It's bad enough when your love life is going nowhere fast -- it's worse when everyone else's is soaring

That's the personal tragedy that appears to have befallen Amy O'Sullivan, asshe careens toward the "Big Three-O" with what she laughingly refers to as a "career" at a dead end. Amy's little sister has come home with her "Golden Delicious" Australian fiance in tow. Amy's girlfriend Beth is also planning on tying the knot with her own Mr. Right in the near future. And another "friend" has just slept with the man Amy figured she herself might end up marrying So what's a perennial...

Still-unpublished author Molly Harper would die for a passion like those depicted in the novels sold at Happily Ever After, the bookshop she manages in the Irish village of Burnaby that specializes in romance fiction. And she'd love a boss--any boss--other than her store's detestable, super-smooth new owner, Milo Jones . . . though Milo's very attractive son may be the one good reason why Molly should not take flight.

Molly's best friend, Paige Brady, is a happily married mother of two and running for local office. But suddenly she faces two unanticipated challenges: an...