Like any significant career move, this one happened by accident. Karen spent a lot of time planning what she was going to do with her life, but Fate had other plans for her, as she often does for most of us.

As a single mother who’s struggling to make ends meet, Karen stumbles into the worst job on earth: transporting souls into the afterlife. To make matters worse, she is contractually bound to continue the job indefinitely, and her difficult employer is none other than Fate. It doesn’t take long for Karen to learn that Fate may be fashionable, but she’s also heartless.

In bondage to Fate, but in love with Fortune, Karen struggles to find a way out.

Beauty that is seen, but unseen to the eyes of the beautiful.

For she was born beautiful... but her face didn't show it..till now.

A price for a simple, coveted wish to be beautiful to all that 17-year-old Legend Conaway desired. Yet when her desire was heard by heaven’s listeners, Legend learns that every blessing comes with a price.

She is blessed with beauty, rises to fame and fortune, yet one thing is missing that Legend left out of her wish; to see the beauty for herself. She still sees her plain face in the mirror, unaware of the beauty she has that millions adore, and contemplates over and over the choice that was given to her by the mysterious woman 'Angelica', who granted her wish; she will have this for one year, and after it, Legend must decide whether to keep it or give the wish back.

If she does, will the world still love her face? Will the man of her dreams who fell in love with her, still love her when her beauty melts away? And finally, what is more important, to want other to love you, or to love yourself?

A compelling and heart warming set of four short stories by Mary Grand, author of ‘Free to Be Tegan’, which has over 70 reviews at amazon.co.uk, averaging 4.7 stars.
The New Arrival
Rachel has moved to the Isle of Wight determined to become invisible. Hiding a shameful secret she cultivates a ‘cold polite smile as effective as an electric fence.’ However, unexpectedly, into her life comes a loving, crazy, individual: Lottie the cocker spaniel. Everything is about to change.
Catching the Light
Erin thinks she has found her fairytale prince. However, the honeymoon in a remote cottage in Wales shatters the dream. For the first time in her life Erin discovers the mystical world of fairies.
Belonging
Megan works in a Theatre for the Deaf. She is Deaf. Her language is British Sign Language. One evening she meets John, who is hearing, and two worlds collide. This is the story of the struggles, joys and tears of their remarkable relationship.
The Outing
This was to be the most important day of Kay’s life. However her mission to be free from years of guilt reveals so much more than she could possibly imagine.
Free to Be Tegan
Also included is an excerpt from the author’s full length novel ‘Free to Be Tegan’.
Tegan, aged twenty seven, is cast out of the cult, rejected by her family and the only life she has known. She is vulnerable and naïve but she also has courage and the will to survive. She travels to Wales, to previously unknown relations in the wild Cambrian Mountains.


 

Some lucky women meet the man of their dreams and live happily ever after. Some lucky women focus on a career and make their own happily ever after. And then some women wake up after fifteen years of marriage and discover that their luck just ran out … right into the arms of another woman.

Jana Embers isn’t one to sit back, though. The first thing Jana realizes she needs to do is empty the joint bank account, then she’s thinking she might take a tire iron to her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s truck. After that, she’s not sure what she’ll do … Maybe she’ll adopt a cat.

Bailey Swanson is a disaster when it comes to romance. She's an aspiring actress, but her real life relationships never mirror the happy endings she wants to play on stage. And now her latest cheating ex has driven her into the arms of Ben and Jerry, who have always been there for her.

Her best friend and manager Mark does his best to get her through the emotional trauma while desperately trying to jump-start her nonexistent career. They’ve been friends since childhood and Mark is the only one who gets her, who sees through her difficult-to-love exterior. He's the one thing in her life she can count on.

When Bailey decides the only thing to do is to swear off all relationships forever, she realizes its not easy to shut down her heart. But maybe that's not the right answer. Maybe the right answer has been in front of her face all along….

EVERYONE REMEMBERS THEIR FIRST LOVE...
BUT SOMETIMES IT'S THE SECOND LOVE THAT LASTS

"Evocative and heartfelt, The Guestbook is the profound story of one woman's journey toward hope, renewal and a second chance at love on a lush Pacific Northwest island. Curl up with your favorite cup of cocoa and enjoy."
~Anjali Banerjee - author of Imaginary Men and Haunting Jasmine said about this women's fiction romance

This book weaves together the heart of Nicholas Sparks, the romance of Nora Roberts, and the charm of Debbie Macomber.

