Beth Richardson Gutcheon

Award-winning author Jo Goodman captivates readers with her wonderful historical romances. Now she spins a dazzling tale where the hunt for a lost treasure brings together two destined hearts…Rand Hamilton vows to rebuild his Charleston plantation with the only means left to him: a long-lost treasure that has lured and cursed two families for centuries. But to finance his expedition, he must agree to the terms of his wealthy London benefactor and allow his goddaughter to accompany him. Although wary, Rand agrees to take the woman with him, unaware that she is the one who holds the key to a haunting riddle that will lead him to a glorious treasure-and to a passion he has never known... London heiress Claire Bancroft is desperate to seek hidden meaning to the terrible fate that has shattered her life. Determined to find her missing brother and unlock the haunting secrets of her past, she must place her trust in Rand, only to discover that she is becoming completely enraptured by him…and the promise of a shining future together

Five Fortunes, the funny and hope-filled new novel from Beth Gutcheon, is about a year in the life of five remarkable women, each of whom saves her own life by trying to do the right thing for somebody else. Rae Strouse is a lively octogenarian with an ailing husband. Carter Bond is a private investigator trying to give up smoking. Amy and Jill Burrows are a mother and teenage daughter traveling together, bearing a secret weight of baggage between them. Laura Lopez, reeling from the death of her politician husband, needs a new set of dreams. They are about to meet at a fabled health spa called The Cloisters, known affectionately to its devotees as Fat Chance. In the luxury boot-camp atmosphere of The Cloisters, where doctors, lawyers, spoiled housewives, movie stars, and captains of industry are stripped of makeup and jewelry and the other social markers that keep people from really seeing each other, surprising friendships can be made, with surprising consequences.

Rue Shaw is a woman who has everything - a much-loved child, a solid marriage, and a job she loves. Saying Grace takes place in Rue's midlife, when her daughter is leaving home, her parents are failing, her husband is restless, and the school she has built is being buffeted by changes in society that affect everyone. Funny, moving, rich in detail, and finally stunning, this novel presents a portrait of a community in jeopardy, and of a charming, intelligent woman whose most human failing is that she wants things to stay the same. Saying Grace is about the fragility of happiness and the strength of convictions, about keeping faith as a couple whether it keeps one safe or not, and about the sudden stripping of gears in the complicated professional and personal life of a woman of character.

After the death of her ex-husband in a plane crash, Martha, a SoHo illustrator, is disturbed that the executor of his estate is Charlie, his despised and conservative divorce lawyer, but the two soon discover that a clash of life-styles can be the spark of life.

Explores the lives of five girls on the brink of womanhood in a New England prep school.

In a summer cottage on the coast of Maine, an unlikely love was nurtured, a marriage endured, and a family survived. Now it is time for the children of that marriage to make peace with the wounds and the treasures left to them. And to sort out which is which.Beth Gutcheon's critically acclaimed family saga, Leeway Cottage, was a major achievement: a vivid and moving tale of war and marriage and their consequences that enchanted readers. Good-bye and Amen is the next chapter for the family of Leeway Cottage, the story of what happens when those most powerful people in any family drama, the parents, have left the stage.The complicated marriage of the gifted Danish pianist Laurus Moss to the provincial American child of privilege Sydney Brant was a mystery to many who knew them, including their three children. Now, Eleanor, Monica, and Jimmy Moss have to decide how to divide or share what Laurus and Sydney have left them without losing one another.Secure and cheerful Eleanor, the oldest, wants little for herself but much for her children. Monica, the least-loved middle child, brings her youthful scars to the table, as well as the baggage of a difficult marriage to the charismatic Norman, who left a brilliant legal career, though not his ambition, to become an Episcopal priest. Youngest and best-loved Jimmy, who made a train wreck of his young adulthood, has returned after a long period of alienation from the family surprisingly intact, but extremely hard for his sisters to read.Having lived through childhoods both materially blessed and emotionally difficult, with a father who could seem uninvolved and a mother who loved a good family game of “let's you and him fight,” the Mosses have formed strong adult bonds that none of them wants to damage. But it's difficult to divide a beloved summer house three ways and keep it too. They all know what's at stake—in a world of atomized families, a house like Leeway Cottage can be the glue that keeps generations of cousins and grandchildren deeply connected to one another. But knowing it's important doesn't make it easy.