The summer after her first year of college, Isobel "Belly" Conklin is faced with a choice between Jeremiah and Conrad Fisher, brothers she has always loved, when Jeremiah proposes marriage and Conrad confesses that he still loves her.

When her husband echoes that lonely question, announcing that he's leaving her for another woman, Sophie Anderson realizes she has no idea what's next. Impulsively renting a guest cottage on Nantucket from her friend Susie Swenson, Sophie rounds up her kids, Jonah and Lacey, and leaves Boston for a quiet family vacation, minus one.

"Every August, four women would gather together to spend a week at the beach, renting a new house each year. The ritual began when they were in their twenties and their husbands were in medical school, and became a mainstay of every summer thereafter. Their only criteria was oceanfront and isolation, their only desire to strengthen their far-flung friendships. They called themselves the Girls of August. But when one of the Girls dies tragically, the...

In a summer cottage on the coast of Maine, an unlikely love was nurtured, a marriage endured, and a family survived. Now it is time for the children of that marriage to make peace with the wounds and the treasures left to them. And to sort out which is which. The complicated marriage of the gifted Danish pianist Laurus Moss to the provincial American child of privilege Sydney Brant was a mystery to many who knew them, including their three children....

"Some people stay all summer long on the idyllic island of Belle Isle, North Carolina. Some people come only for the weekends-and it's something they look forward to all week long. When Riley Griggs is waiting for her husband to arrive at the ferry one Friday afternoon, she is instead served with papers informing her that her island home is being foreclosed. To make matters worse, her husband is nowhere to be found. She turns to her island friends...

Beach houses are the ideal getaway homes. Selected from the pages of Fine Homebuilding, this book provides inspiration for anyone dreaming of such a home, plus practical guidance for designing and building in this often-challenging environment. Chosen for their variety of styles and settings, these outstanding examples range from Northwest eclectic in Seattle to an elegant houseboat in Rhode Island, from the quintessential California beach house to...

Home sweet home away from home ... the weekend getaway is the perfect place to rejuvenate, a sanctuary for enjoying life's simpler pleasures. For those who already own a second home or dream of having one, this lovely volume of more than 200 lush photographs will transport sojourners from one beautiful retreat to another. From rustic cabins to grand farmhouses, from water's edge to country meadows and mountain glades, a weekend home is the perfect...

"Two best friends torn apart by a life-altering secret. They have one summer to set the record straight. When twelve-year-olds Kat Steiner and Blake O'Neill meet at Camp Chickawah, they have an instant connection. But everything falls apart when they learn they're not just best friends-they're also half-sisters. Confused and betrayed, their friendship instantly crumbles. Fifteen years later when their father dies suddenly, Kat and Blake discover he's...

"Beach people are not only 'house proud,' but they are irrevocably 'house happy.' With a unique attachment to their homes, coastal dwellers and their homes exude a certain warmth and beauty found nowhere else. [This book] reveals six routes to the happiness found in beach houses, exposing how the walls and windows, doors and floors, decor and architecture combine to create an atmosphere in which we can breathe easier and be our best selves"--Amazon.com....

In the summer of 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanished from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. The loss devastated the family. Sixty-four years later, Emily's sister Lucy writes the story of that harrowing summer in a notebook that she bequeaths, along with the lake house and a hefty investment portfolio, to her grandniece, Justine. For Justine, the lake house offers a chance to give her own daughters a stable home she never...