Laughter, Storms & Everyday Life — Susan Hart

These five family-friendly stories total over 40,000 words. You Can Buy Love At The Candy Shop, is the story of a young, naive woman in love with a French boat mechanic. She works with her mother at a candy shop and because her mother advises against it, she waits a year before pursuing him. Unfortunately, he hooks up with a fashion model and she has to figure out a way to either share him, or live life without her one and only true love. The ending is ironic and there's a great sense of fun and biting wit throughout. The Doctor Is Around The Bend, is a whacked out, monty-Pythonesque, hysterically funny romance fantasy. It's unique and quirky and refreshing and it tells the story of a village and two women and a doctor (who is a bit of a character himself) and all that the trio go through with the sole goal of getting one of the women married to the doctor. The trouble is, he has only two months to decide whom it is he considers the most beautiful single woman in the village. There's some infighting between the two twins, with one doing her best to sabotage the other's chances with the handsome, healing, and very quirky doctor. Cattle Drives Were But A Distant Memory, is the story of three sisters left in charge of the family's homestead and newspaper office in St. Louis, after their parents set off on a trip, and how the corrupt town mayor is able to put his evil plans into motion. Child Of Innocence: Beyond The Pines, is a moving about a young Amish woman who takes a homeless man under her wing and feeds him daily, except for the Sabbath. She has a summer job taking care of a family while the wife recovers. On the day she is to return to her own family, she makes one last visit to the stranger who lives in the pine woods. What happens on that day changes her Amish community forever and many hard decisions have to be made. Born During A Tornado, is both a tragic and a triumphant story, set in the west during the 1870s, about life and death and birth; and it all happens as a young girl is left to take care of her family when a massive tornado rips through their family home.