Summer's Child

Summer's Child

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Publishers Weekly: Twenty years after 11-year-old Daria Cato found a baby abandoned on a beach in Kill Devil Hills, N.C., she is still very much a part of the child's life. Daria's parent's had adopted the infant, but now they are dead and she has accepted responsibility for Shelly--who has grown into a beautiful, slightly handicapped young woman. Without consulting Daria, Shelly contacts Rory Taylor, host of TV's True Life Stories, to ask his help in finding her birth mother. Rory has a personal interest in Shelly's story since he'd been one of the many teenagers hanging out on the beach the summer the baby was found. Daria, meanwhile, has been keeping to herself the crush she's had on Rory for years--along with Shelly's true story. Here, as in previous offerings, Chamberlain (Breaking the Silence) creates a captivating tale populated with haunting characters.
Read online
  • 1 177
Breaking the Silence

Breaking the Silence

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Laura Brandon's promise to her dying father was simple: to visit an elderly woman she'd never heard of before. A woman who remembers nothing—except the distant past. Visiting Sarah Tolley seemed a small enough sacrifice to make. But Laura's promise results in another death. Her husband's. And after their five-year-old daughter, Emma, witnesses her father's suicide, Emma refuses to talk about it…to talk at all. Frantic and guilt ridden, Laura contacts the only person who may be able to help. A man she's met only once—six years before. A man who doesn't know he's Emma's real father. Guided only by a child's silence and an old woman's fading memories, the two unravel a tale of love and despair, of bravery and unspeakable evil. A tale that's shrouded in silence…and that unbelievably links them all.
Read online
  • 1 176
The Bay at Midnight

The Bay at Midnight

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Her family's cottage on the New Jersey shore was a place of freedom and innocence for Julie Bauer -- until tragedy struck when her seventeen-year-old sister, Isabel, was murdered. It's been more than forty years since that August night, but Julie's memories of her sister's death still color her world, causing turmoil in her relationships with her teenage daughter, Shannon, and her mother, Maria. Now an unexpected letter from someone in her past raises questions about what really happened that night. Questions about Julie's own complicity, about a devastating secret her mother kept from them all. Questions about the person who went to prison for Izzy's murder -- and about the man who didn't. Now Julie must harness the courage to revisit her past and untangle the shattering emotions that led to one unspeakable act of violence on the bay at midnight.
Read online
  • 1 155
Kiss River

Kiss River

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

The arrival of Gina Higgins, a mysterious stranger who is determined to restore Kiss River's historic nineteenth-century lighthouse, profoundly impacts the lives of Lacey O'Neill, a talented stained-glass artist with a dark past, and her brother Clay, who is trying to rebuild his life after a devastating tragedy.
Read online
  • 1 089
The Midwife's Confession

The Midwife's Confession

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Dear Anna, What I have to tell you is difficult to write, but I know it will be far more difficult for you to hear, and I'm so sorry— The unfinished letter is the only clue Tara and Emerson have to the reason behind their close friend Noelle's suicide. Everything they knew about Noelle—her calling as a midwife, her passion for causes, her love for her friends and family—described a woman who embraced life. Yet there was so much they didn't know. With the discovery of the letter and its heartbreaking secret, Noelle's friends begin to uncover the truth about this complex woman who touched each of their lives - and the life of a desperate stranger - with love and betrayal, compassion and deceit.
Read online
  • 1 022
Pretending to Dance

Pretending to Dance

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Molly Arnette is very good at keeping secrets. She lives in San Diego with a husband she adores, and they are trying to adopt a baby because they can't have a child on their own. But the process of adoption brings to light many questions about Molly's past and her family-the family she left behind in North Carolina twenty years before. The mother she says is dead but who is very much alive. The father she adored and whose death sent her running from the small community of Morrison's Ridge. Her own birth mother whose mysterious presence in her family raised so many issues that came to a head. The summer of twenty years ago changed everything for Molly and as the past weaves together with the present story, Molly discovers that she learned to lie in the very family that taught her about pretending. If she learns the truth about her beloved father's death, can she find peace in the present to claim the life she really wants? Told with Diane Chamberlain's compelling prose and gift for deft exploration of the human heart, Pretending to Dance is an exploration of family, lies, and the complexities of both.
Read online
  • 997
The Dance Begins

