Books

Current Hardcovers:

The Portrait

Devon Darcy’s reputation precedes her. As a highly sought-after portrait artist, she seems to have the ability to peer into the souls of her subjects and then capture them on canvas. But the world doesn’t know about the devastating losses she has endured, first as an orphan, then as a far-too-young widow.

When entrepreneur Charles Mackenzie Taylor sees her at a New York gallery event, he is instantly haunted by her beauty and her talent. Having lost his mother when he was thirteen, and still living in the cold shadow of his late banker father’s disapproval, Charlie has given up on love. He’s resigned himself to a loveless marriage to avoid the inconvenience of divorce.

But Devon awakens something in him across that crowded gallery, and she is in turn intrigued by Charlie. He approaches her to paint his portrait, and while her schedule is booked for many months before she can accommodate him, with the electricity between them palpable.

When they encounter each other over the summer in the Hamptons, their connection deepens as they each release years of pent-up emotions and unfulfilled longing. But the ghosts of their pasts are not easily put to rest. Charlie wrestles with his fear of real intimacy for the first time in his life, while Devon struggles with her fear of abandonment. And after an accident endangers Devon’s career, they must decide together what their future holds.

Current Paperback:

Trial by Fire

Born to a French mother and American father, graceful Dahlia de Beaumont has been sole owner and CEO of the venerable family perfume business based in Paris since her early twenties, following the death of her parents. For twenty-five years, after losing her young skier husband in an avalanche, her life has centered on running Lambert Perfumes and being a devoted single mother to her four now-adult children: indecisive Charles, volatile Alexa, kind-hearted business visionary Delphine, and dreamy artist Emma. Now fifty-six, she has an “arrangement” with a married French man but has been questioning that relationship.

Dahlia comes to San Francisco on a routine business trip to check on her stores in the States. But shortly after her arrival, brush fires ignite in Napa Valley. Watching the sweeping devastation on the news, Dahlia is moved to help. But doing so will bring unforeseen consequences that endanger not only her life, but her entire future. Forced to remain in San Francisco in the aftermath, she will make unexpected connections while also fighting to protect all she has worked for. What Dahlia learns will provide a new perspective of her life, forever changing what really matters to her and what comes next for her journey.

Previous Titles

For Richer For Poorer

After working as head designer for Oscar de la Renta, Eugenia Ward started her own company when she turned forty, fourteen years ago. She is now a major name in evening gowns and wedding gowns, ready-to-wear and haute couture. But with the fashion business in major downturn, she has recently suffered heavy losses, and Eugenia desperately needs new investors—and new ideas.

At the same time, she is the matriarch and guiding light for her five adult children, a single mother for more than a decade, since her divorce from the spendthrift Italian prince she’d married young. As the family gathers for a summer vacation at a beach house, wedding plans for her daughter Gloria are ballooning in expense even as the loutish behavior of Gloria’s fiancé causes Eugenia to question her daughter’s judgment. Meanwhile, Gloria’s sister Daphne is due to deliver twins right around the wedding date . . . which is also very close make or break New York Fashion Week.

The silver lining in it all may be meeting Patrick Hughes, a successful real estate developer who’s also going through a rough patch. A brilliant and creative businessman, Patrick gives her valuable advice about her business challenges. Eugenia finds friendship with Patrick sailing on his yacht and starts to imagine a new beginning, independent of her roles as mother and entrepreneur. But as the family gathers for the big wedding, tensions are running high, money may be running out, and a hurricane is looming on the horizon.

A Mother’s Love

On the occasion of her daughter Valerie’s wedding and her upcoming fiftieth birthday, bestselling author Halley Holbrook finds herself reflecting. Raising twins Valerie and Olivia is her proudest accomplishment. Halley has been able to give them the loving and safe home she never had, having survived a childhood so traumatic she’s never talked about it with her girls. Long ago, Halley decided to live in the sunlight of the present, not the dark shadows of the past.

After Valerie moves to Los Angeles with her producer husband, and Olivia follows to remain close to her sister, Halley is empty-nesting in her Fifth Avenue apartment. Facing her first holiday alone in years, she books a trip to Paris.

On the flight over, she meets charming Bart Warner, and the two become fast friends. Halley hasn’t dated since her partner died three years ago, yet she quickly begins to feel more like herself. But when a cunning thief makes off with her handbag and then begins to harass her, it reawakens old ghosts from her past. Vowing not to be a victim, and with Bart’s help, she chooses a bold course of action.

A Mind of Her Own

Alexandra Bouvier is born in Paris in 1900, at the dawn of a new century. From an early age, she is encouraged to think for herself by her enlightened family: her father, a French doctor; her mother, an American nurse; and her maternal grandfather a highly regarded newspaperman back in the Midwest.

At age fourteen, Alex’s comfortable life is upended as war erupts across Europe. Her parents follow their sense of duty to the front, performing triage at a field hospital and confronting the horrors of poison gas and trench warfare. The merciless fighting, coupled with the fast-spreading Spanish flu, wreaks havoc on the continent, as well as on Alex’s loved ones. By the time she is eighteen, she has suffered unimaginable losses.

With her grandfather’s support, she attends the University of Chicago and decides to follow his footsteps into journalism. As a newspaper intern she meets reporter Oliver Foster, who is covering the gang wars sparked by Prohibition. He too has known devastating loss, and the two are drawn to each other, though both fear any attachment. As it turns out, Alex has good reason to be cautious.