Showing results by author "Carolyn Brown" in All Categories

A week before your wedding is no time for your ex to ride back into town, stirring up trouble. But that’s exactly the predicament Darla McAdams finds herself in. With practically the entire town of Tishomingo, Oklahoma, in attendance, the last place she wants to be is at her grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary party with the whole family, her fiancé and her old flame all in the same room.

Meet Minnie, Dotty, and Stella—all retired and year-round residents on a cruise ship, they have dubbed themselves the unofficial matchmakers aboard. Minnie can ferret out a lonely woman by the second day of the cruise. Dotty can spot an open-hearted man all the way across the Lido Deck. And Stella is great at putting a plan together. Together they’ve been every bit as successful as one of those online dating sites, and they can watch the romance unfold right before their eyes.

Ever since childhood, Emma Merrill and Sophia Mason were bound by a passion for painting. Like all young best friends, they promised to never lose touch. But the girls came from different worlds, and their paths diverged when Emma went to an elite college and Sophie worked her way through state school. After a decade they’ve reconnected, both in a time of need. Emma has been struggling with depression since her college years, and she’s lost herself under the suffocating influence of her controlling and manipulative mother.

Six years ago, one fight ended it all . . . And now Tracey Walker has bittersweet memories and a secret that she keeps close to her heart. A fresh start in a new town is just what she and her five-year-old son need to move on from the past. But when she discovers her old flame lives a few doors down from her, she's confronted with the urge to tell him everything.

New York Times bestseller Carolyn Brown brings her Southern sass to Christmas in this friends to lovers contemporary romance full of Great Aunt Bernie's matchmaking shenanigans and lots of kissing under the mistletoe. Tripp Callahan’s leather shop in Spanish Fort, Texas has become more than he...

Professional poker player Carla Wilson’s luck runs dry in Tucson, leaving her with nothing but an SUV running on fumes and a deed to the Tumbleweed Bus Stop and Diner in small-town Texas. Her plan to sell the café and move on seems simple enough—until she meets the motherly cook who rules the kitchen with an iron skillet and the sunny waitress who treats her like a sister.

What do a runaway bride, a free spirit, and a corporate exec have in common? Besides all being down on their luck, Lainie, Jodi, and Becky are Lizzie Cornell's granddaughters. Upon inheriting their grandmother's home and family bait shop, the three cousins return to Catfish, Texas, grieving Lizzie's passing and hoping to find the fresh start they all need.

After seven years of misery and abuse, it's all over—Hannah O'Malley is officially divorced. Hallelujah. It's like every Christmas in her life all rolled up into one glorious day. Not only does Hannah get to keep her grandmother's spacious old house, but she has full custody of her sparky five-year-old daughter. All Hannah has to do now is put the past behind her.

Riverbend, Texas, doesn’t look like the crossroads of anywhere. But for four high school besties reuniting after twenty years, it’s a place to unpack a lot of baggage. Risa’s headed for divorce, Mary Nell’s been kicked to the curb by her leech of a boyfriend, and Haley was just blindsided by a shocking family secret. But restless army veteran Jessica Callaway, looking to plant roots, has an idea: corral her fellow former cheerleaders and renovate an abandoned church smack-dab in the middle of three dry counties into a bar.

Secrets told in the church ladies' room are supposed to stay in the ladies' room. But that doesn't mean that what Trudy overhears there during her great-aunt Gertrude's funeral won't change the rest of her life. Trudy has a daughter in the middle of a major rebellion, a two-timing husband who has been cheating for their entire married life, and a mother with Alzheimer's residing in the local nursing home.

Nita, Sharlene, and Billy Joe, all about to turn 80, are tired of waiting their turn for a funeral dinner. They each have a bucket list and are determined to tick off at least a few of the items before they go. So what’s left but to hit the road? They enlist two drivers—Billy Joe’s great-grandson, Ford, who has just gotten out of the Air Force, and Sharlene’s great niece, Joelle, a schoolteacher who has the summer free.

Being broke, unemployed, and stranded back in the tiny town of Pick, Texas, was not part of Jancy Wilson’s plan. Yet here she is, watching her car literally go up in smoke - along with her last-ditch hope of staying with her cousin in Louisiana. When Jancy spies a Help Wanted sign hanging in the window of the quaint Strawberry Hearts Diner, the memories of the two years she spent there as a teenager - and the lure of the diner’s beloved strawberry tarts - are enough to draw her in and plant her feet...but only temporarily.

Inheriting the Magnolia Inn, a Victorian home nestled in the East Texas pines, is a fantasy come true for Jolene Broussard. After living with the guilt of failing to rescue her self-destructive mother, Jolene knows her aunt and uncle’s B&B is the perfect jump start for a new life and a comforting place to call home. There’s just one hitch: stubborn and moody carpenter Tucker Malone. He’s got a half interest in the Magnolia Inn, and he’s planting his dusty cowboy boots squarely in the middle of her dream.

Love gets a second chance in this charming cowboy romance from a New York Times bestselling author, perfect for fans of Diana Palmer and Linda Lael Miller. After spending years traveling the world with the military, Rose O'Malley is ready for a change. Heading back to Texas to hold down the fort...

Substitute counselor for wayward teens isn’t how public-school teacher Jayden Bennett planned to spend her summer vacation. However reluctant, she’s hiking up her jeans and heading for remote Piney Wood Academy in north Texas. Two months. Seven days a week. Few amenities. And three troubled girls daring Jayden to make a difference. She understands what she’s up against. She has her own burdens to bear. Jayden’s not in it alone. The devoted elderly couple who run Piney Wood trusts in Jayden’s tough-love approach to get the job done. So does drill instructor Elijah Thomas.

Kim Brewster's ill-fated marriage was annulled so quickly that she thought she could keep the whole thing a secret...until she found out she was pregnant. But before her confession can blow a hole in the seemingly perfect lives of the Brewster women, her great-grandmother, Hannah, drops a bomb of her own. She's selling her hotel and moving to a farm in Oklahoma—and all the Brewsters are coming with her.

Returning home to Ditto, Texas, is bittersweet for Lila Matthews. Her dear and feisty aunt Gracie has passed away, leaving Lila her estate. That includes a centuries-old house, a field of the freshest strawberries in Atascosa County, more money than Lila can count, and a secret Aunt Gracie took to her grave. All the angels in heaven won’t be able to pry it out of her.

Family doesn’t mean everyone has to like each other. That’s the case when cousins Taryn, Anna Rose, and Jorja return to Shamrock, Texas, to help manage their grandmother’s flower shop, the Lucky Shamrock. The reunion isn’t exactly a beautiful arrangement—considering they’re as compatible as ranchers and coyotes. Thank heaven for a handsome go-between like Clinton, who lives above the shop.

After thirteen years away, Tina O’Grady returns to her hometown of Benson, Texas, drawn to the old oak tree in the park. She and her childhood friends, Walker and Gracie, called it the “tomorrow tree” and shared their dreams beneath its branches. But Tina, still reeling from past betrayals, has no plans to stay.

When they were growing up, Dana, Harper, and Tawny thought of themselves as “sometimes sisters". They connected only during the summer month they’d all spend at their grandmother’s rustic lakeside resort in north Texas. But secrets started building, and ten years have passed since they’ve all been together - in fact, they’ve rarely spoken, and it broke their grandmother’s heart.