Lily Wilk always knew she was destined to be an artist -- ever since she pulled a drawing kit from a grab bag on her tenth birthday. Now Lily's work is always in demand around her small Massachusetts town, where she makes her living painting fire hydrants, lettering diplomas, and applying "Gulls" and "Buoys" to restaurant bathroom doors. But when supermarket heiress Mary Ziemba commissions her to paint a family portrait, Lily senses her lifelong dream of creating a memorable masterpiece is finally within her grasp. What she discovers, however, is that dreams often take their own unexpected...

Growing up in a small New England town, 14 year-old Donna Milewski had all she needed: a grandmother, Babci, whose fragrant cooking filled their home...her mother, Helen, who lovingly stitched outfits...and Adam, the most wonderful father a daughter could imagine, who dreamed she could one day lead an all-girl polka band.
Then came Betty, a tiny and adorable five-year-old, sent from Poland by Adam's destitute brother. Bringing with her only a rubber doll's leg and her old-world charm, Betty became the little sister Donna never had -- and a threat to her father's love. During a long and...

When Robyn Panek is summoned by her ailing uncle Pal to operate his pony ring for one final season on his Massachusetts farm, her years away form the vacation spot of her youth seem an unbridgeable gap. But she is pulled by forces stronger than memory to piece together the events of that last childhood summer -- when a dark mystery swirled about her friend Lucy Dragon. They called her crazy, and Robyn must at last uncover the truth about Lucy's sudden disappearance -- and make peace with her own first love, Frankie. Now the future of Pal's six ponies, who circle the ring five times for a...

"Songs from a Lead-Lined Room" is a unique and remarkable book rooted in truth and raw experience, and the first memoir to focus on the personal experience of radiation treatment. As with Shea's best-selling fiction, her sharp and insightful wit and her reporter's eye for the most telling and sometimes quirky details inform every page. She shares what she learns about the process of her treatment, her bouts of despair, indignity, and fear, as well as the faux pas, the innocent blunders, and the compassion and caring of her family, friends, and fellow patients

Your brakes fail and your car plunges from a pier into a February-frigid harbor. You are thrown to safety but your four-month old daughter, trapped in her car seat, drowns. Four years after that horror, you return from a trip to the shore and lift your four-month-old son from his carrier only to realize he's dead, too, a victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Twenty-two years later, your 25-year old son drowns while swimming in a Malawi, Africa lake. How do you survive that first death, never mind the second, or the third? Ask Mags Riordan of County Kerry, Ireland. Only the blessing of her...

Soap operas have captured loyal, often lifelong viewers since the first American daytime serial debuted in 1949. In this collection of 29 new and five classic essays and recollections, authors and soap opera insiders delve into the passion for television melodrama that compels viewers to -tune in tomorrow.- The contributors include iconic soap star Thorsten Kaye, journalist Leigh Montville, authors Elinor Lipman and Ann Hood, and editors of Soaps in Depth magazine. They explore the soap phenomenon from a range of perspectives and consider the appeal of a venerable genre in which, as...