When Father Tim’s wife, Cynthia, asks what he wants for Christmas, he pens the answer in a love letter that bares his most private feelings. Then the letter goes missing and circulates among his astonished neighbors. So much for private. Can a letter change a life? Ask Helene, the piano teacher who has avoided her feelings for a lifetime. Ask Hope, the village bookseller who desperately needs something that’s impossibly out of reach. Or, if you’d like to know how a brush with death can be the portal to a happy marriage, Cynthia will tell you all about it. In MY BELOVED, Harley gets an important letter of his own; a broken heart teaches the Old Mayor, Esther Cunningham, a lesson that’s been a long time coming; and thanks to Lace and Dooley, readers get what they’ve been waiting for: Sadie.

A beloved town character lands a front-page obituary. But who was it, exactly, who died? And what about the former mayor who’s still running for office? All this, of course, is but a feather on the wind compared to Muse editor J.C. Hogan’s desperate attempts to find a cure for his marital woes. Twenty minutes from Mitford at Meadowgate Farm, newlyweds Dooley and Lace Kavanagh face a crisis that devastates their bank account and impacts their family vet practice. But there is still a lot to celebrate, as their adopted son, Jack, looks forward to the most important day of his life. Happily, it also will be a day when the terrible wound in Dooley’s biological family begins to heal because of a game --- let’s just call it a miracle --- that breaks all the rules.

Over the course of 12 Mitford novels, readers have kept a special place in their hearts for Dooley Kavanagh, first seen in AT HOME IN MITFORD as a barefoot, freckle-faced boy in filthy overalls. Now, Father Tim Kavanagh’s adopted son has graduated from vet school and opened his own animal clinic. Since money will be tight for a while, maybe he and Lace Harper, his once and future soul mate, should keep their wedding simple. In COME RAIN OR COME SHINE, Jan Karon delivers the wedding that millions of Mitford fans have waited for.

After five hectic years of retirement from Lord’s Chapel, Father Tim Kavanagh returns with his wife, Cynthia, from a so-called pleasure trip to the land of his Irish ancestors. While glad to be at home in Mitford, something is definitely missing: a pulpit. But when he’s offered one, he decides he doesn’t want it. Maybe he’s lost his passion. His adopted son, Dooley, wrestles with his own passion --- for the beautiful and gifted Lace Turner, and his vision to become a successful country vet.