Small Life

Some women return home to say goodbye. Others return to discover who they really are. At forty-eight years old, Lila Simmons has spent years holding her life together by sheer force of will. After a painful divorce shattered the carefully controlled world she built, the last thing she wants is to return to Salt Flower Bay—the small Florida beach town she spent thirty years trying to escape. But when her estranged mother dies unexpectedly, Lila has no choice but to go home. Her plan is simple: Settle the estate. Clean out the house. Leave before the past has a chance to pull her under ...

Twenty-seven, eight years in the Army, a few months out, and a few months from starting law school at Duke. James Hunt's gap year was supposed to be a quiet one. Then his uncle dies and leaves him a beachfront condo in a small California town and a leather ledger with thirty years of handwriting in it. Duke is in September. Sunshine Shores is right now.

In a world where meaningful connections are more important than ever, mastering the art of small talk can be a game-changer. "Mastering Small Talk: Building Confidence and Strategies for Engaging Conversations" is your essential guide to transforming those initial, often awkward exchanges into genuine, lasting relationships. Whether you’re navigating social gatherings, professional settings, or networking events, this book provides the tools and techniques to engage in confident and effective small talk.

He knocked on my door at eleven at night because a neighbor called 911. I told him we'd just been loud. It's a small house. Handsome Officer Elijah Coleman didn't argue with me. He looked at my wrist. He looked at the doorframe my husband had broken. He looked at my three-year-old standing on the stairs, not crying. Then he wrote every bit of it down, handed me a card, and told me to lock my door. By morning my husband was gone - along with every tool he owned and every dollar in our account. Eli came back anyway. Not with speeches. With a two-dollar part from a coffee can in his trunk, a ...

On a dusty little backwater planet where nothing ever happens, retired mechanic Ezra Kowalski’s biggest worry is keeping his prized cucumbers safe from pests—and from his meddling neighbor, Mrs. Wong. That is, until a spaceship crash-lands square in the middle of his veggie patch. Out tumbles a soft-spoken teenage girl from a nearby world and her infuriatingly cheerful robot. With a massive solar flare knocking out all communication and grounding space travel for the foreseeable future, they’re stuck there together. Ezra wants nothing more than to fix his vines and go back to being ...

Discover the potent force of kaizen... and use it to easily, effortlessly achieve any goal or make any change you want to!We've been programmed to believe that change is a "battle" - something hard fought and hard won, something that demands struggle and sacrifice. But as anyone who uses the technique known as kaizen can tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. With kaizen, it's effortless, simple, and inevitable to change your life.

Desperate to escape their high-pressure life in Los Angeles, the Finch family moves to rural Oregon. But it doesn’t take long to learn that “small town” is not code for “stress-free.” As the new owners of Applegate's one and only general store, the Finches find that the simple life’s anything but simple when your little store is the town's only grocery store, gas station, hardware store, fire station, and occasional dentist’s office.

He wished for an early retirement. He got a curse to break, and a maid who watches him sleep. With his seer powers fading, Gerald left the guild and bought a cottage in a far-off town. He didn’t expect to find a demon in a maid’s dress, bound to the house and eager to please. Now his days are spent fending off her dreadful cooking, keeping the wine out of reach, and admiring how her tail lifts her skirt at the washbasin. Meanwhile, he wonders why the local lord sold him a home with sultry baggage, and how to set her free from the walls that bind her.

From popular The Atlantic columnist Ian Bogost, a lively reflection on how we’ve become disconnected from the physical world—and how to reclaim gratification in our day-to-day lives. In an era dominated by convenience and efficiency, one would think that life would be simpler, easier, and...

Take a breath, find your calm, and embrace all the goodness life has to offer with a new daily guide featuring the best-loved wisdom from The Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Series. Dr. Richard Carlson has taught millions how to let go of the anxieties and fears that can derail our day and instead...

