Four gripping novellas tied together by the changing of seasons. Hope Springs Eternal - "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption": An unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge...the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award nominee The Shawshank Redemption.

Port Royal, South Carolina, was my home. I was born there. I fell in love there. And I nearly died there. I never thought I'd go back. Now, after so many years, I have to return to bury the man who made my life a living hell. Some nights, I used to cry myself to sleep, praying my father would die. Other nights were different. Other nights, there was him. Callan Cross.

After being left at the altar, Jade Roberts seeks solace at her best friend’s ranch on the Colorado western slope. Her humiliation still ripe, she doesn't expect to be attracted to her friend’s reticent brother, but when the gorgeous cowboy kisses her, all bets are off. Talon Steel is broken. Having never fully healed from a horrific childhood trauma, he simply exists, taking from women what is offered and giving nothing in return...until Jade Roberts catapults into his life.

He was a jerk, but she loved him; that was the first problem. The second? He was her stepbrother. Dante Hix. An alpha male. A billionaire at 21. A god. It had been three years already, and she still wasn't over him. What the hell was she thinking going back again now?

When I was 13, he stole my heart. When I was 18, he took my innocence. When I was 23, he said he would love me forever. When I was 28, he broke my heart. Now I'm 33... and there's a knock at the door. He's back, again. And this time he's not alone.

Abby has been through hell and has survived one of the most brutal childhoods imaginable. To the outside world, she is just a loner with an attitude. When her grandmother dies in a tragic explosion, Abby is left with questions - and nothing else. Homeless, sleeping in a junkyard, and on the run from a system that has failed her over and over again, she meets Jake, a tattooed, blue-eyed biker with secrets that rival her own. Two broken souls that can't be healed. They can't be saved.

They call him the puppet master. They say he's dirty, dark and dangerous. And they're right. He's everything they say he is, and more. So much more.... Alexander Henley has no idea I exist. No idea whatsoever how much I want him. But that's all about to change.

I am loyal, but I will betray you. I am strong, but I have scars. I am an angel, but the devil. I met her when I was 16 and she was a breath of fresh air. She swooped in, making me smile. But then she left, taking my next breath with her. Her smile could light up a room, making my black heart pitter patter. I found her again 10 years later, with a syringe in her arm. Blood coming from between her legs. She was broken and I was glad she was broken. She wouldn't think less of me and my damaged ways.

Suburbia. Shady, tree-lined streets; well-tended lawns; and cozy homes. A nice, quiet place to grow up. Unless you are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan. On a dead-end street, in the dark, damp basement of the Chandler house, Meg and Susan are left captive to the savage whims and rages of a distant aunt who is rapidly descending into madness. It is a madness that infects all three of her sons and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between Meg and Susan and their cruel, torturous deaths.

They call him The Donkey because of the size of his dick. I call him it because he's a complete and total ass. I hate Landon Maddox with a passion, and I haven't even met him yet. Underwear model, star quarterback, arrogant, muscle-headed prick. I never wanted a stepbrother in the first place, and now I have one that thinks he's a God. Seriously. If his most famous asset isn't beaming down at me from billboard posters all over the city, he's spread across the front pages of every single newspaper, always for the wrong reasons.

Carrie Wells is nothing but trouble. She's wild and difficult. Not worth anyone's time. Carrie Wells is a beautiful little brat. She's also a vulnerable young adult on my case list.... I'm breaking every rule of friendship by holing her up in my best friend Jack's house while he's away on business. I thought life was difficult enough when I fell for the girl, but it gets a whole lot harder when Jack comes home early and finds a beautiful stranger causing chaos in his house.

The intoxication from a pint of vodka, the electric buzz from snorting cocaine, the warm embrace from shooting heroin - drinking and drugging provide the height of human experience. It's the promise of heaven on earth, but the hell that follows is a constant hunger, a cold emptiness. The craving to get high is a yearning as intense of any blood-thirsty monster. The stories inside feature the insidious nature of addiction told with compassion yet searing honesty.

After a horrific accident, Mike wakes to find himself blind in one eye. He now sees things that others can't, and nobody will listen to him. That is until he meets Jandilyn Hollow. Will she be able to pull him out of the depths of his despair? Can love transcend even death?

Ophelia Lang needs money, and she needs it bad. Her parents' restaurant is going under, and ever since she lost her job teaching third grade elementary, scraping enough cash together to pay the bills has proven almost impossible. Her parents are on the brink of losing their home. The vultures are circling overhead. So when Ophelia is offered an interview for a well-paid private tutoring gig in New York, how can she possibly say no?

Bella: Meeting him was a fluke. Dating him was a mistake. Watching him become a drug addict put me through hell. Running was my only option. Jackson: I'm running from my demons and when I find out she's trying to escape her past, I know what I have to do. One broken cop. One woman fighting for her life. A fragile love. Sinister secrets that threaten to tear them apart. They've been to hell. The hard part will be finding their way back together.