Single motherhood is a reality for a lot of women in my age group and the time difficulties in their lives are universal.

By making the place and the people and the feelings real, by the time someone closes the cover of one of my books, they have, hopefully, felt all of the emotions of life.

Then we'll find a way to work through all this together because I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

But even though she was attractive, there was something else about her that caught his eye. She was intelligent, he could sense that right away, and confident, too, as if she were able to move through life on her own terms. To him, these were the things that really mattered. Without them, beauty was nothing.

Were all first loves like that? Somehow she doubted it; even now it struck her as being more real than anything she'd ever known. Sometimes it saddened her to think that she'd never experience that kind of feeling again, but then life had a way of stamping out that intensity of passion; she'd learned all too well that love wasn't always enough.

In the distance, he could see Molly lying in the tall grass off to the side of the house.

We are not perfect. We make mistakes. We screw up but then we forgive and move forward.