Inheriting her mother's San Francisco bookshop in the wake of a tragedy, Natalie bonds with her ailing grandfather and hires a contractor to perform repairs before unexpected discoveries connect her to the community and family secrets.

"An extremely useful parenting handbook... truly outstanding ... strongly recommended."
—Library Journal (starred review)

"A tremendous resource for parents and professionals alike."
—Thomas Atwood, president and CEO, National Council for Adoption

The adoption of a child is always a joyous moment in the life of a family. Some adoptions, though, present unique challenges. Welcoming these children

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Suffering an accident that causes her to forget the last ten years of her life, Alice is astonished to discover that she is thirty-nine years old, a mother of three children, and in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from a man she dearly loves.

"When someone you love goes to jail, you might feel lost, scared, and even mad. What do you do? No matter who your loved one is, this story can help you through the tough times."--from cover, p. [4]

Jane Larkin disappeared without a trace in November 1976. When ten-year-old Miranda arrives home from school that autumn afternoon, finding her mother's pocketbook in its usual spot in the front hall, she assumes her mother will be back any minute. But as the hours tick by, alone in the house, Miranda becomes filled with a steady certainty that her mother will never come home again. In the absence of other leads, detectives quickly turn their suspicions...

"After moving from a small country town to Seattle, Heather Baxter marries Tom, a widowed doctor with a young son and teenage daughter. A working vacation overseas seems like the perfect way to bring the new family together, but once they're deep in the Australian outback, the jet-lagged and exhausted kids are so over their new mom. When they discover remote Dutch Island, off-limits to outside visitors, the family talks their way onto the ferry, taking...

"Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a...

"Journalist Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary and their four children lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing...

The story of your life matters. It matters to God, to your family and friends, to those who need to hear of the hope that comes from faith in Jesus Christ. Our stories need to be told. Linda Wasson shares her unique journey and struggles to find purpose and meaning in and through the difficult and often unseen moments of life. Her pursuit of God and the desire to know his heart and ways, despite the often painful and confusing circumstances of life,...

"Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as Nicole grew up-facing...