Shadows of Something Real

What do you do when the whole world breaks?

Like when you make it through a plague with the woman you’ve loved for way more than half your septuagenarian life—only to watch her die, leaving you alone. And then, just weeks later, the world around you descends into relentless dark and cold.

Besieged, desolate Hester is too numb to know what to do. And even though she’s lucky to have the means to endure for quite a while, she’s tempted—really tempted—to just give it up. What, after all, is she enduring for?

But giving up will have to wait when she stumbles upon people who introduce her to the first rule of survival: Don’t try to go it alone if you don’t have to.

Jamie Gwynmorgan doesn't believe in prayer. She doesn't believe in anything much. Except that people can't be trusted—certainly not anyone she's ever met.

But Jamie knows some things. From experience. She knows if she died, nobody would give a damn. Nobody would even notice. She knows the better she can fight, the safer she'll be. That's why she can't resist the sleek, dark lethality of the weapon—and the recruiter's promise that yes, if she's strong enough, good enough, she'll get to fire that weapon in combat. She doesn't care about the uniform. And screw the pretend-camaraderie. Only Safe matters—and if she can do combat, then maybe she can fight her way to Safe.

Jamie expects a grueling fight that she might lose. What she never expects is to win love.

War veteran Jamie Gwynmorgan had made a sweet life for herself. Then, one morning on her way to work, she’s abducted off the street. She doesn’t know why. Or who did it. Or where she’s been taken. She can’t even measure the passage of time. 

Utterly alone, only rarely able to hear a human voice, prohibited from seeing human faces, even her own, Jamie endures in a sinister, disorienting fog that devours her memories of before and weakens her grip on sanity—until a bit of contraband darts into her imploded world with a message, and with hope.

It’s just a tiny voice recorder/player, no doubt unwillingly forsaken, but it gives Jamie the means to measure time, to remember. And if she can remember before, then maybe she can find her way home to reclaim the life and the deep, abiding love some unknown enemy has stolen from her.

As a doctor, Mick McVey knows what a mental health crisis looks like. Her own still takes her by surprise. When she inherits a house from the grandfather she’s never met, she puts herself on sabbatical and travels to the small hometown of the mother who abandoned her. It’s a temporary solution.

Mick might not be grieving her grandfather, but to her new neighbor Katy, his death is one blow too many. Mick’s arrival feels like Katy’s chance to forget her ex and her struggling cinema and reinvent herself. She’ll finally get her hot rebound and make this year her year.

When the COVID-19 lockdown traps both women in situations they’d convinced themselves were temporary, they’re forced to face what they really want from their lives, and who they want to share them with.

The glitz and glam of Hollywood are just an illusion, and everyone knows celebrities and paparazzi mix as well as oil and water.

Rylee Callison is one of the best paparazzi in Hollywood. A-List actress McKenzie Gomann hates the press after a series of photos create unwelcome trouble for her. When they meet, the attraction is undeniable, but Rylee is keeping a big secret to protect and provide for her family. When McKenzie finds out that Rylee is not only a member of the paparazzi, but the paparazzo who took the scandalous photographs of her, the heat between them turns ice cold.

Can the magic of Hollywood set the stage that brings them back together, or are happy endings only for the movies?

The last thing rock star Harper Cushing needs right now is this attraction to her grandmother’s helper, Frankie, even if she is sneaky-good on the guitar. Returning to her favorite childhood spot, Gram’s nostalgic general store, Harper confronts life-altering decisions: Gram’s future welfare, selling the store, and reassessing her own fast-paced “high life.” If only she could pull it all off without breaking everyone’s heart—including her own.

Having made her own life-altering decision three years ago, Frankie Cosgrove is guardedly single and set to harvest her first cranberry crop. She’s devoted to her elderly storekeeper friend, so when the famous Harper arrives, hell-bent on making changes, Frankie’s defenses rise.

At least they admit to mutual concerns for Gram and the store, and even each other’s heartfelt intentions. But the unexpected musical accord they strike sounds a whole lot like falling in love. Has harmony finally found <i>them</i>?