While tracking down rare weather vanes, Helen Shandy stumbles on a case of arson The weather vanes of the famous craftsman Praxiteles Lumpkin are one of the great cultural treasures of rural Massachusetts. Helen Shandy, librarian at Balaclava Agricultural College, is roaming the countryside, camera in hand, capturing images of these lovely copper sculptures, trying to give them the attention they deserve. But each time she takes a picture, the featured...

"Hallie Welch fell hard for Julian Vos at fourteen, after they almost kissed in the dark vineyards of his family's winery. Now the prodigal hottie has returned to Napa Valley, and when Hallie is hired to revamp the gardens on the Vos estate, she wonders if she'll finally get that smooch. But the starchy professor isn't the teenager she remembers and their polar opposite personalities clash spectacularly. One wine-fueled girls' night later, Hallie...

Maggie Summer's life is full. She has three loves in her life: her antique print business, her career as a community college professor, and the new man in her life. She loves using the antique prints to illustrate her lectures on American cultural history. When a special dormitory is built for single parents and their children, Maggie is thrilled to become the faculty advisor to the young parents-until one of the young mothers is poisoned. There is...

June 1946. As the residents of Winthrop Island prepare for the first summer season after the sacrifice of war, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family. To Emilia Winthrop, daughter of Summerly's year-round caretaker and a descendant of the island's settlers, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of shining possibility. While Emilia spent the war years caring for...

"Isadora Bentley believes that happiness is something that flat-out doesn't exist in her life -- and never will. As a university researcher, Isadora keeps to herself as much as possible. She avoids the students she's supposed to befriend and mentor. She lives her own quiet, organized life in her own quiet, organized apartment. And she will never get involved in a romantic relationship again -- especially with another academic. It will be just Isadora...

A professor's marriage and family begin to unravel when one of his students tells him that he might be her father. David Connolly is up for an important promotion at the university; his wife Caroline has recently returned to work after years away while the children were little. The recent stresses of home renovation and of a brief romantic betrayal (Caroline's) are behind them. When a student appears in David's university office and says, "I think...

Young history Professor Jack Turner is settling into his new position at Culpepper University, when he gets a surprise visit from his friend, police Sgt. Joe Boyd. Joe has started a new hobby, a fun pastime that's also helping him lose some weight -- metal detecting. Joe asks if he can do this on Jack's lakefront property, which includes over a dozen acres of woods. Intrigued by a hobby that combines physical exercise and Jack's love of history, Jack...

"For Chicago sociology professor Amelia Emmet, violence was a research topic--until a student she'd never met shot her. He also shot himself. Now he's dead and she's back on campus, trying to keep up with her class schedule, a growing problem with painkillers, and a question she can't let go: Why? All she wants is for life to get back to normal, but normal is looking hard to come by. She's thirty-eight and hobbles with a cane. Her first student interaction...

"Newport, Rhode Island, in 1900--a glamorous resort town where the rich and famous go to see and be seen. Charlotte Hale isn't part of that world. she's a working girl, a secretary for a local newspaper, who dreams of becoming a real reporter. When her boss offers her an assignment, she jumps at the opportunity. She'll go undercover as a governess to investigate a scandal about her new employer, Daniel Wilmont, a young widowed professor of religion...

"When Melisande Stokes, an expert in linguistics and languages, accidentally meets military intelligence operator Tristan Lyons in a hallway at Harvard University, it is the beginning of a chain of events that will alter their lives and human history itself. The young man from a shadowy government entity approaches Mel, a low-level faculty member, with an incredible offer. The only condition: she must sign a nondisclosure agreement in return for the...