"Best friends since the first day of classes at The College of Charleston, Ashley Anne Waters and Mary Beth Smythe, now 23 years old, live in Ashley's parents' beach house rent-free. Ashley is a gallery assistant who aspires to become an artist. Mary Beth, a gifted cook from Tennessee, works for a caterer while searching for a good teaching job. Though they both know what they want out of life, their parents barely support their dreams and worry for...

For Big Al and Connie, their move from New Jersey to Hilton Head, South Carolina, has been fraught with complications, especially for their daughter Grace, a thirty-one-year-old single, Catholic woman struggling for independence.

Linda Breland is the single parent of two teenage daughters. The oldest, Lindsey, is just about to leave for college; and Gracie, her youngest, is giving her nightmares. Between the cold New York winters, Linda's dating drought, financial problems and an ex-husband who has married a beautiful, successful woman ten years younger than she is, Linda has reached the end of her tether even before she discovers birth control pills in Gracie's school bag....