As the only child of a single mom, Jenny Collins wanted nothing more than to be part of a large, rambunctious family like the O'Briens. Ironically, though, when her mother married into that family, Jenny found herself feeling more like an outsider than ever.
Now, after years in Nashville as an established songwriter, Jenny's drawn back to Chesapeake Shores to collaborate on a Christmas production…and to make peace with the past. As if that's not challenging enough, Caleb Green, the singer who broke her heart, has followed her to town, determined to win her back.
With the help of a little O'Brien holiday magic, will Jenny and Caleb find a way to make sweet music forever?
Gabriella Castle, who is dealing with a personal crisis, retreats to her grandmother's home in North Carolina to make some difficult life decisions, where Wade Johnson tries to persuade her to give love a second chance.
Dating Matthew O'Brien, a playboy and a younger man, cost Laila Riley her career and her parents' respect. When she decided it was just a fling, she broke it off. Now Laila needs to get away from it all, but she has severe reservations about accepting the O'Briens' invitation to join them for a Dublin holiday. Matthew is bound to be there. What if she can't resist temptation?
After years apart, Mick and Megan O'Brien are finally ready to make it official…again. Most of their grown children couldn't be happier about their rekindled love and impending marriage this holiday season. Only Connor is a holdout. Driven to become a divorce attorney after what he views as his mother's abandonment of their family, Connor's not about to give his blessing to this reunion romance.
The last thing Megan wants to do is hurt her family again. After all, is she really sure she and Mick can make it this time around? And when an unexpected delivery causes chaos, it seems only a miracle can reunite this family.
Of course, it is Christmas - the season of miracles.
When Jeanette Brioche helped launch The Corner Spa in Serenity, South Carolina, she found a whole lot more than professional satisfaction. She discovered the deep and loyal friendships that had been missing from her life. But even the Sweet Magnolias can't mend the terrible rift between Jeanette and her family or persuade her that the holidays are anything more than a season of misery.Pushed into working on the town's much-loved annual Christmas festival, Jeanette teams up with the sexy new town manager. Tom McDonald may be the only person in Serenity who's less enthused about family and the holidays than she is. But with tree decorations going up on the town square and a bit of romance in the air, Jeanette and Tom take a fresh look at the past and a hopeful look into the future. Together they discover that this just may be a season of miracles after all.
Dana Sue might run the best little restaurant in Serenity, but when you're feeding a small town of neighbors, busybodies and best friends, things can get a bit hot in the kitchen. Never mind that she's putting on too many pounds (an occupational hazard for a chef)-she's worried about her too-skinny teenage daughter, Annie, who has been slowly starving herself since the loud, suitcase-tossing, name-calling fit on her front lawn that left Dana Sue minus one cheating husband. But sometimes life picks strange ways to mend fences. When Annie lands in the hospital, Dana Sue reaches out to the man she loves to hate: Ron, the husband who took her heart when she tossed him out. Ron is still Annie's white knight, even if he's decidedly more tarnished in Dana Sue's eyes. But he still looks good enough to eat, and maybe, just maybe, to forgive. Once, Ron made the mistake of letting go without a proper fight. But now Dana Sue is about to get another taste of sweet devotion from a man tired of feeling like a fool, hungry for that slice of heaven he found with her.
Life can be full of surprises...
Helen Decatur spent a lifetime setting goals-getting through college and law school, opening her own practice, becoming financially secure and establishing herself as one of the most highly respected matrimonial attorneys in the state of South Carolina. Achieving those goals was a breeze compared to the one she's faced with now.
The most driven-and cynical-of the Sweet Magnolias, Helen is forty-two, single and suddenly ready for the family she's put on the back burner for all these years. Unfortunately, having a child at her age comes with lots of complications, not the least of which is the absence of a serious relationship in her life.
But Helen's not the type of woman to wait around for fate to step in. Taking charge of her own destiny puts her at odds with her two best friends, sets sparks flying with a man who doesn't want a family, and leads her straight into the most unexpected complication of all...love.
Oh, God! She's in love with her preacher.But it's not as if Amanda O'Leary set out to fall for the most gorgeous (and unattainable) man this side of South Carolina Low Country. It's just that he organized building a cozy home for her and her children at a time when the future looked darker than blackstrap molasses. Not even her own father, the arrogant and wealthy Big Max, would have done as much for her. But that's a whole other kettle of fish.Caleb can count on fingers and toes why his attraction to widowed Amanda is plain wrong. How can he objectively counsel this chin-up spitfire without letting his emotions--and imagination--run wild? And now that Big Max has burdened him with not one secret, but two, he knows his priorities should be mending fences between father and daughter--but he can't help trying to build a place for himself in her heart first....
