Kristin Hannah

Half-sisters Meghann Dontess, a high-powered lawyer, and Claire Cavenaugh, a single mother who helps run a campground, meet again years after being abandoned by their mother when Claire announces her intention to marry thrice-divorced country crooner Bobby Austin, but the sisters learn they may have waited too long for a reunion when Claire is diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor.

Julia Cates, a child psychiatrist who has retreated, her career and confidence destroyed, to her Washington hometown in the wake of a media-heavy scandal, attempts to prevent the institutionalization of a traumatized, unidentified girl who has emerged from the forest.

Recently divorced high school librarian Joy Faith Candellaro, facing Christmas alone after being betrayed by her husband and sister, decides to flee California in search of a holiday adventure, but a plane crash and fate place her in the path of widower Daniel O'Shea and his young son, and set the stage for a bit of Christmas magic.

Middle-aged sisters Meredith and Nina, having been estranged from one another and their parents by the actions of their disapproving mother, reunite after their father falls ill, and, by carrying out their dad's dying wish of hearing the true story of their mother's life in war-torn Leningrad, the women find their relationships mending and begin to have a deeper understanding and respect for their mom.