Ellie Craig grieves the loss of three infant children, and when long-hidden secrets are brought to light, she must find a way to contact the family of her long-lost father. Meanwhile her husband, Matthew, faces controversy in his church and competition from a new arrival in Beldon Grove, who claims to be both a minister and the son of the town's founder. Will Matthew find the courage to reclaim his church? And will his unexpected travel companion help Ellie's heart mend? Book two in the AT HOME IN BELDON GROVE series, The Promise of Morning engages readers with themes of overcoming tragedy, finding strength to meet daunting challenges, and trusting your heart to love again.

When Branna O'Donnell heads back to Lake Howling, Oregon, she's not sure what to expect. It's a place that holds plenty of memories, both good and bad, but Branna is determined to find some peace there from the demons of her past. However, she soon realizes that living in a small town again comes with complications, and one of them is named Jake McBride. Once the town golden boy, Dr. McBride has returned from Iraq angry and, like her, shouldering a few emotional scars. They strike sparks off each other from the outset, and Branna knows that if she gives in to the attraction between them it's going to result in a world of pain. The problem is she's not sure how to walk away.

Lucy Marsh has lost everything but her determination to provide for her brother and sister. When she realizes her father's death was no accident, she decides to accept a proxy marriage in order to get her siblings out of harm's way. But trouble follows her to Wichita Falls, Texas, and nothing there is as she expected.

As temporary guardian of her sister's two children, big-city magazine columnist Jenna Gardner is forced to face her past. She isn't in Mirror Lake for long before she realizes that everything has changed. And it's not her past throwing her off-kilter now--it's handsome next-door neighbor, Dev McGuire. Though Dev gets under her skin, he quickly proves himself an excellent father figure for the children. Soon he's encouraging Jenna to believe in second chances. But it'll take a leap of faith to believe that her future just might be in Mirror Lake after all.

Devastated by her father's death days after her triumphant graduation from Oberlin College, Amanda Stewart is all alone in the world. To fulfill a promise she made to her father, she resolves to start a school to educate and uplift their race. Sorting through her father's papers, she discovers he had carried on a mysterious correspondence with a plantation in Milford, Georgia. When she arrives in Milford to investigate, the mayor tells her to leave. Virgil Smithson, Milford's mayor, blacksmith and sometimes preacher man with a gift for fiery oratory, doesn't want anything to do with a snobby schoolteacher from up North. He must organize his fellow citizens into a new town and raise his young daughter alone. Still, his troubled past haunts him. He cannot forget the promise he made to his daughter's mother as she died: that their child would learn to read and write. If only he didn't have secrets that the new schoolteacher seems determined to uncover.

Asserts that America is straying from its democratic ideals and faltering in a rapidly globalized world community, and challenges policies that are based on a priority of making America "number one" in the world while examining the economic and politicalforces that have brought about contemporary problems.

Determined to keep a promise to her dying father, win a scholarship to a prestigious art program, thirteen-year-old Maggie buys a tweed coat at a thrift store and ends up with more than she knows what to do with.