I'm a full-time single dad to three daughters and CFO at Cloverleigh Farms. I don't have time to fall in love-I'm too busy trying to run a business, keep the red socks out of the white laundry, and get the damn pillowcases on without owing a dollar to the swear jar.Sure, Frannie Sawyer is beautiful and sweet, but she's twenty-seven, the boss's daughter, and my new part-time nanny-which means she's completely off-limits. It's bad enough I can't stop fantasizing about her, what kind of jerk would I be if I acted on the impulse to kiss her?(Exactly the kind of jerk you're thinking.)Actually, I'm worse than that-because I didn't stop with a kiss, and now I can't stay away. She makes me feel like myself again. She reminds me what it's like to want something just for me. She's everything I ever needed, but nothing I ever imagined.I'm a former Marine. I should have had the strength to resist her from the start.But I didn't. And now I have to choose between the life I want and the life she deserves.Even if it means giving her up.

“Irresistible is a fascinating and much needed exploration of one of the most troubling phenomena of modern times.” —Malcolm Gladwell, author of New York Times bestsellers David and Goliath and Outliers “One of the most mesmerizing and important books I’ve read in quite some time. Alter brilliantly illuminates the new obsessions that are controlling our lives and offers the tools we need to rescue our businesses, our families, and our sanity.” —Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction—an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; we work longer hours each year; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones. Half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans. In this revolutionary book, Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, tracks the rise of behavioral addiction, and explains why so many of today's products are irresistible. Though these miraculous products melt the miles that separate people across the globe, their extraordinary and sometimes damaging magnetism is no accident. The companies that design these products tweak them over time until they become almost impossible to resist. By reverse engineering behavioral addiction, Alter explains how we can harness addictive products for the good—to improve how we communicate with each other, spend and save our money, and set boundaries between work and play—and how we can mitigate their most damaging effects on our well-being, and the health and happiness of our children. Adam Alter's previous book, Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces that Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave is available in paperback from Penguin.

Cared for in a series of temporary homes where young women are taught mothering skills, winsome orphan toddler Henry captures the hearts of program director Martha and each of his temporary mothers while hoping for a permanent home. 30,000 first printing.

What's more important to a story: a gripping plot or compelling characters? Literary-minded novelists argue in favor of character-based novels while commercial novelists argue in favor of plot-based stories, but the truth of the matter is this: The best fiction is rich in both. Enter Plot Versus Character. This hands-on guide to creating a well-rounded novel embraces both of these crucial story components. You'll learn to: Create layered characters by considering personality traits, natural attributes, and backgrounds Develop your character's emotional journey and tie it to your plot's inciting incident Construct a three-act story structure that can complement and sustain your character arc Expose character backstory in a manner that accentuates plot points Seamlessly intertwine plot and character to create a compelling page-turner filled with characters to whom readers can't help but relate And much more Filled with helpful examples and friendly instruction, Plot Versus Character takes the guesswork out of creating great fiction by giving you the tools you need to inject life into your characters and momentum into your plots.

Danielle Steel's forty-seventh bestselling novel is very much about the tides of our times, changes and responsibilities in the workplace pull two people in different directions, sweeping them into new lives and changed worlds----. Irresistible Forces For fourteen years, Steve and Meredith Whitman have sustained a marriage of passion and friendship - despite the demands of two all-consuming careers. Meredith, an investment banker, has achieved partnership in one of Wall Street's top firms. Steve A gifted physician, chose an urban trauma ward over the big money he could have earned elsewhere. The only thing missing in their lives is children. Steve longs for them. But Meredith keeps putting off motherhood, saying she isn't ready and doesn't have time. Not yet. Especially now that she has been offered an extraordinary opportunity, a chance to reach for the brass ring - in San Francisco, three thousand miles away. Meredith is thrilled and surprised when Steve urges her to accept a top position at an exciting young high-tech company. Traditionally, men's careers forces families to move to new cities, compelling their wives to abandon friends, home, and lives to follow. But Steve is more than willing to uproot himself. Saying he'll join her as he can find a new job himself, they can begin their family at last. Neither Steve nor Meredith had reckoned on the frustrations of a bi-coastal marriage, as Steve's job keeps him in New York for months longer than planned. Weekends together, their lifeline, fall prey to their hectic schedules. Alone in San Francisco, Meredith is spending long hours at the office with her boss, charismatic entrepreneur Callan Dow. Steve working late shifts at the hospital, grabbing an occasional dinner with a new colleague, a doctor raising a daughter on her own. Almost unnoticed, Steve and Meredith have begun living separate lives in increasingly separate worlds. And despite the best of intentions, irresistible forces begin to tear their lives and hearts apart. With unerring insight, Danielle Steel explores what happens when lives that fit together like delicately balanced puzzles are shifted, changed, and drift apart. Only time can tell who and what they will become as life sweeps them onward and deposits them on new, sometimes frightening, and often exciting shores. Who survives, is at the core of Irresistible Forces.

Call Me Irresistible is the book Susan Elizabeth Phillips fans have been craving. The beloved New York Times bestselling author returns with a delightfully sassy, sexy, and downright irresistible tale of true love Texas style. Ted Beaudine, one of Phillips’s most charming characters (the adolescent heartbreaker from her hilarious debut, Fancy Pants, and the new college graduate from Lady Be Good) is now all grown up and in a heap of romantic trouble all his own—in a perfectly marvelous contemporary romance that fans of Emily Giffin, Kristen Hannah, and Elin Hilderbrand will simply adore.

A novel about a wine enthusiast’s descent into addiction, and “the cheerful face that money can put on an unhappy life” (Publishers Weekly). After dedicating countless hours to building his software company—an effort that yields him a fortune—Wilberforce walks into a London restaurant, alone, and orders an extraordinarily expensive 1982 Cháteau Pétrus. It is quite an experience—so he asks for another bottle. From the acclaimed author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, this novel traces the journey that leads Wilberforce from the top of the world to hitting rock bottom as he revels in his newfound wealth and more: his taste for the finer things, a love affair, and a variety of friendships, including one with an eccentric and enigmatic wine merchant named Francis Black. At some point along the way, Wilberforce, once an ordinary middle-class child and then a driven, lonely workaholic, convinces himself that he’s finally found the good life. But as his story unspools, he learns that Black’s cellar holds some unpalatable secrets, and that passion comes at a price. “A heart-wrenching tale . . . A mesmerising page-turner.” —The Mail on Sunday “Although Wilberforce’s tale carries universal moral significance, wine lovers in particular will find Torday’s descriptive and narrative powers compelling.” —Booklist