The USA Today–bestselling author delivers a poignant historical romance of a desperate woman, a lonely cowboy, and the never-ending search for hope. RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Americana RITA Finalist for Best Short Historical Booklovers’ Award for Bestselling Americana Marrying Maddie Sherwood, a woman who works in a brothel in order to survive, widower Charles Lawson hopes to provide his three children with a loving mother—until his terminal illness causes him to arrange a match between Maddie and his brother. Praise for Lorraine Heath “Lorraine Heath’s books are always magic.” —Cathy Maxwell, New York Times–bestselling author “Heath is known for her beautiful, deeply emotional romances.” —The Washington Post “A powerful writer.” —Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Badger's friends are sad when he dies, but they treasure the legacies he left them.

Broken by their unorthodox Midwestern childhood, sisters Catherine, Anne, and Jessica Mathers search for love, acceptance, and worth—often in the most unlikely places. Catherine, the oldest of the Mathers sisters, is an English professor battling breast cancer with Cytoxan, red wine, and profanity. Anne is a wife and stay-at-home mother of two struggling to make ends meet in a suburban existence that both suffocates and confounds her. Jessica, the youngest by ten years and estranged—by choice—from her family, is an exotic dancer who feels safer on stage than in a relationship. But when the sisters are faced with an incomprehensible loss, they are forced to reevaluate themselves, their damaged bonds, and their fragile future. Parting Gifts illuminates one highly dysfunctional family’s tentative, desperate crawl toward a life of meaning and worth.

A last gift of? Poem maybe but not really the time for right? Abstract, concrete, maybe personal, maybe an interrogation of things as they are towards an undetermined ending. Drawing to a conclusion, thanks for participating, these are your gifts.

"Forgive, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace." author unknown... Sarah wrapped her housecoat strings around her waist and smoothed out the pockets that once held butterscotch candies for her children. She listened to the frightening silence of her now empty home as she opened the utensil drawer and slid her hand to the far back, a place only she would ever go. She could feel the cold metal of the tube cutter, such a small tool capable of so much damage. To test the fit, she slid it into the pocket of her housecoat, and immediately the unbearable pressure of the small item weighed her down. She could see his truck through the window, boldly holding its ground like a demon at the gates of hell. How was she, a housewife, going to find the strength and courage to conquer a monster? Parting Gifts is the story of two friends, one dark secret, and four fateful decisions that would change the course of their lives...and the lives of their families. It's an eloquent debut novel about friendship, choices, regret-and the greatest gift of all: forgiveness.

On the day of her late husband's funeral, widow Kyra Latimer is confronted by a young woman claiming to be her long-lost daughter, given up for adoption twenty years earlier, who leaves her toddler son with his "grandmother" to raise among the eccentric members of Kyra's famous British theatrical family

Badger's friends are sad when he dies but treasure the memories he left them. "The gentle message holds particular validity for children and is conveyed in a tenderhearted. ..manner."-- Book1ist.