A moment. A mistake. That's all it took for Kennedy Reynolds to lose her first love and her family. She's spent a decade traveling the world, building a life, hiding the truth, never looking back at the past--until her adopted mother's unexpected death pulls her back to the small town--and the secret--she left behind. A chance to make amends. That’s all Xander Kincaid wants from the woman who ran away with his heart all those years ago. At least that's what he tells himself, until he sees her again and that old flame flares bright.

"If you’ve ever avoided talking to strangers, this book might change your mind about giving them their space. And that, as Gillian so perfectly explains, might change everything." —Angela Duckworth, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of GRIT Discover how making connections with strangers...

Fern Sowder found the job posting at 8:40 on a Thursday night. Office Manager — Sowder Roofing. Full-time. Salary. Benefits. Fifty-two thousand dollars a year. For twenty-two years, Fern had run that office from a gray metal desk with a broken chair and a filing cabinet labeled in her own hand. Payroll. Permits. Liens. Insurance claims. Vendor accounts. Eleven crews paid on time because Fern knew every number, every deadline, every mistake waiting to happen. She called Gil first. Her husband sounded gentle. Proud, almost. He said he was doing it for her. He said she had carried too much ...

From #1 Amazon Bestselling Author Kel Summer Harmony Bay: The Complete 7-Book Series A Small-Town Women’s Fiction and Sweet Romance Series of Later-in-Life Second Chances 🎵 Seven stories. One coastal town. And the second chances that change everything. Maggie Donovan spent a lifetime building a life that looked exactly the way it was supposed to. Carefully managed. Carefully controlled. Carefully… incomplete. Until the moment it all begins to fracture—and she makes the one choice she never thought she would: She leaves. In the quiet coastal town of Harmony Bay, Maggie isn’t ...

A writer’s block leads to an unexpected romance… or two. At thirty-two, Dave Roland has resigned himself to a quiet, unremarkable life—crunching numbers by day and writing fantasy novels by night. But when a scathing one-star review shakes his confidence, he begins to question not only his talent but the purpose of his passion. Then he meets Zoe and Chloe—two sisters who seem to embody everything he’s ever longed for in a partner. Zoe, a fiery redhead with a sharp wit and brighter eyes, challenges him in all the right ways. Chloe, a gentle blonde with a shy smile and a quiet ...

Alden is drained. A dead-end job in a grey city is sucking the life out of him, and he’s a breath away from snapping. So when a mysterious letter arrives with a hundred-year-old deed to a magical farm, the choice is easy. He’s trading the city's grime and grind for a fresh start. But Starshine Farm is a wreck. The fields are barren, the buildings are collapsing, and the nearby villagers are openly suspicious.

A President dies under mysterious circumstances, leaving a secret mistress and their twelve-year-old son…and also a loyal First Lady who has no idea what went wrong with their marriage. Forty-nine-year old widow Ruby Hudson, the former First Lady of the United States, needs a fresh start. As she mourns the loss of her husband, she turns her love of books into a whole new career, opening a little bookshop on a charming, pirate-themed island called Shipwreck Key just off the coast of the Florida Panhandle. Her two daughters think she’s crazy, but Ruby can finally breathe again knowing ...

"The world is too small," Saint Frances Cabrini (1850–1917) once declared. "I would like to embrace it all, to reach every corner." This compelling, authoritative biography chronicles the astounding life of a petite Italian-born religious sister who, with the heart of a missionary, conquered all odds to become the first American citizen canonized a saint.

A heart too big for this world. A life that changes everyone. "The audio version of Life & Death & Giants is especially captivating, with a cast of talented narrators voicing each of the points of view. Fans of John Irving will appreciate the quirky characters and surprising plot line. And...

Welcome to Jewell, North Carolina, a small strip of land on the Crystal Coast with no stop signs or traffic lights, but it's got a whole lot of magic. Ruby Mae Jewell helps run the family business of selling antiques and refurbished goods. But with old objects, you never know when one of them possesses more than just dust and cobwebs. When Rue hits up a flea market, she gets more than she bargained for. Finding a potentially dangerous magical object, she has to get it off the market and out of mortal hands.