Nobody in her corner of Vermont believes that Emma Howe, with her great horse teeth and her dimity demeanor, will ever catch a beau, but out in North Falls, Wash., the homesteader Arthur Smollett is making plans with marriage in mind. His eye caught by her poem about bloodroot in the magazine Nature's Friends, he sends Emma a fan letter (""You should see the bloodroot out here''), their correspondence flowers, and soon he is suggesting that she travel...

"When a sniper killed his partner, Sean McPherson was injured in the ambush. Now an ex-cop, he takes a job at a writing retreat in the Pacific Northwest. At Pines & Quill, he hopes to heal and put his life back together in the Zen-like capacity of groundskeeper and all-around handyman. Sniper Jason Hughes blames McPherson for the loss of more than ten million dollars' worth of heroin--and he wants revenge. In the guise of a New York City limo driver...

Private eye Maggie Elliott, whom Publishers Weekly called "as tough and unsentimental as any male detective, but also vulnerable and tender," seems to be a magnet for misfortune. First, her half-sister was killed in a cable car accident that Maggie eventually proved to be no accident. Then Maggie returned to Vassar, her alma mater, for a reunion and ended up investigating a murder instead of reminiscing with the old girls. This time, all she set out...

Sy Levin, a 30-year-old high school teacher beset by alcohol and bad decisions, leaves New York for the Pacific Northwest to start over as a college professor, imagining that an extraordinary new life awaits him there. Soon after arriving, he realizes that he had fallen for the myth of the West as a place of personal reinvention.

At Montis Inn, the success of Pam Walker's on-location restaurant is leaving her overworked and frazzled. Meanwhile, Lumby's only veterinarian, Dr. Ellen Campbell, has decided to sell her business, and the townsfolk are in full panic mode. Who could possibly replace her? When animal doctor Tom Candor arrives in Lumby, he seems to be the answer to everyone's prayers. But some residents are not so trusting of the shy, pensive vet, especially newspaper...

"Former ballerina Marlo Jonas has all the right moves--except when it comes to men. Her latest boyfriend? A cheater. In the wake of her breakup, her father has a novel idea for her: try dating men for who they are and not how they look. This makes it easy to ignore her hot nemesis, Seattle Times reporter Ben Wexler-Lowrey. Ben's take on romance means spending time with interesting women whose personalities might sparkle more than their looks dazzle....

In 1853, four Scandinavian indentured laborers in Russian Alaska steal a canoe and begin to paddle south toward the mouth of the Columbia River, twelve thousand miles away. A tense, shrewdly modulated sea adventure in which a quartet of indentured Scandinavians attempt escape from Russian America (1853 Alaska) in a stolen canoe, a Pacific journey far more rugged "than the plain arithmetic of its miles." Of the four, only one is seaworthy at the start,...