The Dugan Family Series

It's 1948 and the freedom granted women by the Second World War is gone. Edith Sloan, earning her doctorate, is told by her law student husband to cancel her academic plans. His bright future requires a certain kind of wife, one in the kitchen making dinner for important guests. Frustrated and defiant, Edith leaves him but returns when his begging letters become too much. Trapped by marriage and her husband's ambition, Edith struggles to find her footing and the means to her own survival.

In 16 short stories and a novella, Anne Leigh Parrish explores the magic of life, love, and the soft boundary between fact and fantasy. The wife of an artist disappears under mysterious circumstances, a woman has the gift of taking away sorrow, another finds inner strength through writing poetry, and a great-grandmother spends the day sitting on a folding chair in a grocery store parking lot, contemplating the nature of the human heart. What Nell Dreams is Parrish's eighth book of fiction.

When Lavinia Starkhurst’s husband is killed in a freak accident, she takes to the open road and meets a number of strangers, all with struggles of their own. Through these unexpected and occasionally hilarious encounters, Lavinia reflects on her past deeds, both good and bad, explores her two marriages and her roles as caregiver and wife, hoping all the while for self-acceptance and something to give her new life meaning. 

Thirty-four-year-old Angie Dugan struggles with many things - anxiety, her career as a social worker in a retirement home, and her difficult family. Her biggest struggle, though, is finding love. When she meets Matt, she's swept away by his attention. As issues from his past come up, she wonders if she can trust him. Should she break it off, or give him another chance? In the end, all she can do is listen to her heart, and evaluate what she wants most.