single-parent families

Trixie Jordan responds to a personal ad and meets writer Jacob Grace and they fall in love, but when family secrets are disclosed, Jacob disappears and Trixie stops believing in life, in love, and even in God.

Patty Taylor, singer in a traveling jazz/blues band, struggles to live her own life free of two negative forces: her alcoholic, emotionally abusive mother and the father of her two-year-old son, whom she once genuinely loved, who once saved her from her mother, and who has just been released from prison.

In 1947, his head filled with the advice and wisdom of his runaway father, thirteen-year-old Freddy moves his mother from their Georgia farm into town and takes on the challenge of holding his family together.

With their mother dead and their father working nights, Retta tries to be mother to her two younger brothers.

Claire Bradford, a single mother and owner of a successful bead shop, finds her life in Hope's Crossing, Colorado, changed by a tragic car accident and the arrival of Riley McKnight, her best friend's younger brother and the new chief of police, and while the town worries about a string of robberies committed by teenagers, a mysterious "Angel of Hope" tries to inspire the town.

Song Byrd, raised in poverty by her single mother, longs to escape from her outsider status in her family and neighborhood, but guilt keeps her from truly enjoying life after her mother is killed and she goes to live with her father in much improved circumstances.

Discusses the reasons for, the needs, and the challenges of single-parent families.

While speculating on the merits of her father's new girlfriend, Dez teams up with Sherman, a vegetarian and animal rights activist, to design posters for the school play with humorous results.

After her father leaves and Phoebe and her mother struggle to survive in the city, Phoebe finally goes to the country to live with her grandmother, where she learns family secrets and hopes her mother will return for her.