Showing results by author "Jessie Gussman" in All Categories

Elias Emerson has worked hard and become a successful businessman. Fellow businesswoman Catherine Hutchison has been with him, helping him, all his adult life, but he’s never really paid attention to her. She's just there. Never noticed how much she did for him behind the scenes. How much she lifted him up and made him better. How much she sacrificed to give him the support and encouragement he needed.

Originally diagnosed with Lyme disease, Esther MacCartney is frustrated because she’s been bedridden for months and doctors can’t tell her if she’ll ever be well again. The only person who’s visited her regularly is her sister’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Monroe. He makes her laugh and treats her like he enjoys her company. But her sister has a job offer off the farm, and Esther is afraid Monroe will propose to get her to stay.

After her husband walks out, leaving her with three small children, Shelby isn't interested in romance. She just wants her roof to not leak and the furnace to work. Keene Emmerson is ready to settle down, but he's not expecting to find love in a single wide trailer amidst the chaos of kids and construction and a pair of September sky blue eyes.

I thought it would be a good idea to buy a dog…. I ended up with an ATV I have no idea how to drive. I’m not sure how this happened, especially since the man I purchased it from, Justin Gabriel, introduced himself by running his remote-controlled monster pickup into my high heeled shoe. I’m serious, studious, and a high school English teacher at Good Grief High. Needless to say, Justin Gabriel is not my type.

I’m a city girl and proud of it. Chicago is my hometown and I’m in my element surrounded by people and buildings and busyness. Actually, my business—my vlog—depends on my interactions with people. You can’t go viral talking about your pet turtle. Well, maybe some people can, but that’s not how I became a highly paid influencer. I was happy to use my influence to help my grandmother, Agnes, save her assisted care facility. I thought I was going to hate being out in the wilderness for days on end…bugs and bears and no internet or sushi bars.

Crew Pittman was one of the world’s top underwater welders. Until a freak accident left him permanently unable to work. When Burgundy shows up at Crew’s new home to be a caretaker to the elderly woman who won’t leave, it seems like three unlikely people are trapped unwillingly together.

People are so serious about life. I feel it was made to be enjoyed. I’m not interested in having a great career or climbing a corporate ladder or being inside much at all, actually. I don’t like to stay with things too long, either. I’ve worked as a short line cook, a firefighter, and a dolphin trainer among other things. So, when the ladies at the Good Grief senior living center offer me a short term job as the photographer for the risqué nature calendar they want to pose for—to cross it off of Miss Agnes’s bucket list—I am all in.

It took me a while—most of my life, in fact—to decide that my hometown of Good Grief, Idaho, is the best place in the world to live. But I have and I love it...except for one thing. My boss. Okay, so the man is good at his job. We just have a tendency to disagree on how much activity the seniors at our assisted-living center want to have.

Willen Hawkins knew exactly what she wanted to do with her unexpected inheritance: use it to fix up the Indigo Inn at Blueberry Beach. After all, it’s been more than 18 years since she graduated from Blueberry Beach High and left town. The life she’s created for herself is far more lonely than the life she’d envisioned for herself as a teen. But if she wants to reinvent herself and start building the life she wants, she has to stop waiting for everything to be perfect and start now.

Tiffany Grant wanted to return to her hometown of Blueberry Beach in style—but a bunch of bad choices mean that she’s crawling back with barely a penny to her name. At least her debts are paid off, even if she had to sell everything she owned to make that happen. She has a lot of regrets and a lot of sins and secrets to make up for. So the first thing she does when she arrives at Blueberry Beach is to stop at the church and volunteer for every program they have. Kane Burton has a secret past of his own. No one expects their pastor to have been a male stripper.

As they agreed on the night of their high school graduation, Leiklyn and her two friends, Tiffany and Willen, meet on the porch of the Manor at Blueberry Beach on April Fool’s day, 18 years after being given their diplomas. Life hadn’t turned out as expected for any of them. A single mother for 15 years, Leiklyn recently lost her job and her unemployment is running out. Could the manor she and her friends bought for one dollar be the change she needs to move forward in her life? Or will it just complicate things when she finds out the explosive secret her daughter is hiding?

Anitra Pollard has lived in Blueberry Beach all her life, an idyllic small, lakeside town where regular people go to escape real life. Unfortunately, Anitra’s real life couldn’t get much worse. Her husband left not long before her oldest son was diagnosed with leukemia. Worse, the head doctor on the team assigned to her son looks very much like the man she had a short, but very sweet, summer fling with…and the father of the child she carries. Her life couldn’t get any harder or messier, but she will let nothing get in the way of getting the very best care for her son.

After working beside her sisters for years on their Iowa farm, Meg McCartney finds herself alone, trying to do the work of three people. She’s never been one to mope around, but she’s lonely and tired and at the end of her rope—desperate enough to give serious thought to an offer that has come in for the farm…and for her.

They were high school sweethearts, but money and pride came between them. Can their twin sons trick them into falling in love again? Reid Hudson would be happy on his Missouri farm except he’d always thought he’d be sharing it with his soul mate, Emerson. Instead, he gets six months with each of his boys and splits the holidays. Not the life he’d planned.

Candace McClosky thought the billionaire tycoon actually loved her and would help her save her family’s ranch. She fancied herself in love for the first time in her life. She was a fool. Now, she’s stuck with even more problems and, as the oldest, she feels responsible for helping her sisters and saving their ranch. So, she comes up with a desperate plan and pitches it to an even more desperate cowboy.

Clara Landry hates her job. When her boss informs her she needs to transfer to The Cities from her office at Lake Michigan, she decides it's a good time to quit and to start her dream business selling her art at a small artisan shop in Strawberry Sands. The decision would be a no-brainer, except she's been in love with her boss for years. But he doesn't know, and wouldn't be interested in her.

Chi came to Strawberry Sands to escape her past. There were a lot of things to be ashamed of there. Maybe that's why she's so eager to catch the eye of the big-name lawyer who hangs out at her diner. It will prove she's not as worthless as she feels. At a big gala she wasn't supposed to attend, she discovers the lawyer is not only cheating on her but married as well. She might have done more to embarrass herself, but Griff, her coworker, showed up on his bike and whisked her away. She is almost like a heroine in a fairy tale.

Phoebe Clyborne has always been the perfect child, and she'd certainly never been in jail. So, after being released from her first night in the lock up, the new cowboy in town is bound to get the wrong impression about the girl who has been content on her family's ranch, assuming the Lord just wants her to take care of her family and never have one of her own when she runs smack into him, knocking them both down. It wouldn't have been so bad, but later that day, Phoebe realizes he's the new foreman at their ranch.

Two enemies who always wanted to be friends. A load of piglets. One crowded church service. Could Claudia Clyborne and Beau Hanson use the things life throws at them to look past their differences and forge a strong, forever relationship? And if they do, will one of them have to give up their lifetime dream?

Asher Clyborne's unspoken love for Sondra has lingered in the shadows, veiled by loyalty to his brother. But when Asher takes her to his mountain cabin after her fiance breaks up with her, a freak accident leaves Sondra as the only person who can save his life. Sondra, a city girl at heart, struggles to adjust to the harsh, technology-free environment. Yet, when Asher is injured, she must turn to God to conquer her fears and save the man who's always been her silent guardian. Slowly, Sondra learns to rely on God to calm her anxieties and Asher gets a little stronger each day.