"Miss Edith had once told me that everyone has a free will and could choose whatever he or she wants out of life. Jess chose a slow form of suicide, drinking himself to death. He'd made his choice, a brown bottle of booze instead of our children and me. My heart bled for him, my knight in shining armor, the one I'd daydreamed of so often when I was a teen."

As a young girl growing up during the Depression and World War II, Amy lives in constant fear of her two alcoholic parents. Neglected and alone, she leaves home early and marries at eighteen. But she unwittingly continues the cycle of...

Annie McMuffit must infuse her new business, Annie's Attic, with a large amount of hard cash or abandon her long-time desire to own an antique shop. Joe Carter offers Annie a money-spinning job evaluating the contents of a ten-room Victorian house, his recent inheritance. Annie, a novice at appraising antiques but desperate for money, accepts the job. While Annie works and stays at the isolated, menacing Carter house, someone tries to frighten her away. She proves why her nickname is Granite-head and stays her course. After Annie reads a collection of diaries she finds in a secret compartment...