検索キーワード： 現代文学

Carolina Brown couldn’t be more different than her mama if she tried. Growing up, she worked hard to set herself apart, eager to leave town and accomplish big things in the wide world. But when her mother suffers a near-fatal accident, God calls Carolina back to Charleston to help her adapt to life in a wheelchair and to help make ends meet by temporarily filling in at the local diner. It’s there she meets the whimsical pastor Adam and his team of tiny therapy dogs.

Harmony King disappeared from Charleston as soon as she aged out of the foster system. Ten years later, she returns with just as many secrets as she had back then. As her past threatens to overwhelm her, she seeks mercy at the local church. There, the pastor finds her praying like her life depends on it and decides to entrust one of his tiny therapy dogs to her care. Will this special Chihuahua’s love be enough to help Harmony discover her own worth, and can it protect her when the dark past she tried so desperately to leave behind finally catches up to her?

What is a gift worth? Does it depend on the gift itself or on what the gift means to the person receiving it? An uplifting short story about an unwanted gifts' impact in the lives of the ones that encounter the gift. These lives experienced life-altering circumstances that thrust them into the depths of despair, where they remained. The gift reveals a new hope and so, the choice is theirs; to stay where they are, or to receive the gifts' inspiration to finally live.

Once one of Chicago’s significant financial advisors, Jade lost her credibility when her fiancé (and coworker) stole millions of dollars from their clients in a Ponzi scheme. Now she’s agreed to help one of them—an aging 1960s Hollywood starlet named Berenice “Benny” Alderidge—seek financial restoration. Jade sets off along Route 66 with Benny and her handsome adult foster son, Bridger, who is filming a documentary retracing the 1956 trip that started the love story between Benny and her recently deceased husband, Paul.

Rejection. Isolation. Polarization. Violence. Following the death of church founder and community leader Jeremiah Silas, New Living Church faces a reckoning as skeletons begin to fall out of their closet. At the heart of the issue are four individuals whose lives unexpectedly collide at the scene of a crime tied to the church. A liberals arts professor, a single black woman, a gay young man, and a conservative church deacon must learn to offer each other grace or face devastating results with violent consequences for the whole town.

Lucas Clyborne has had his eye on Sweet Water's librarian, Ryland Solomon, for almost a year. He's even started going to the library and checking out books. Who knew Extreme Ironing was a thing? So, maybe he had a little trouble concentrating on looking for suitable books since his attention seemed to get fixed on the cute librarian who didn't seem to know he was alive. Ryland didn't know why Lucas all the sudden had a fascination with obscure books like The Iliad and Favorite Ties of Latin American Presidents, but she is sure he's up to no good.

Wisconsin, present day. Audra March’s adult life is haunted by a teenage misstep. Taking an assumed name and enjoying simple things, the thirty-something comes upon a vintage recipe box while thrift shopping and hunts down the owner’s daughter. So when a longtime adversary threatens her with blackmail, she jumps at the invitation to escape to the dead lady’s estate and avoid an old enemy.

Artist Britt Branch has a successful online channel where she teaches a variety of art lessons. Obsessed with the 1970s, she has a style all her own. But she also has a huge problem--severe social anxiety. She lives with her mom, and while she pays her own bills, she wonders if she'll ever have the courage to move out and move on. When her best friend announces she's getting married, Britt decides it's time to make a change.

Juniper's been through a messing breakup, and she's drowning her sorrows in clay, glaze, and crafting. She and her best friend, Penni, have hit the streets of Wimber for a craft fair. But the crazy Texas weather might have other plans for their time, along with a handsome artist just a few tents down the lane.

The Bug Man is getting married on Saturday. . . if his fiancée can find him. Forensic entomologist Nick Polchak lives in a world of maggots and blow flies and decomposing bodies. No wonder he's still single. But Nick has finally found a woman as strange as he is—dog trainer Alena Savard, a woman who is odd, reclusive, and can seemingly talk to animals. It was a match made in heaven. Nick and Alena are scheduled to be married on Saturday—but there's one small problem. Nick has disappeared.

Matthew Goodman is tired, and his one wish is for something he can't have. Instead he focuses on the demands of his work as pastor of Chicagoland's Calvary Community, including bringing a new administrative assistant onboard. New hire twenty-five-year-old Trish Card watches him with somber, lake-clear eyes. What he doesn't know about Trish and her real reason for appearing will dismantle his world.

Cassandra Petit-Charles is not your average preacher’s kid. She carries a gun and takes on Boston’s underbelly. She is an “extraction specialist” and her job is relocating kids who have gotten entangled in street life. Helping at-risk youth feels like penance for Cassie’s wild younger years and she’s at peace with living for each new day’s adventure, even if her family think she’s stuck in the past and afraid of the future. Then, the past returns.

The last thing Phillip Hawkins wants is to return to the small town where he grew up. Especially now when his fledgling business is on the verge of collapse. But when his uncle calls to tell him his mother is in the hospital after overdosing on sleeping pills, guilt and duty compel him to return to Mylin Valley. He hopes to keep his presence in town under the radar, but a run-in with an old friend, and his friend’s attractive sister, brings Phillip an unexpected source of support and encouragement.

Two enemies who always wanted to be friends. A load of piglets. One crowded church service. Could Claudia Clyborne and Beau Hanson use the things life throws at them to look past their differences and forge a strong, forever relationship? And if they do, will one of them have to give up their lifetime dream?

Toni returns to Tabor Heights to help identify the White Rose Killer. He stalks young women who look like her sister, murdered twenty years ago. Is he the same boy, grown up, who left white roses on Angel's grave? Curt found Angel's body, and he doesn't want Toni to be the White Rose's next victim. He reluctantly partners with her at the newspaper, to find the killer before he strikes again. To protect her, they pretend to have a relationship that slowly becomes real.

In The Wishing Tree, Ivy Marshall, a savvy, determined woman, finds out her husband has cheated on her on the same day her sister’s perfect boyfriend proposes on national television. When Ivy’s mother asks her to return to her family’s beach home to plan her sister’s upcoming wedding, she decides to use the excuse to escape from the pain of her circumstances.

After discovering a collection of letters written by his father, who he thought was dead, Abel Shifflett decides to run away—accompanied by Willie, his adult friend who is mentally disabled but extremely protective of him. But their journey is ill-fated from the start. Will Abel find the home—and father—he's always longed for?

Katrina Saxby wasn’t even planning to trade her on-track academic life at Pacific Union College for a year in northern Thailand. But the call of God was clear and so she said yes. Now she’s got to teach English, start up a high school choir, launch the newsletter, be a substitute preacher when a bus breaks down, dispense dating advice to teenage girls, and fret about the growing reality that one of the Thai teachers might be falling in love with her.

Lyric Woods has been sober for years now, but nothing about picking herself up from rock bottom has been easy. She’s behind on bills and on the verge of getting evicted, still paying for the mistakes of her past. When she is stranded with the police officer who doesn't remember her, she's afraid to reveal her secret.

Após a explosão que afundou seu iate, um grupo de sobreviventes se vê à deriva num bote salva-vidas na vastidão do Atlântico. No terceiro dia, quando o desespero começa a aumentar, um homem surge entre as ondas e é resgatado pelos náufragos. Misteriosamente, ele não tem um ferimento sequer.