Shattered by the loss of her husband, Maggie struggled each day to put her grief behind her. To be there for her teenaged daughter. And to face life again. When she returned to her Wisconsin hometown, she never expected to feel a spark of longing for her old high school sweetheart. Eric's marriage to a career-driven woman had left him childless and unhappy - he knew there had to be more to life than always wanting what you couldn't have. Seeing Maggie again filled him with hope. Maybe the answer to his dreams had just come to town. 

Lorna Barnett is tired of playing the role of "good girl" that her mother has always lived, and that high society prizes. It isn't until she meets Jens Harken that she realizes she yearns to be cherished for herself. Although Jens is a servant, his strength and intelligence put all the society men she's met to shame. 

When Sarah Merritt arrives in Dakota Territory in 1876, she steps off the dusty Cheyenne stagecoach determined to start this ramshackle gold-rush town's first newspaper. In Deadwood, her runaway younger sister, Addie, is living and working as domestic help at Mrs. Hossiter's boardinghouse, according to her letters. Five years after Addie's flight from home, Sarah is carrying the sad news that their one remaining parent, newspaper publisher Isaac Merritt, has died. 

Eighteen years ago, Tess McPhail left her tiny hometown of Wintergreen, Missouri, for the bright lights of Nashville and never looked back. Now, one of country music's biggest stars, "Mac" is a hardworking woman with little time for a personal life - until her sister insists she come home to help care for their widowed mother. The welcome Mac receives is less than warm, especially from her former next-door neighbor Kenny Kronek. With a teenage daughter to raise, the handsome divorce refuses to give Mac the time of day. 

Hoping to escape the shame of her street urchin's life in Boston, Anna Reardon plotted a desperate scheme - to become Karl Lindstrom's mail-order bride in the beautiful, dangerous frontier of Minnesota. A kind and gentle man, Karl forgave Anna for her deceptions. But there was still one burning secret she had to hide from him, knowing its revelation would destroy the love they had come to cherish.

 A captivating woman with blue eyes and big dreams, Emily was engaged to a man whose touch left her aching for something more. Tom, the handsome new man in town, was her father's rival in business, and challenged her heart's destiny with a single, stolen kiss. Whenever they met, sparks flew. Until she showed him how tender she could be, and he showed her how true passion could feel. Until they both realized the importance of taking vows with someone you really, truly love. 

In town, they called her "Crazy Widow Dinsmore". But Elly was no stranger to their ridicule - she had been an outsider all her life, growing up in a boarded-up old house under the strict eye of her eccentric grandparents. Now she was all alone, with two little boys to raise, and a third child on the way. Will Parker drifted into Whitney, Georgia, one lazy afternoon in the summer, hoping to put his lonely past behind him. He yearned for the tenderness he had never known, the home he'd never had. All he needed was for someone to give him a chance.

Agatha was the picture of primness and propriety, but her green eyes could blaze with anger - or sparkle with humor. Scott was the picture of lazy charm and happy indifference to what others thought was right and wrong. They were enemies, then friends. Then the sweet innocence of a child opened their eyes and their hearts - and they were reborn in each other's arms by the soft, wondrous gift of love.

Bess Curran, 40, is an interior designer in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, still lonely and bitter after her traumatic divorce six years earlier. Her adult daughter, Lisa, anxious for her parents to reconcile, arranges a surprise dinner meeting where she informs them that she is pregnant and about to marry. Bess and former husband, Michael (he left her for another woman, who, in turn, has just left him), can barely control their mutual animosity yet must come to grips with the startling news.

Confident and practical, Winn never imagined anything - or anyone - could overturn her perfect world and perfect wedding plans. But in a single passing moment, her heart told her otherwise. Joseph knew Winn's love was promised to another man, that he must hide his heartfelt passions. But he also knew that the heart doesn't lie: This was that love of a lifetime. They met at a spring wedding, only months before Winn's own. Were they carried away by the intoxicating spirit of the moment? Or was this the start of a love they would cherish forever?

Linnea Bradenborg expects to find culture and excitement in Alamo, North Dakota, where she's recently been hired as the new schoolteacher. Instead, she finds a sparse little town in the middle of nowhere. Better yet, her train is met by a cantankerous wheat farmer named Theodore Westgaard who doesn't bother to hide his displeasure when he discovers that L. I. Brandenborg is a woman and not the man he was expecting.

Lee Reston has a fulfilling life imbued with the love of her three wonderful children. Then a shattering event - the loss of her oldest son, Greg - tears her world apart. In her anguish, she turns to police officer Christopher Lallek, Greg's best friend. Their shared mourning develops into friendship, and then something deeper. But life is never simple. The family that was once the core of her existence becomes a mixed blessing, as Lee explores where family ties end - and her needs as a woman begin. 

As innocent as she was unsure, Theresa Brubaker had lived much of her 25 years trapped in a body she loathed. Her precious beauty was treasured by everyone but herself - until a very special man showed her a very special love. Proud, sensitive, caring, Brian Scanlon sought to unleash the butterfly wrapped in Theresa's cocoon of inhibitions. But trust for Theresa came haltingly and a bold, courageous decision she makes alone nearly destroys the promise of their love.

CEO millionaire Max Fletcher is a single dad in desperate need of a nanny. Cozy Barlow is in the middle of her self-appointed “gap year” and doing everything she can to detach from her past. But when her sister begs her to interview for the nanny position of a high-maintenance client, she doesn’t have a good enough reason to say no. And when Max locks eyes on the 20-something in a tie-dye sweat suit who pitches the idea of daydreaming all summer—he prepares to give this bad nanny the boot.

Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So, when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. The leader, and soon Alice's greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who's never asked a man's permission for anything.