"In Cynthia Lang's collection of nine short stories it becomes apparent that a legacy is not always as tangible as a mahogany chest or a summer cabin; or even predetermined, much less recognized by those giving or receiving. 'Devoid of weight, of volume, some [legacies] take up no room at all. On a journey, for instance, nothing may change hands but the tickets.' Traveling through the lives of intriguing and oftentimes enlightening characters ... nine characters, each inheriting a legacy and collectively handing one on to the reader, composed of remnants from past lives, a natural history that has the power to reveal current truths and predict future realities."--Page [4] cover.

Why leave Manhattan for a town in Maine "where no one goes and nothing ever happens"? Confused, bereft, but following a hunch, Lee Baldwin moves to Limmington Mills to revel in solitude and brood about her missing husband. Life has other plans. While never forgetting about her Charlie, Lee is pulled into the daily dramas of her imaginative, flighty landlady Dolly and Dolly's brother, a taciturn welder at Bath Iron Works. Befriended by Maxine, store proprietor (and de facto town manager), she meets a trio of boys running wild and their mother, who may or may not have heard a saint speak. Most of all, Lee benefits from Hazel's fierce grace, the elderly woman whose grip on life breathes energy into Lee's own. Evoking the lives of northern New Englanders who struggle in the shadow side of prosperity, Preservation explores the isolation-and possibilities-of a time before electronics linked us nonstop through the cloud.

Murder is on the to-do list when construction contractor Shannon Hammer looks for a killer in the fifth Fixer-Upper Mystery... Don't miss the Hallmark Movies & Mystery Originals starring Jewel, based on the Fixer-Upper Mystery series! At the annual Victorian Home and Garden Tour, Lighthouse Cove, California’s premier contractor, Shannon Hammer, realizes that the competition is about to turn deadly.... Shannon is in high demand among rival homeowners, who will do anything to win Best in Show. One-upmanship and even espionage break out among neighbors, construction crews, decorators, and landscapers. Thanks to several new hires, Shannon is sure she can handle the extra load—until murder throws a wrench in the works. The small town’s corrupt building inspector is found dead on one of Shannon’s jobsites, and soon plenty of suspects are coming out of the woodwork. When another body is discovered, Shannon calls on her team of close friends and devilishly astute thriller writer Mac to help her nail down the details and build a case against the killer before the door shuts on someone else—for good.

“Love is a matter of geography and circumstance. James Lachlan is the son of an Earl, a gentleman of means and an engineering offi cer in the British army. Circumstance required him to absent himself from England for three years. Nicola is the daughter of a USA cattle rancher and an educated eastern lady. Nicola’s father was a man deemed unfi t to marry Nicola’s mother by her Boston family. The Waltham family was ostracized on Nicola’s parent’s marriage. Nicola had both her parents killed by an Indian raiding party, was abused by unfeeling outlaws and had her ranch and stock stolen from her while she recovered from the abuse. Because of the abuse she was also ostracized by the townspeople where she was born. Without funds, family and friends Nicola was forced to earn a living as a dance hall girl. This then is the love story of James and Nicola how they met and overcame their many trials and tribulations to fall in love and despite all opposition to fi nally marry. They sought and were fi nally accepted back into the bosoms of their families. James however never knew what his strong willed red headed wife would do next and thought “My life may not always be quiet and peaceful but it will always be interesting”.

Lee Baldwin moves to Maine to revel in a tide of solitude and brood about her missing husband. Instead she's pulled into the daily dramas of Dolly, her flighty landlady; Maxine, the small town's store proprietor; a welder at Bath Iron works; a trio of boys running wild; and their mother, who may or may not have heard a saint speak. Lee feels especially the fierce grace of Hazel, an elderly woman whose grip on life breathes energy into her own. Evoking the lives of northern New Englanders who struggle in the shadow side of prosperity, Preservation explores the isolation--and possibilities--of a time before electronics linked us nonstop through the cloud. Cynthia Lang graduated from Smith College, won a Vogue Prix de Paris, and worked as a staff writer on Glamour. After free-lancing (Parents, Mademoiselle, Vogue Children, New York Times Magazine), she was co-author with Jerome Kagan of Psychology and Education: An Introduction (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich), and with Harry Levinson, Executive (Harvard University Press), and Senior Associate at Education Development Center, Inc. About Sarah Carlisle's River and Other Stories "With rare perspicacity, Cynthia Lang explores the reality of human relationships and the complexity of circumstance." --Rufus Collinson, Poet Laureate, Gloucester, Massachusetts. "It's the vocal textures: nimble sentences, sometimes buoyant, sometimes poignant, always with the sense that the momentum is the story. Lang writes of aspiration, chagrin, fleeting contentment. These stories open themselves across 200 years, two continents and the Caribbean."--Virginia Euwer Wolff, winner of the 2001 National Book Award, Young People's Literature for True Believer (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum)

For fans of Kate Morton and Beatriz Williams, a highly atmospheric and suspenseful historical novel, set in the 1890s about a Scottish heiress who unexpectedly encounters her childhood friend in North America, five years after he disappeared from her family’s estate the night of a double murder. Nineteen-year-old Evelyn Ballantyre has rarely strayed from her family’s estate in the Scottish Borderlands, save for the occasional trip to Edinburgh, where her father, a respected magistrate, conducts his business—and affairs of another kind. Evelyn has always done her duty as a daughter, hiding her boredom and resentment behind good manners—so when an innocent friendship with a servant is misinterpreted by her father as an illicit union, Evelyn is appalled. Yet the consequence is a welcome one: she is to accompany her father on a trip to North America, where they’ll visit New York City, the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, and conclude with a fishing expedition on the Nipigon River in Canada. Now is her chance to escape her cloistered life, see the world, and reconnect with her father. Once they’re on the Nipigon, however, Evelyn is shocked to discover that their guide is James Douglas, the former stable hand and her one-time friend who disappeared from the estate after the shootings of a poacher and a gamekeeper. Many had assumed that James had been responsible, but Evelyn never could believe it. Now, in the wilds of a new world, far from the constraints of polite society, the truth about that day, James, and her father will be revealed…to stunning consequences.