FOOL ME ONCE
No other author plumbs the depths of the human heart - or portrays the joys of human redemption - quite like Fern Michaels. In Fool Me Once, she captures the fraught, yet richly satisfying story of one woman's search for the mother she never knew...and her discovery of the woman she's yet to become.
Olivia Lowell always believed her father's claim that her mother died in childbirth, until the shocking day a lawyer informs her that her mother has just passed away, leaving her a fortune. The money comes with a caveat - and a confession. In her will, Olivia's mother reveals that she and two college friends committed a crime long ago, and now she wants Olivia to track down her accomplices and convince them to come clean.
Feeling betrayed by her father, and unsure that she even wants her mother's tainted money, Olivia must decide if she can handle the secrets of the past. Fulfilling her mother's request won't be easy, nor will mending her relationship with her father. But with the help and affections of a handsome young lawyer, and the sweet companionship of her beloved terriers, Olivia will come to understand who her mother really was, and who she, herself, was meant to be...
UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
For generations, the Windsors have lived on the family's grand estate in Crestwood, South Carolina, as intertwined with local life as sweet tea and pecan pie. Now, on the anniversary of her daughter Emily's death, Sarabess Windsor believes she may be the last to carry the family name - unless she can find her second daughter, Trinity, who disappeared fifteen years ago.
Trinity grew up as Trinity Henderson, adopted by the Windsor foreman and his wife. Trinity was conceived not out of love, but out of Sarabess's desperate attempt to prolong Emily's life by providing a bone marrow donor. On her fifteenth birthday, Trinity ran away and hasn't been seen in Crestwood since. But the town has never forgotten her...especially not handsome lawyer Jake Forrest. And although Jake has no desire to help selfish Sarabess Windsor, the thought of seeing his childhood friend again fills a void in his heart that Jake didn't even know existed.
Trinity swore never to return to Crestwood. Not for the mother who callously abandoned her, not for the late father she hardly knew, not for the huge family trust she stands to inherit. But some ties - to a place, to a past, to the people we once were and dreams we once had - can never be fully broken. And as family secrets are revealed, and desires old and new come to light, Trinity may discover the one thing she never expected to find in Crestwood: a place to call home at last.