Viola Shipman

"Once the hottest mergers and acquisitions executive in the company, Henrietta Wegner can see the ambitious and impossibly young up-and-comers gunning for her job. When Henri's boss makes it clear she'll be starting the New Year unemployed unless she can close a big deal before the holidays, Henri impulsively tells him that she can convince her aging parents to sell Wegner's -- their iconic Frankenmuth, Michigan, Christmas store -- to a massive, soulless...

"Elizabeth, Veronica, Rachel and Emily met at Camp Birchwood as girls in 1985, where over four summers they were the Clover Girls--inseparable for those magical few weeks of freedom--until the last summer that pulled them apart. Now approaching middle age, the women are facing challenges they never imagined as teens, struggles with their marriages, their children, their careers, and wondering who it is they see when they look in the mirror. Then Liz,...

"Devastated by the sudden death of her mother -- a quiet, loving and intensely private Southern seamstress called Miss Mabel, who overflowed with pearls of Ozarks wisdom but never spoke of her own family -- Sutton Douglas makes the impulsive decision to pack up and head north to the Michigan resort town where she believes she'll find answers to the lifelong questions she's had about not only her mother's past but also her own place in the world. Recalling...

"The Hope Chest is a deeply emotional novel about three people who have seemingly lost all hope until one woman's heirloom hope chest is rediscovered in the attic, along with its contents and secrets. Mattie is a fiercely independent woman battling ALS; Don, her deeply devoted husband is facing a future without his one true love; and Rose, their struggling caregiver, is a young, single mother who feels trapped in her life. With each item that is discovered--including...

"Two women, separated by a generation but equally scarred by war find hope, meaning and friendship through a garden of flowers. Iris Maynard lost her husband in World War II, her daughter to loneliness and, finally, her reason to live. Walled off from the world for decades behind a towering fence surrounding her home and gardens, Iris has built a new family ... of flowers. Iris propagates her own daylilies and roses while tending to an heirloom garden...

"Adie Lou Kruger's ex never understood her affection for what her parents called their Cozy Cottage, the charming, ramshackle summer home--complete with its own set of rules for relaxing--that she's inherited on Lake Michigan. But despite the fact she's facing a broken marriage and empty nest, and middle age is looming in the distance, memories of happy childhoods on the beach give her reason for hope. She's determined not to let her husband's affair...