Books

Current Hardcovers:

The Devil’s Daughter

Graduating magna cum laude from MIT is the happiest day of Billie Banks’s life, although her family is not part of it. Her mother, who always supported her, died when Billie was seventeen. Since then, her father has been slowly drinking himself to death on the family farm in Iowa, and she and her younger sister, Mickie, have grown even more estranged.

Growing up, the siblings could not have been more different. Billie was shy, small, bookish, more like their mother; tall, blond Mickie was boldly sexual, craving attention, and lacking empathy for anyone, like their father. Despite Billie’s attempts to look after Mickie following their mother’s death, her sister consistently treated her with cruelty.

So when Mickie invites Billie to move in with her in Los Angeles, Billie is both wary and hopeful. Taking a leap of faith, she joins her sister on the West Coast. While Mickie lands a questionable modeling job and falls in with a fast crowd, Billie begins working at a pathology lab and starts dating a warm, supportive reporter at the Los Angeles Times.

But then the siblings’ difficult history once again rises to the surface. This gripping story of a sisterly bond strained to the breaking point by narcissism and temptation is an unforgettable tale of good and evil.

Current Paperback:

A Mind of Her Own

Alexandra Bouvier is born in Paris in 1900, at the dawn of a new century. From an early age, she is encouraged to think for herself by her enlightened family: her father, a French doctor; her mother, an American nurse; and her maternal grandfather a highly regarded newspaperman back in the Midwest.

At age fourteen, Alex’s comfortable life is upended as war erupts across Europe. Her parents follow their sense of duty to the front, performing triage at a field hospital and confronting the horrors of poison gas and trench warfare. The merciless fighting, coupled with the fast-spreading Spanish flu, wreaks havoc on the continent, as well as on Alex’s loved ones. By the time she is eighteen, she has suffered unimaginable losses.

With her grandfather’s support, she attends the University of Chicago and decides to follow his footsteps into journalism. As a newspaper intern she meets reporter Oliver Foster, who is covering the gang wars sparked by Prohibition. He too has known devastating loss, and the two are drawn to each other, though both fear any attachment. As it turns out, Alex has good reason to be cautious.

Previous Titles

The Color of Hope

Following the unexpected death of her beloved husband, art gallery owner Samantha Thompson finds herself adrift in their Malibu beach house. Her three adult children—scattered from New York to London to Milan—are concerned for her well-being and encourage her to take a trip to Paris.

Once abroad, an impulsive day trip from Paris to Biarritz leads Samantha to discover the charming medieval village of Arcangues in the Basque countryside, with its unique and iconic blue shutters and historic château. The château is the ancestral home of Xavier de Bonport, who is trapped in a loveless marriage and trying to dig himself out financially after a business failed due to the pandemic. He needs rental income as urgently as Samantha needs a refuge. With Xavier living in a smaller house on the property, Samantha begins to transform the château into a temporary home.

As they each sense compassion and resilience in the other, as well as kindness, a friendship blossoms. Inspired by the stories of Xavier’s grandmother, who saved hundreds of Jewish children during World War II, Samantha considers fostering some children at the request of the local Dominican nuns, whose orphanage is filled to capacity. As a newfound family begins to fill the château, Samantha and Xavier wonder if their friendship is becoming something more.

The Portrait

Devon Darcy’s reputation precedes her. As a highly sought-after portrait artist, she seems to have the ability to peer into the souls of her subjects and then capture them on canvas. But the world doesn’t know about the devastating losses she has endured, first as an orphan, then as a far-too-young widow.

When entrepreneur Charles Mackenzie Taylor sees her at a New York gallery event, he is instantly haunted by her beauty and her talent. Having lost his mother when he was thirteen, and still living in the cold shadow of his late banker father’s disapproval, Charlie has given up on love. He’s resigned himself to a loveless marriage to avoid the inconvenience of divorce.

But Devon awakens something in him across that crowded gallery, and she is in turn intrigued by Charlie. He approaches her to paint his portrait, and while her schedule is booked for many months before she can accommodate him, with the electricity between them palpable.

When they encounter each other over the summer in the Hamptons, their connection deepens as they each release years of pent-up emotions and unfulfilled longing. But the ghosts of their pasts are not easily put to rest. Charlie wrestles with his fear of real intimacy for the first time in his life, while Devon struggles with her fear of abandonment. And after an accident endangers Devon’s career, they must decide together what their future holds.

For Richer For Poorer

After working as head designer for Oscar de la Renta, Eugenia Ward started her own company when she turned forty, fourteen years ago. She is now a major name in evening gowns and wedding gowns, ready-to-wear and haute couture. But with the fashion business in major downturn, she has recently suffered heavy losses, and Eugenia desperately needs new investors—and new ideas.

At the same time, she is the matriarch and guiding light for her five adult children, a single mother for more than a decade, since her divorce from the spendthrift Italian prince she’d married young. As the family gathers for a summer vacation at a beach house, wedding plans for her daughter Gloria are ballooning in expense even as the loutish behavior of Gloria’s fiancé causes Eugenia to question her daughter’s judgment. Meanwhile, Gloria’s sister Daphne is due to deliver twins right around the wedding date . . . which is also very close make or break New York Fashion Week.

The silver lining in it all may be meeting Patrick Hughes, a successful real estate developer who’s also going through a rough patch. A brilliant and creative businessman, Patrick gives her valuable advice about her business challenges. Eugenia finds friendship with Patrick sailing on his yacht and starts to imagine a new beginning, independent of her roles as mother and entrepreneur. But as the family gathers for the big wedding, tensions are running high, money may be running out, and a hurricane is looming on the horizon.