Rosemary Radcliffe

At the turn of the century on Prince Edward Island, Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla decide to take on an orphan boy as help for their farm. But they get an unexpected jolt when they're mistakenly sent a girl instead: Anne Shirley.

A touching story of eight very different people who are at a crossroads in life and must make decisions that will forever change who they are. Jack must decide to spend the rest of his life with his girlfriend Terri. Marina must reconnect with her aging father. Laurel must embrace her new pregnancy and come to terms with her father’s early Alzheimer's. And Dave must learn why life is worth living.

Two neighboring families in Florida, one black and one white, struggle with the problems of race, poverty, prejudice, and absent fathers, as their children become friends over the course of one summer and fall.

Golf balls, watermelons and lawn furniture all play a role in one eventful evening for a suburban family in crisis. Of the adult Snack siblings - Lindsay, Angus and Katy - Angus is the only one to have "escaped" the repressed life with their parents, by moving out of the family's suburban Toronto home. Theirs is a dysfunctional family where no one truly communicates with each other, no one seems happy, but each who funnels their energy elsewhere.