliffhanger that might make you lose your breath.
Now on Netflix! Starring Toni Collette and Bella Heathcote! Mother. Hero. Liar. Killer. How can you tell when all you have is... PIECES OF HER What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all . . . ? Andrea knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows she’s spent her whole life in the small beachside town of Belle Isle; she knows she’s never wanted anything more than to live a quiet life as a pillar of the community; she knows she’s never kept a secret in her life. Because we all know our mothers, don’t we? But all that changes when a trip to the mall explodes into violence and Andrea suddenly sees a completely different side to Laura. Because it turns out that before Laura was Laura, she was someone completely different. For nearly thirty years she’s been hiding from her previous identity, lying low in the hope that no one would ever find her. But now she’s been exposed, and nothing will ever be the same again. The police want answers and Laura’s innocence is on the line, but she won’t speak to anyone, including her own daughter. Andrea is on a desperate journey following the breadcrumb trail of her mother’s past. And if she can’t uncover the secrets hidden there, there may be no future for either one of them. . . .