Fleeing her picture-perfect marriage among the privileged set of Brentwood and the wreckage of a failed marriage, Lily Parkins decides to move to the only place that still holds happy memories, her grandmother’s old farmhouse. The lush and majestic setting of the Pacific Northwest calls to her and offers a place of refuge and perhaps renewal. Her grandmother has passed away, leaving the Madrona Island Bed & Breakfast Inn to Lily.

Left with only an old guestbook as her guide–a curious book full of letters, recipes, and glimpses into her family history–Lily is determined to embrace her newfound independence and recreate herself, one page at a time. With the help of the quirky island residents she has befriended, she slowly finds the strength to seek out happiness on her own terms. But as soon as she has sworn off men and is standing on her own two feet, Lily meets Ian, the alluring artist who lives next door, and her new life is suddenly thrown off course. The last thing she wants to do right now is to open her heart to another man.

Ultimately, Lily must decide if it’s worth giving up her soul for security or risking everything to follow her heart in this romantic love story.

The Guestbook is the first book in the Madrona Island Series. www.andreahurst-author.com TEA & COMFORT - book two is available April 7, 2015

Imagining him was harmless...until it wasn't.

Romance novelist Meghan Townsend’s marriage is slipping, and no amount of prayer seems to help. She aims to recapture her husband’s waning attention by getting in shape and finds escape by crafting her own fictional love story. Taking inspiration for the hero from a new friend—the attractive, spiritual, and attentive Curtis Jameson—she pours her yearnings onto the page, and craves the kind of pulse-pounding romance found in her book, Racing Hearts...

In 1916 Corona, California, motorcars are all the rage, and racing them is what Meghan’s hero, Russell Keegan, does best. But when his competition vandalizes his car, the only mechanic available is a greasy woman in a man’s overalls.

After a racing accident claimed her father’s life, Winifred became the sole breadwinner for her family. She is disdained as a female mechanic, but her daddy's trade is all she has left. Can she swallow her hatred of the races and take up Russell's offer of big bucks to fix his car, or will she lose everything to mounting debt?

Under Meghan's skillful pen, these two embark on a thrilling, adventurous romance. But she finds that writing those love scenes with Curtis’s face in mind takes her heart places it shouldn’t go. Will she realize in time that real life can be better than fiction?

Eighteen years ago a teenage pregnancy changed Kate Worthington’s life forever. Faced with many difficult decisions, she chose to follow her heart and embrace an uncertain future with the father of her baby and her devoted first love.

At the same time, in another part of the world, sixteen-year-old Ryan Hamilton makes his own share of mistakes, but learns important lessons along the way. Twenty years later, Kate's and Ryan's paths cross in a way they could never expect, which makes them question the possibility of destiny. Even when all seems hopeless, could it be that everything happens for a reason, and we end up exactly where we are meant to be?

Notorious swindler Wish Kaminsky puts her daughter’s romance at risk in this hilarious and heartwarming installment of the award-winning series.

Wish is about to arrive in Liberty, and that means trouble. Liberty is the town that open-heartedly welcomed her daughter. Recently engaged, Birdie has turned her life around—and Wish is the last person she wants to see.

Survival in the animal world is a simple concept. Survival in the human world is not.

1971. Riley Madison is always looking over her shoulder. And always running. From poverty, from abuse, from a childhood snuffed out by a junkie mother, and a violent past marginally kept at bay. This twenty-two-year-old New Yorker lives in her less than perfect world where her only friend is a cat, and when not self-medicating with Twinkies, Oreos and cigarettes, she works at a Times Square sex emporium servicing anyone who can pay. Not because she wants to. But because she has to if she aims to stay one step ahead of the dangerous underworld that sees her as nothing more than prey. Prey whose internal armor is about to be tested in ways she never imagined when her life once again spirals out of control.

Hate your boss? Want to Strangle Your Husband? Be Glad Your Co-Workers Can Keep a Secret.
Can Cheating on Your Husband Bring Unimaginable Pleasure or Completely Destroy Your World?

