Alamosa Public Library

Set among the elegant brownstones of New York City and opulent country houses like gracious Bellomont on the Hudson, the novel creates a satiric portrayal of what Wharton herself called "a society of irresponsible pleasure-seekers" with a precision comparable to that of Proust. And her brilliant and complex characterization of the doomed Lily Bart, whose stunning beauty and dependence on marriage for economic survival reduce her to a decorative object,...

Her belief in the power of beauty shattered when her fiancâe dumps her for a plain woman, a pregnant Darcy flees to London and struggles to rebuild her glamorous life before realizing that her past methods no longer work.

A near-fatal car accident might be one of the best things that ever happened to Clare Wilson. During her recuperation, Clare gathers the resolve to divorce her charming but philandering husband, a man she'd married after the tragic death of her original fiance. As Clare heals both physically and emotionally, she gets close to Jankowski, a studly cop 10 years her junior who witnessed Clare's crash. But Sam is too intense too soon, and Clare has been...

Elianna is a young girl crushed by guilt. After her only brother is killed while in her care, Elianna tries to earn forgiveness by working for her father's textile trade and caring for her family. When another tragedy places Elianna in sole charge of the business, her talent for design brings enormous success, but never the absolution she longs for. As her world unravels, she breaks off her betrothal to the only man she will ever love. Then illness...

Cassie Beaumont wants to find her perfect match, but so far, nothing has worked. What's left? Professional matchmaker Simon Dodson, but he's very choosy about the clients he takes on. Cassie finds him a difficult, acerbic know-it-all, and is astonished when he accepts her as a client. Claiming he has her perfect mate in mind, Simon assigns her three Christmas tasks to complete before she can meet him. Despite a number of comical mishaps, Cassie does...

"In the wake of a wildly disastrous affair, Willie Upton arrives on the doorstep of her ancestral home in Templeton, New York, where her hippie-turned-born-again-Baptist mom, Vi, still lives. Willie expects to be able to hide in the place that has been home to her family for generations, but the monster's death changes the fabric of the quiet, picture-perfect town her ancestors founded. Even further, Willie learns that the story her mother had always...

Jilted by a fortune hunter, cowgirl Cassidy McClare is a spunky Texas oil heiress without a fortune who would just as soon hogtie a man as look at him. Hoping a summer visit with her wealthy cousins in turn-of-the-century San Francisco will help her forget her heartache, Cassidy travels west. But no sooner is she settled in beautiful California than Jamie McKenna, a handsome pauper looking to marry well, captures her heart. When Jamie discovers the...

Since the day Rhoda Mummau was baptized into the Old Order Mennonite Church and became the head midwife of Hopen Haus, she's been torn between the needs of the unwed mothers under her care and her desire to conceal the secrets of her past. Contact with the outside world could provide medical advantages, but remaining secluded in the community gives her the anonymity she craves. Graduate student Beth Winslow is on a path she never would have chosen....

Her fingertips brushed against something else in the box of doilies. She lifted a bundle of letters, neatly tied with a thin red ribbon. Ivy Yoder hasn't heard from John King in over a year. She knows it's time to let go of the idea that they will one day marry, but she's humiliated to be one of the oldest single women in her Amish community of Birch Creek. When quirky Cevilla Schlabach asks her to help clean out an attic, Ivy is grateful for the...

Throughout these 11 stories, "Heiny chronicles the ways in which we are unfaithful to each other, both willfully and unwittingly. Maya, who appears in the title story and again in various states of love, forms the spine of this linked collection, and shows us through her moments of pleasure, loss, deceit, and kindness just how fickle the human heart can be"--Dust jacket flap.