When You Are Near

Faith Kenner is pursuing her dream to become a doctor at Willamette University's medical college so she can use her gift for healing to help those in need, especially the native populations forced onto reservations and then neglected. When she meets Andrew Gratton, a handsome riverboat captain who has been injured on his ship, she uses her skills to tend his wound, and a friendship grows between them. But Faith holds a secret that means their friendship can never become anything more, so she must bury her feelings for Andrew as best she can. 

On her way to San Francisco to find her brother, Caleb, who went missing three months ago, Camriann Coulter meets Judith and Kenzie, who both have their own mysteries to solve in the booming West Coast city. The women decide to help each other, including rooming together and working at Kenzie's cousin's chocolate factory. Camri's search for her brother, an attorney, leads her deep into the political corruption of the city - and into the acquaintance of Patrick Murdock, a handsome Irishman who was saved from a false murder charge by Caleb.

Best-selling author Tracie Peterson begins a compelling new series set on the 1840s Frontier. Grace Martindale has known more than her share of hardship. After her parents died, raising her two younger sisters became her responsibility. A hasty marriage to a minister who is heading to the untamed West seemed like an opportunity for a fresh start, but a cholera outbreak along the wagon trail has left Grace a widow in a very precarious position. Having learned natural remedies and midwifery from her mother, Grace seeks an opportunity to use her skills for the benefit of others. 

In the summer of 1951, 18-year-old Maggie Esh is in need of some hope. Sweet-spirited and uncommonly pretty despite struggling with a debilitating illness, she is accustomed to being treated kindly by the young men of her Old Order Amish church district. Yet no one but Jimmy Beiler ever asks her out, and she always declines, certain he only pities her. To make matters worse, Dat has recently remarried, less than a year after Maggie's mother died. And while her stepmother is kind, she's much younger than Mamm, and she simply doesn't understand Maggie or her illness the way Mamm did.

For Havyn Powell, growing up on her grandfather Chuck Bondrant's dairy outside the 1904 gold-rush boomtown of Nome, Alaska, offered all she needed. She had the love of her mother, two sisters, and grandfather. But now, at 23, Havyn realizes the stability of her life may soon vanish. Havyn is determined to find a way to keep the family together, but her grandfather's health is declining and everyone seems to be holding secrets from each other, including the handsome, dark-haired stranger who recently arrived. 

Abducted at the age of sixteen and coerced into assisting the Jacoby crime family, Shannon Bliss has finally found a way out. She desperately wants to resume some semblance of normal life, but she also knows she has some unfinished business to attend to. She has enough evidence to put her captors behind bars for a very long time.

Abigail Foster is the practical daughter, and she fears she will end up a spinster. Facing financial ruin, Abigail and her father search for more affordable lodgings, until a strange solicitor arrives with an astounding offer: the use of a distant manor house that has been abandoned for 18 years. The handsome local curate welcomes them but offers a stern warning: beware of rumours that Pembrooke Park contains a secret room filled with treasure.

Emily Carver wants a home where she can put down roots instead of following her gold-hungry father from one mining camp to another. She also longs for tenderness and love, both of which are missing in her life. Yet when she realizes she's losing her heart to the intriguing new man in camp, she fiercely fights her feelings, afraid that love will only result in disappointment and heartache.

Twenty-two-year-old Militine Scott is in training at the Madison Bridal School in Seattle, yet she has no intention of pursuing marriage. What respectable man would have her? But she has found the school provides the perfect opportunity to keep her unsavory past hidden.

Gwyn Hillerman acts as a nurse at her father's medical practice in 1935 rural Alaska. Her family life has been rough ever since her mother, hating Alaska, took Gwyn's younger sister back to Chicago to live. Dr. Jeremiah Vaughan finds his life suddenly turned upside down when his medical license is stripped away after he loses an affluent patient. In a snowball effect, he then loses his engagement to Gwyn's sister, Sophia. When the government decides to send a group of families to Alaska in hopes of making a better life, Dr. Hillerman sends a letter urging Jeremiah to join his practice.