To her three daughters, Heather is a fun-loving, silly mom. Her co-workers at Norlyn Plains Hospital think she has it all, including a handsome lawyer husband.
But when a flirtatious new doctor chooses Heather to spend his down time with, he reminds her of the man she regrettably gave up so many years before. Each interaction breathes new life into her and she gives in to the doctor’s seductions, threatening her fifteen year marriage.
Her co-workers Victoria and Catherine, are stunned by her actions, but when they see the positive transformation in Heather, and question their own crumbling marriages, they wonder if she has the right idea.

Can cheating on their husbands bring the three of them happiness? Or will they be destroyed by the consequences?

Thirty-four-year-old Blake Wheeler was everything Lila had ever wanted. A rising-star surgeon with his whole life ahead of him, Blake gave Lila ten perfect years of marriage before plunging her into the hardest year of their lives.

When a late night shooting leaves Blake in a coma, Lila is faced with a difficult decision: continue life support or let him go.

One year later, Lila remains unwilling to speak, in a private mental health facility where she refuses to move on.

Dr. Ross Reeves knows firsthand about loss, having spent the better part of five years burying himself in his work. Tasked with the challenge of breaking Lila's silence, Ross investigates Lila's past and her husband's death, finding more to Blake's murder than meets the eye. A series of mysterious coincidences has Ross wondering if Lila is acting out of grief ... or guilt.

Behind every lost dream lies a second chance…
When adored town spinster Joy Talley ends up in a coma after a peculiar accident, she is surprised and incensed to hear what is being said in her hospital room, including plans for her funeral. When she finally wakes, her well-meaning, but bossy, brothers and sisters dismiss her claims, thinking her accident has knocked her off her rocker, but Joy has never felt better, and is determined to set the past right.
Now Joy must face her darkest secret and risk reopening wounds caused by an old flame who rejected her more than twenty years ago. But taking risks brings change, as well as a new, younger man into Joy’s life, making her feel like a teenager again. Suddenly Joy’s once humdrum life is anything but boring and routine and the future beckons, exhilarating and bright.

Join countless other romance readers who have been captured, claimed, and seduced by Julianne MacLean’s passionate and adventurous bestselling Highlander series.

A SCOTTISH PRISONER
Nothing means more to Scottish heiress Larena Campbell than saving her father from the gallows. While on an urgent mission to deliver his pardon from the King, she and her English escorts are attacked by a pair of fierce Scottish rebels. When she is dragged unconscious back to the stronghold of Angus the Lion, a powerful and dangerous Scottish laird, she is furious with her captors and determined to escape at any cost…

CAPTOR AND PROTECTOR
Highland scout, Darach MacDonald, is suspicious of the beautiful and defiant heiress who clocked him in the head during the skirmish with the enemy Redcoats. He suspects she will stop at nothing to win her freedom—not even a manipulative seduction of his younger brother Logan. Fiercely protective of his brother, Darach volunteers to shepherd the heiress back to her home, but spending countless nights on the open road with a lassie as temptingly beautiful as Larena Campbell is enough to drive any hot-blooded Scot mad with savage desire. Suddenly he is overcome by a need to claim her as his own, but when they arrive at her father’s castle, all may not be what it seems…

A savage rape on hallowed ground. Secrets buried for decades by the town’s most influential family.

Now Rennie Perini will learn the Great Oak’s secrets as construction begins at the Fagan mansion. She can’t afford to turn down a job that promises to stir up the long-buried guilt—and the passion—she shares with powerful Troy Fagan.

She’s already juggling the most important job of her career with her new responsibilities as a foster mother for young Walt and Emma Korchek. And there’s a hard, older man on the construction crew with eyes void of emotion—cold and killing. The secrets of his brutal past will pose a grave threat to the children in her care. Will she find the courage to face him?

Diana Moore has led a charmed life. She’s the daughter of a wealthy senator and living a glamorous city life, and is confident her handsome live-in boyfriend is about to propose. But everything is turned upside down when she learns of a mysterious woman who lives and works nearby – a woman who is her exact mirror image.

