"Abandoned by her mother at age seven, Alexandra Winslow took solace in the mystery stories she read with her devoted father--and soon she was writing them herself, slowly graduating to dark, violent, complex crime stories that reflected skill and imagination far beyond her years. After her father's early death, at fourteen Alex is taken in by the nuns of a local convent, where she finds twenty-six mothers to take the place of the one she lost, and...

A retiring children's book author looking to secure her legacy tries to get the beautiful Maine coast where her novels are set donated to a trust, but must first convince the shareholders, one of which is her best friend.

Kaylee Sloan's home in Southern California is full of wonderful memories of the woman who raised her. But the memories are prolonging her grief over her mother's recent death. A successful author, Kaylee hoped she could pour herself into her work. Instead she has terrible writer's block and a looming deadline. Determined to escape distractions and avoid the holiday season, Kaylee borrows a cabin in Virgin River. She knows the isolation will help her...

A man searching for the mother who disappeared decades earlier, a high-strung teenager, a psychic who predicts a man's death, and a disgraced former chief of police find their lives converging in ways that invoke formidable personal costs.