Here comes the bride . . . there goes the groom.Penny Bracket waited two years to marry dream man Bram Shiraz. Then on the morning of the Big Day, while she's trying on her veil, Penny receives the worst two-line letter of her life: "Penny, I can't go through with it. Sorry, Bram."Penny's hurt and upset. But Esther, Penny's divorced mom, wants Bram's head on a platter. So Mom ambushes the cold-footed coward before he hot-foots it out of town, bonks him on the head with a champagne bottle, and spirits him away to a hidden room in her gargantuan mansion in Short Hares, New Jersey. Esther doesn't want much. All Bram has to do is write personal, heartfelt apologies to each of the two hundred disappointed wedding guests . . . and eat every mouthful of the very expensive gourmet wedding feast that has gone to waste. Then he'll be free to leave.Penny doesn't want Bram tortured. She just wants answers to "why" . . . and maybe a little revenge. Will...

Famous novelist Dorothy Ackerman invites her estranged daughter, Rachel, on a four-day cruise to Bermuda to coincide with Mother's Day and the girl's 25th birthday. The trip should be a relaxing vacation and bonding opportunity for them. But they're barely speaking. Both women have ulterior motives for going on the cruise together, and they try to get what they need from each other. A handsome stranger acts as kindling to ignite old grudges and distrust between the Ackermans. By the end of the trip, the two women disembark with a greater understanding of each other and themselves.Valerie Frankel sold her first novel when she was 25. Since then, she's published an additional 14 novels, 4 nonfiction titles, and 2 memoirs. Her books have been translated into dozens of languages and published in scores of countries on five continents...

Out-of-work urban professional Francesca Greenfield has always known that she was the "smart" sister.Amanda was the soft and lovely one who, from the beginning, had always garnered most of the attention — and all the dates. Now they've been thrown together in a last-ditch effort to save the family coffeehouse business before it goes permanently down the drain.In the chaotic misdt of mad promotional schemes and piranhalike next-door competitors, the sisters Greenfield are going to have to put aside their hard-faught sibling rivalry — and quick! — for the family good.What happens when a single woman in her early thirties gets stuck living and working with her sister again along with all the insecurities of sibling rivalry?"From where I stood now, fifteen years out of high school, I knew that smart was more valuable than pretty. For one thing, pretty is available to anyone who has the time, energy, money, and will. And even...

Once a month, four New York City moms forget about shaky marriages, rebellious children, and rocky careers--and place a bet on friendship. Besides the fact that their kids all attend the same fashionable Brooklyn Heights private school, Bess, Robin, Carla, and Alicia have little in common. Thrown together on the tony school's Diversity Committee, the women impulsively turn their awkward first meeting into a boisterous game of poker. Instead of betting with chips or pocket change, however, they play for intimate secrets about their lives. Soon enough, virtual strangers are transformed into close confidantes. As the Diversity Commitee meetings become a highly anticipated monthly ritual, the new friends reveal more with each game. Appearances deceive. Picture-perfect housewife Bess struggles to relate to her surly teenage daughter and judgmental mother. Robin, a bohemian single mom, grapples with the truth concerning her child's real father. Carla, an...

It's uncanny! Within six months of breaking up with her, Peg Silver's ex-lovers always meet and marry the women of their dreams. Even worse than being the eternal bridesmaid, she's the last girlfriend, the one who awakens in a guy the knowledge of what he's always wanted in a relationship ... and it's never with Peg. Obviously, a major lifestyle change is seriously called for, which is why the distraught interior landscape designer says good-bye to Manhattan and late-night lattes with pal Nina, and hello to a farmhouse on ten acres in tiny, backwater Manshire, Vermont, hoping to meet the ultimate, all-organic country man (without too much facial hair) to keep her warm in those frosty New England winters.