Diana is compelled to discover the truth about this woman’s identity, but the truth leads her down a path of secrets, betrayals, and shocking discoveries about her past. These discoveries follow her like a shadow.

Then she meets Dr. Jacob Peterson—a brilliant cardiac surgeon with an uncanny ability to heal those who are broken. With his help, Diana embarks upon a journey to restore her belief in the human spirit, and recover a sense of hope - that happiness, and love, may still be within reach for those willing to believe in second chances.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary: stupid (n) – slow of mind: obtuse

Dr. Gorgeous’ office called to tell me about a stray dog that needed a home. The receptionist said the staff was reluctant to send her to the local dog shelter because of the low odds of her surviving. Dr. Gorgeous had suggested me. I agreed to take the stray unseen.

As I drove to the vet’s office, I tested out cutesy girl names. And then I met her.  The stray was a mutt that resembled a small German Shepherd. She looked more wolfish than domesticated canine. Her coat was brindle, almost the same color as my skin, with irregular dark markings that looked like zigzag lines of tar. She had wolf ears that she rotated like antennas. The staff gushed about her cheerful personality. Clearly that persona had departed as soon as I had entered. We studied each other cautiously like opposing gunslingers facing off in a dusty western town.

She just seemed standoffish and sneaky to me. Maybe it was just me. Maybe I was emitting a vibe that was sloughing off like dandruff. But I saw what I saw. We were eying each other suspiciously.

It’s 2009.Lisa Hansen is impacted by the great recession and can’t focus on her writing career. She has to make the tough decision to stay in Los Angeles or return to her former Midwestern home. Not having seen her mother in over a decade, she moves back in with her in a suburban semi-retirement community. Confronted with long forgotten memories, Lisa finds it difficult to a djust to life in Nadir. She works a couple of dead end jobs, and meets Gordon, a sexy British bakery owner. An opportunity to freelance for him and work as a writer/photographer at The Factory ensures a better income. But how long will she be confined in a lifestyle that she has long outgrown? “Notes from Nadir” is an alternatively poignant and amusing story of life’s unforeseen journeys, sorrows, and rewards.

Where is Nadir?
Merriam-Webster defines nadir as “the lowest point.” And that is where Nadir is located. It’s not a place that is found on any map. No GPS will guide anyone there. Nadir is a state of mind.

In South Carolina, there’s more than magic in the air. Now policewoman Lei Texeira must solve the case of the Pirate Necklace.

The famed emeralds, spirited in the 1700s from the pirate Blackbeard’s ship, have been snatched once again. This time, the bling was taken from Marie-Therese Belvedere, a woman whose cruelty is only topped by her arrogance.

Lei doesn’t care for the icy socialite, but she feels an instant connection with the woman’s stepdaughter. An unlucky star has followed Sydney Belvedere her entire life. If the necklace isn’t found, she’ll lose a treasure more dear than the finest gem.

Only the magic of Lei’s intuition stands between Sydney and unspeakable loss.

Welcome to Auburn, where fresh baked cookies hold the key to your future, and a melody carries the secrets of your past.

Mina Fairchild keeps to herself, and that’s the way she likes it. Her secluded life protects the secrets she hides, as well as a certain peculiarity that even people in the colorful town of Auburn, Nebraska find strange.

But when her movie-star sister Bernadette shows up on her sofa, Mina’s cozy bungalow is overrun with paparazzi. One dark eyed reporter seems to see straight into Mina’s soul and her world begins to crumble. It’s bad enough when he noses around her secrets, but then he starts digging for information about her mother, and Mina can’t let that happen.

Bernadette fled her Hollywood life after her boyfriend’s affair caused her to do things that sent the tabloids flying off the racks. Now she’s facing the sister she hasn’t spoken to in eight years, and an ex-fiancé, to whom she owes more than an explanation. While she’s not sure she can tell them the truth, she’s determined to make things right, even if that means America’s Sweetheart waits tables in a small-town diner.

Trouble is, this prodigal return has unraveled more than the sisters realize. When a body is discovered, and a strange woman comes to Bernadette pleading for help, Auburn encounters a decades old mystery that causes Mina to question the very people she’s been protecting, and threatens the few people she’s close to.