Sister's Choice

In Richards's latest stand-alone Shenandoah Album saga, childless Kendra Taylor and husband Isaac accept an offer from Kendra's younger sister—single mom Jamie—to conceive and carry a child for them. The sisters have recently inherited money from their father, so it's no hassle for architect-in-training Jamie, who is not quite 30, to come with her daughters, Alison and Hannah, to live in nearby Toms Brook, Va. Pregnant Jamie can be on-site while the house that Jamie designs for Kendra and Isaac is built—on Isaac's family property in the Shenandoah River Valley—by the extraordinarily handsome Cash Rosslyn. For her part, Kendra keeps tabs on Jamie, whose misspent youth had previously estranged the sisters, as Jamie carries Kendra's family's future. Cash's grandmother Grace, meanwhile, has plans for Cash and Jamie, and Grace's love of quilting, and especially her own touching love story from another era, draws these women of different generations together. Richards should've included a special pull-out hanky insert, but readers looking for positive resolutions won't be disappointed. (July)