Sister's Choice (A Shenandoah Album Novel, 5)

Sister's Choice (A Shenandoah Album Novel, 5)

“This special book is one of the best women’s contemporary novels you might read this year, and one that you will recommend to all your friends.”— Fresh Fiction Told with remarkable depth and warmth, this heartfelt story of sisters in transition reminds us that the choices we make are the real legacy we leave behind. Kendra and Jamie were never storybook sisters. But after a long estrangement, Jamie has offered Kendra and her husband their ultimate dream—a child of their own. Despite some lingering misgivings about her once-wayward younger sister, Kendra agrees, and Jamie, a promising architect and single mother, becomes a gestational surrogate for Kendra and Isaac. In addition to this amazing gift of life, Jamie designs a house for the couple on Isaac's ancestral property along the Shenandoah River. She hopes Kendra will finally see the woman she has become. But when a medical crisis threatens Jamie's health and her budding relationship with Kendra's builder, the enigmatic Cash Rosslyn, Jamie learns that the most difficult choice in her life is still ahead, and its cost may be beyond calculation. Previously published Although it’s not unusual for sisters to swap clothes and makeup, sharing a pregnancy might seem to stretch the bounds of sibling generosity, but for former wild-child Jamie, offering to become a surrogate for her older sister Kendra offers a way to atone for years of misbehavior that left the pair estranged. Now a single mother of two precocious daughters and a budding architect in pursuit of a career, Jamie’s quest for Kendra’s approval motivates her to bestow another life-changing gift: the plans for a new house to be built on the site of Kendra’s husband’s ancestral homeland. Waiting out the pregnancy in the nurturing hamlet of Toms Brook, Virginia, Jamie supervises the construction of Kendra’s house along with sexy, sensitive, yet secretive contractor Cash Rosslyn, who immediately becomes infatuated with Jamie despite her condition. Befitting the quilt motif that inspires her evocative Shenandoah Album series, Richards subtly stitches together old and new characters, nimbly embroidering their tales with an artful balance of empathy and emotion. --Carol Haggas USA TODAY bestselling author Emilie Richards has written more than seventy novels. She has appeared on national television and been quoted in Reader’s Digest, right between Oprah and Thomas Jefferson. Born in Bethesda, Maryland, and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida, Richards has been married for more than forty years to her college sweetheart. She splits her time between Florida and Western New York, where she is currently plotting her next novel. Jamie Dunkirk could sell almost anything. Maybe her talents hadn't always been put to the best uses, but in her twenty-nine years, she had proven her ability to make quick connections and convince likely targets they had to have whatever she was peddling. Without conceit, she knew that nobody was better at building excitement until a buyer was ready to take the plunge. Still, nothing she had sold in all her years had been as difficult as selling Kendra and Isaac on her offer to carry their baby. In the end, her sister and brother-in-law's deep yearning for a child, not her own expert salesmanship, had prevailed. They hadn't been easily swayed by words. They had considered and reconsidered all the things that could go wrong, then balanced them against the possibility of a baby, their very own baby, in their arms. The scales had been heavily tipped. Now, if luck and Mother Nature did their part, one of the embryos a doctor had placed inside her three days ago was settling in for nine months of incredible changes. And when that baby emerged and she presented the squalling, sticky bundle to its rightful parents, Jamie knew she would finally have sold herself the most important commodity of all. Forgiveness. "Really!" As so often happened, a living, breathing child interrupted Jamie's train of thought. "Really, we have to be there," Hannah said. "Are you sure we haven't passed it?" Jamie glanced at the passenger seat of her minivan and saw that once again her older daughter was tracing their route on the Virginia map with her index finger. A callus was sure to develop before they arrived in Toms Brook. "The exit is just ahead," Jamie said. "And Aunt Kendra's still following us. Right? Don't you think she would have called me on the cell phone if I passed the turn by mistake?" Hannah looked frazzled, but Jamie couldn't blame her. Since the end of May, their lives had changed so drastically that even the adaptable Hannah hadn't been able to keep up. First they had terminated the lease on their house in Michigan—the only home Hannah really remembered—then they had packed their belongings and put most of them in storage. Finally Hannah and Alison had said goodbye to the friends and parents of friends who had peopled their little world. The future was a question mark, and even a w