Cloud Nine

by Luanne Rice

Published 1 December 1998
A deeply moving and resonant novel about the power of love and family feeling in the face of suffering and change. A beloved only child, Sarah was brought up on a wild island, where the people were as one with the landscape and where her father, George, farmed geese. After her mother died of cancer, he brought her up alone, but their lives were further twisted by trouble after Sarah was jilted by Zeke, an island boy, who left her pregnant and devastated. Shortly afterwards, Zeke was killed in a car crash, and Sarah fled the island for a new life on the mainland, leaving her father feeling rejected and angry. Now, fourteen years later, Sarah, making a living through her quilting business called Cloud Nine, is herself recovering from cancer. The illness threatened more than her life -- the trauma brought to a head her difficult relationship with her son, Mike, who finally left her to go and live with his grandfather. It is at this point that their lives elide with another tragic family.
Will Burke, the pilot she charters to visit Mike, has never recovered from the death of his own teenage son, which wrecked his marriage and has left his daughter Susan like a piece of flotsam drifting between Will, her mother and her mother's ghastly new husband. In the tense, emotive story that unfolds, all their lives are changed as love, hope and endurance eventually find a way to transcend suffering.

Summer Light

by Luanne Rice

Published 1 June 2001
When it comes to love and family, the things you can’t see are what matter most of all.

Bestselling novelist Luanne Rice has inspired the devotion of readers everywhere with her “rare combination of realism and romance.”(The New York Times Book Review) Now she presents her most magical novel to date, an entrancing story of love at first sight, the true meaning of family, and angels right here on earth.

May Taylor works as a wedding planner, passing on the timeless traditions of her grandmother and mother. The Taylor women have always believed in the presence of magic in everyday life--especially the simple magic of true love and family. Yet May’s own faith in true love was shattered when she was abandoned by the father of her child. Still, she finds joy in raising her daughter Kylie, a very special five-year-old who sees and hears things that others cannot. . .

Martin Cartier is a professional hockey player and sports legend. His father, a champion, taught him to play to win--at all costs. Now Martin’s success veils a core of heartache, rage, and isolation. Yet Kylie glimpses the transcendent role Martin will play in May’s life and her own--unless his past tears their blossoming love apart. Then only Kylie will see the way home--and only May will be able to lead them there, if she can believe in magic once more.