Newly appointed Detective Inspector Gemma James has never thought to question her friend Hazel Cavendish about her past. So it is quite a shock when Gemma learns that their holiday retreat to a hotel in the Scottish Highlands is, in fact, Hazel's homecoming — and that fellow guest Donald Brodie was once Hazel's lover, despite a vicious, long-standing feud between their rival, fine whiskey distilling families. And the fires of a fierce and

Mary Alice Monroe invites you to meet five remarkable characters as she explores the power of friendship with tenderness, honesty and understanding.

On the surface, it is a monthly book club. But for five women, it is so much more. For Eve Porter, whose husband's sudden death cheats her of every security she had planned on, the club is a place of sanctuary. For Annie Blake, a brilliant attorney intent on starting a family late in life,