The Dance Begins

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

In this short story prequel to Pretending to Dance, psychologist Graham Arnette longs to dance the way he used to, before illness stole his ability to walk. Graham lives on one hundred acres of family land with his daughter Molly and his wife Nora-and with Amalia, a green-eyed beauty with whom Graham shares his hopes and fears. Six-year-old Molly is the light of Graham's life. As he and his extended family turn an old springhouse into a playhouse for her, long buried hostilities emerge that lead to anger and resentment. . . and, ultimately, to the healing power of family love.
Read online
  • 997

The Escape Artist

The Escape Artist

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Susanna Miller may have lost legal custody of her beautiful eleven-month-old son, Tyler, but that doesn't mean she is giving him up. Even if her ex-husband, Jim, an attorney, and his new wife, Peggy, have every advantage to offer a child, Susanna knows the two of them cannot be as caring, loving, and devoted as she has been. Defying a court order to give Tyler to his father, Susanna runs away, seeking a new start for her child and herself. She changes her name, dyes her hair, and leaves Boulder, Colorado, without a word to anyone, not even the man she loved before she knew Jim. Linc Sebastian has been her best friend since childhood. Linc knows Susanna better than anyone. But she can't risk his help now. Two thousand miles from home, she seeks anonymity in the lovely eastern town of Annapolis, Maryland. Lonely, frightened, and unsure of whom to trust, she meets Adam, a troubled local artist with secrets in his own past. Although drawn by his kindness, she cannot forget Linc and the special love they will always share, even if they never see each other again. As she tries to forget her past, Susanna discovers that starting a new life is more dangerous than she thought, and that the unpredictable has an alarming way of working itself into your world.
Read online
  • 989
The Stolen Marriage

The Stolen Marriage

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Steeped in history and filled with heart-wrenching twists, The Stolen Marriage is an emotionally captivating novel of secrets, betrayals, prejudice, and forgiveness. It showcases Diane Chamberlain at the top of her talent. *One mistake, one fateful night, and Tess DeMello’s life is changed forever. * It is 1944. Pregnant, alone, and riddled with guilt, twenty-three-year-old Tess DeMello abruptly gives up her budding career as a nurse and ends her engagement to the love of her life, unable to live a lie. Instead, she turns to the baby’s father for help and agrees to marry him, moving to the small, rural town of Hickory, North Carolina. Tess’s new husband, Henry Kraft, is a secretive man who often stays out all night, hides money from his new wife, and shows her no affection. Tess quickly realizes she’s trapped in a strange and loveless marriage with no way out. The people of Hickory love and respect Henry but see Tess as an outsider, treating her with suspicion and disdain. When one of the town’s golden girls dies in a terrible accident, everyone holds Tess responsible. But Henry keeps his secrets even closer now, though it seems that everyone knows something about him that Tess does not. When a sudden polio epidemic strikes Hickory, the townspeople band together to build a polio hospital. Tess knows she is needed and defies Henry’s wishes to begin working at there. Through this work, she begins to find purpose and meaning. Yet at home, Henry’s actions grow more alarming by the day. As Tess works to save the lives of her patients, can she untangle the truth behind her husband’s mysterious behavior and find the love—and the life—she was meant to have?
Read online
  • 970
Keeper of the Light

Keeper of the Light

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Dr. Olivia Simon is in the middle of treating a gunshot victim while on duty Christmas night when she realizes that the patient is Annie O'Neill, the woman with whom her husband, Paul, is in love. Despite Olivia's best efforts to save her, Annie dies in surgery. For Olivia, Paul and Annie's husband, Alec, life will never be the same.
Read online
  • 932
The Lies We Told

