Candace Gold's Book Shorts

A Cruise to Remember: After Claudia Rybeck's mother passes from cancer, she goes on a well-deserved cruise. She meets a handsome guy, Blake Henry, but loses his attention to a wealthy woman named Abigail Arnold. She doesn't have long to feel sorry for herself before she meets the Dean of Students, Charles Roberson. They date and soon become a couple.

Nearly a year later, Claudia reads an article in the newspaper about the accidental death of Abigail Arnold and her grieving husband, Blake Henry. She recalls Blake telling her that his first wife had died in an accident, as well. This stokes her curiosity and she contacts a childhood friend in law enforcement. But is she prepared for what she What discovers and its consequences?

Married to a Stranger: When Marisa Martin tells her husband, Paul she is pregnant, he is thrilled. Only after the baby is born, it isn't long before he resents the infant. He complains that Paul Jr. is annoying and high jacking his time away from Marisa. Their relationship soon suffers, and they grow apart. Paul files for divorce and shocks Marisa by suing for custody of the baby. With no source of income other than Paul, how will she fight to keep her son?

Now and Forever: Jamie Connelly receives a call that her mother was hospitalized and critical, she purchases a ticket for the first flight out of Newark heading to Minnesota. At lunch when her husband, Michael sees a special news broadcast concerning the crash of the plane Jamie had taken, his entire world stops revolving. And when the official word came that there were no survivors, he is devastated. He is filled with hope, though, when he discovers that for reasons unknown, Jamie wasn't on that flight. However, that hope is quickly extinguished when he is notified by the police that Jamie had been killed in an auto accident.

Michael can't move on with his life. No woman could ever fill Jamie's place. Then a friend asks him if Jamie had a sister. He encountered a woman resembling Jamie recently. Jamie had no sister which brings Michael hope that somehow she is still alive. However, is this just false hope or could Jamie still be alive?

Turning Back the Hands of Time: When Rachel Taylor ran away from her hometown six years earlier to forget the guy who hurt her and the father who disowned her, she never expected the one phone call out of the blue that could make her return to the place that brought her such grief. A classmate, now a nurse, informs Rachel that her father is dying from cancer. Does she have the strength to visit him in the hospital-- especially if he may turn her away? And face her other demons?

Walk on By: Marlene Greene finally decides to sell her house after her husband Ron dies and move into a new assisted-living complex. The day she goes to sign the lease, she runs into her first love, Rich Flynn, who abruptly dropped her for someone else. The devastation she'd buried deep in her psyche comes rushing back at her so severely that she wants to back out of her lease. Will she find the strength to remain there despite seeing the man who'd hurt her so or choose to run away?