With Christmas just around the corner, Thomas Pitt's sister-in-law, Emily Radley, is suddenly called from London to be with her dying aunt. Leaving her husband and two children behind, she makes the long journey to her aunt's home in Connemara, an all-but-forgotten town on the coast of Western Ireland. Emily soon discovers that a tragic legacy is haunting the once close-knit community. Violent storms ravage the coast and keep alive painful memories...

Erin Neal has been living a secluded life in the Arizona desert since the death of his girlfriend and he isn't happy when an oil company executive comes calling. A number of important Saudi oil wells have stopped producing and Erin is the world's foremost expert in resolving just these kinds of complications. Erin quickly finds himself stuck in the Saudi desert studying a new bacteria with a voracious appetite for oil and an uncanny talent for destroying...

While vacationing at the Jersey Shore with her teenage daughter and husband, Cam Hastings is forced to play a twisted game with a serial killer after she has a vision of a missing child that hits too close to home.

In "Nell's Cowboy," a widowed mother running a dude ranch deals with a customer known for his writings on the West, while in "Lone Star Baby," minister Wade McMillen aids Amy Thornton when she shows up pregnant and alone in the town of Promise.

"NELL'S COWBOY. Nell Bishop, widowed mother of two children, is turning her property into a dude ranch. And one of her first guests is Travis Grant, an Easterner known for his books about the West. Her kids adore him--and she has to admit she's drawn to him, too. But Nell isn't ready to fall in love again. Or is she? LONE STAR BABY. Wade McMillen might be a minister, but he's also a man. An unmarried and very attractive one. So is it as a man that...

A collection of short works is comprised of pieces that previously appeared in "The New Yorker," "Playboy," and "McSweeney's," in a volume that includes such tales as "The Gingerbread Girl" and "N."