Small town romantic women's fiction with love, hope, second chances, and a happy ending!

Note from Mary:

I love secondary characters: writing them, reading about them, even watching them on the big screen. Secondary characters support the "stars"; make them more vibrant and compelling. But when the story ends, I'm often left wondering what they'd do if they were in the "spotlight". That's why I've created special boxed sets that were part of That Second Chance series and the Truth in Lies series. These boxed sets let the reader follow the before and after of select characters as they first appear in That Second Chance series and later in the fictional town of my bestselling Truth in Lies series. Boxed Set 6 contains The Butterfly Garden and A Family Affair: Return. I invite you to follow their journey!

The Butterfly Garden

Sometimes love happens when you least expect it...

Jenny Romano has never been a white-picket-fence, happily-ever-after girl. Despite a mother who rejected her free-spirited, unique ways as irresponsible and just plain wrong, Jenny has found happiness as a photographer, flitting around the country and snapping photos of other people's lives. Her older sister, Grace, has a husband, children, and a carpool schedule. She's the one their mother calls "perfect."

But when tragedy strikes her sister's carefully constructed life, Jenny must step in and offer support. Soon, she finds herself in the sort of small-town suburban life she swore to avoid...

Psychologist Elliot Drake spends so much time healing other people's pain and witnessing the backlash of caring too deeply that he prefers to keep his own relationships short and bittersweet. He's loved and lost once and with a young daughter to raise, he's not willing to risk his heart again. But he's never met anyone quite like Jenny. Outrageous and unpredictable, she's a force of nature—not at all like her well-controlled older sister. Suddenly, Elliot isn't so sure that short-term is what he wants...

Taken by surprise and unsure of the next step, Elliot and Jenny are about to discover that real life happens whether you want it to or not. Will they let real love happen, too?

A Family Affair: The Return

Magdalena, New York.

Home of memories long buried, steamy nights, and one regrettable summer...

Grace Romano had been seventeen, impressionable, innocent to the power of attraction and desire.

Max Ruhland taught her about both. He loved Grace and thought they had a future together, until she crushed his heart and told him he wasn't part of her life plan.

Twenty-two years later, Grace Romano Clarke is a widow with two children and a pile of broken dreams. When her aunt dies, she must return to Magdalena, the town she'd rather forget, to honor the woman's last wishes: stay in her house for thirty days, and complete a list that, according to her aunt, will reveal a bit about life and maybe reveal something about herself, too. What Grace doesn't know but will find out soon enough is that Max Ruhland must stay in the house with her and help complete the list!

Max Ruhland isn't the same lovesick puppy from the wrong side of the tracks who had his heart broken all those years ago. He's a wealthy, successful businessman who owes his good fortune to Grace's aunt, the woman who never gave up on him. Max can have any woman he wants, but he's never forgotten Grace, or how she hurt him. Now he'll have to spend the next thirty days with her—in close quarters—to honor her aunt's last wishes, and he's not looking forward to it.

It's going to get very...