Category Archives: Novels by Genre

Laina Danvers and Ian Hamilton grew up together, not quite family but almost.  Laina’s father was the foster child of Ian’s grandparents, and when he died Ian’s grandparents took her in and raised her.  But the car accident that killed Laina’s father also killed Ian’s father and uncle.  Beatrice Hamilton made peace with that tragic accident but her grandsons never did.  They took their anger out on Laina because her father had been behind the wheel.  Even now, as adults, they are cold and cutting toward her.

Ian Hamilton was the exception among the Hamilton boys, and he is the person who Laina turns to for help when she notices that Beatrice (Gram) is beginning to fail.  The family is scattered and each sibling has adult responsibilities: Ian is an assistant district attorney in Richmond; Elliott is a partner in a large insurance company; Cal is a financial adviser; and cousin Palmer moved to California is escape his overprotective mother.

Laina is busy too as the president of an international trading company and the foster mother of a seven-year old girl.  But just as Gram was always there for her when she was a child, Laina will help Gram now.  When Laina has visited Gram in Arlington, Virginia she’s noticed that the older woman has become frail and is forgetting things, but it is Gram’s annual move to the beach house on Hatteras Island that precipitates a crisis.  The house needs a lot of work, and Gram shouldn’t be there alone.  Laina can see what needs to be done, but the Hamilton men will not accept her advice on anything.  When the family gathers at the beach house on the Fourth of July weekend a stray box of letters reveals something about their shared past that upends the Hamilton family story and allows Ian and Laina to acknowledge feelings that his brothers’ hositility toward Laina forced them to hide.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

Delaney Sutton used to love her job. A professional firefighter living in Richmond, Virginia, she has been passionately dedicated to saving lives for years. Now, at twenty-six, she’s reached a crossroads. Firefighting has always been her dream, but with the death of her friend and co-worker, Hal, in a fire that also injured her severely, Delaney is unsure and worn out. Her chief decides she needs a forced vacation at the same time that her sisters are planning their annual Sisterhood Sojourn to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Delaney gives in and goes with them.

Her four weeks in Avon on Hatteras Island are supposed to be relaxing. Unfortunately, her three sisters have other ideas about what she needs– well, one idea. A man. Luckily for them, Gareth Collins arrives almost within a day of the four women, and the Sutton sisters waste no time in hounding their youngest about how cute he is. Delaney has to agree, but she just doesn’t know if she wants a relationship right now. She hasn’t been able to sleep properly since Hal’s death, about which she keeps having post-traumatic flashbacks. Gareth realizes something isn’t entirely right with the pretty youngest Sutton sister, so he tries to take it slow, encouraging her to open up to him a little at a time. Is love really the medicine Delaney needs?

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.