The Lies We Told

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Maya and Rebecca Ward are both accomplished physicians, but that's where the sisters' similarities end. As teenagers, they witnessed their parents' murder, but it was Rebecca who saved Maya from becoming another of the gunman's victims. The tragedy left Maya cautious and timid, settling for a sedate medical practice with her husband, Adam, while Rebecca became the risk taker. After a devastating hurricane hits the coast of North Carolina, Rebecca and Adam urge Maya to join them in the relief effort. To please her husband, Maya finally agrees. She loses herself in the care and transport of victims, but when her helicopter crashes into raging floodwaters, there appear to be no survivors. Forced to accept Maya is gone, Rebecca and Adam turn to one another—first for comfort, then in passion—unaware that, miles from civilization, Maya is injured and trapped with strangers she's not certain she can trust. Away from the sister who has always been there to save her, now Maya must find the courage to save herself—unaware that the life she knew has changed forever.
Read online
  • 920
Secrets She Left Behind

Secrets She Left Behind

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

One afternoon, single mother Sara Weston says that she's going to the store - and never returns. In her absence, she leaves her teenage son alone with his damaged past and a legacy of secrets. Keith Weston nearly lost his life in an act of arson. He survived - but with devastating physical and emotional scars. Without his mother, he has no one to help him heal, no money, nothing to live for but the medications that numb his pain. Isolated and angry, his hatred has one tight focus: his half sister, Maggie Lockwood. Nineteen-year-old Maggie Lockwood spent a year in prison for the acts that led up to the fire. Now she's back home. But her release cannot free her from the burden of guilt she carries. She grew up with Keith Weston, played with him as a child…and recently learned they share the same father. Now the person Keith despises most is the closest thing he has to family - until Sara returns. If Sara returns….
Read online
  • 900
Cypress Point

Cypress Point

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Mara Sommers and Joelle D'Angelo have been best friends for several years. They have shared everything, including the joy over Mara's first pregnancy. But when something goes terribly wrong during the delivery, Mara is left with brain damage. Alone and grieving, Joelle turns to the only other person who understands her pain: Mara's husband, Liam. Brought together by their mutual devastation over Mara's condition, Joelle and Liam comfort each other as they sit by Mara's bedside in a nursing home. And little by little, day by day, the friendship and caring between them becomes something more. Something undeniable. Torn by guilt and the impossibility of the situation, Joelle seeks help from someone she's not entirely sure she believes in. Carlynn Kling Shire is a healer, and according to Joelle's parents, she saved Joelle's life when she was an infant. Knowing that Mara needs something conventional medicine can't supply -- and equally sure that any improvement in her friend's condition will put an end to the pain of her own longing for Liam -- Joelle sets out to find Carlynn. Her search leads her to a mansion in Monterey, California, and into the life of a woman shrouded in mystery. Does Carlynn really have the power to heal? And will she be able to help Joelle get her friend back? As Joelle is guided down an unfamiliar path by a woman who is clearly keeping her own secrets, she discovers that some love is doomed, while some love can survive anything.
Read online
  • 877
The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

In 1977, pregnant Genevieve Russell disappeared. Twenty years later, her remains are discovered and Timothy Gleason is charged with murder. But there is no sign of the unborn child. CeeCee Wilkes knows how Genevieve Russell died, because she was there. And she knows what happened to her missing infant, because two decades ago she made the devastating choice to raise the baby as her own. Now Timothy Gleason is facing the death penalty, and she has another choice to make. Tell the truth and destroy her family. Or let an innocent man die in order to protect a lifetime of lies.
Read online
  • 824
The Shadow Wife

The Shadow Wife

Diane Chamberlain

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Joelle D'Angelo's best friend, Mara, is left with brain damage after she suffers an aneurysm giving birth to her son. Alone and grieving, Joelle turns to the only other person who understands her pain: her colleague—and Mara's husband—Liam. What starts out as comfort between friends gradually becomes something more…something undeniable. Torn by guilt and the impossibility of her feelings for Liam, Joelle sets out determined to find help for Mara, no matter how unconventional the source. Her search leads her to a mansion in Monterey, California, and into the life of a woman shrouded in mystery. Carlynn Kling Shire is a healer and, according to Joelle's parents, saved Joelle's life when she was an infant. As Joelle is guided down an unfamiliar path by a woman keeping her own shocking secrets, she discovers that while some love is doomed, some love is destined to survive anything. Please note: The Shadow Wife is the reissue of Cypress Point
Read online
  • 801
183