Deep Fire Rise


Jon Gosch - 2018
    Helens as a journalist and ridden with Clark County deputies, I can testify just how impressively Jon Gosch has captured that time and culture." --William Dietrich, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and NY Times bestselling author of the Ethan Gage adventure series It is 1980 and Deputy Wilson has been banished to a backwoods district in the shadow of Mount St. Helens. His duty is to protect a humble rural populace from the miscreants and misfits who lurk at this fringe of society – an all-too-human cast of white supremacists, PCP brewers, Sasquatch hunters, and hermetic schizophrenics. That spring the volcano awakens from its long dormancy. Earthquakes rock the locals in their beds. Plumes of ash blot out the sun. Amidst the rising threat of eruption, a horrific act of bloodshed will propel Deputy Wilson to the very flanks of the smoking volcano on a mission that blurs the line between justice and vengeance. A genre-defying blend of mystery and history, Deep Fire Rise is also an homage to the everyday heroism of a profession so often maligned in America today. Dark yet tender, comedic yet sincere, this carefully crafted novel builds into a climax as shocking and unforgettable as the events of May 18, 1980. Advance praise for Deep Fire Rise: "The greatest geological event of our times finally has the novel it deserves. While the literature of Mt. St. Helens is rich in documentation and description, Deep Fire Rise is the first fiction of note to come out of that earth-shattering eruption. And fine fiction it is, melding Jon Gosch's taut, fresh style with an unforgettable cast and a riveting plot that gathers with all the tension and inexorability of the very eruption itself." --Robert Michael Pyle, 2x Washington State Book Award winner and author of Wintergreen and Where Bigfoot Walks “Jon Gosch’s Deep Fire Rise rings with authenticity. The intimate, complicated, and downright strange relationships amongst the people in these small towns are pitch perfect, as is the music of the dialogue and rhythms of the prose.” --Bruce Holbert, 2015 Washington State Book Award Winner of The Hour of Lead “Deep Fire Rise is a murder mystery, a character study, and a depiction of place that builds in tension like a swelling volcano. Having covered the eruption of Mount St. Helens as a journalist and ridden with Clark County deputies, I can testify just how impressively Jon Gosch has captured that time and culture.” --William Dietrich, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and NY Times bestselling author of the Ethan Gage adventure series "A bright young talent is on display in this vivid, avant-garde take on our local lore." --Michael Gurian, NY Times bestselling author of The Wonder of Boys "Deep Fire Rise perfectly captures the world of Mount St. Helens at its most terrifying moment. A magnificent read." --Terry Trueman, Printz Honor author of Stuck in Neutral

The Wrecking Storm (Thomas Tallant, #2)


Michael Ward - 2021
    

Bonds of Courage


Sandy Hill - 2012
    Within an hour, the family is torn asunder. While her husband is away, Indians seize her and their sons, carrying them to an unknown fate. Only her teenage daughter escapes. Alone in the world, young Jane fights to make her way, while her father searches frantically for her. Amidst the turmoil of the Revolutionary War, the family struggles to reunite. Soon even greater tragedy erupts. Book club discussion questions included. Also by Sandy Hill: "Tangled Threads," set in a 1890s cotton mill village. The novel tells the story of two strong women whose lives intersect through the years in both painful and joyful ways.

The Storm over Paris


William Ian Grubman - 2018
    Mori Rothstein, an art dealer and expert in master paintings from Rococo to Realism, has been sought after by every major museum in the world. Also seeking his expertise is Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering. As his friends and fellow Jews disappear one by one, Mori struggles to protect himself and his family by cooperating with the Germans to catalogue stolen paintings for the Fuhrer’s museum. Mori is neither a prisoner nor a free man as he forges a questionable relationship with one of the most notorious Nazis in Europe—his fidelity and morals tested daily. His once-charmed life transforms into a web of intrigue, kidnapping, and murder, against the backdrop of the world’s most treasured art. How does he get himself and his family out the other side of the war, while also attempting to rescue some of the greatest paintings of all time?

Geronimo's Bones


Darrell Bryant - 2018
    Days later, a young, highly decorated Marine corporal named Frank Kidd learns of Geronimo’s death. Kidd’s real name is Chaco, and he is Geronimo’s nephew. Orphaned at birth, Chaco was toughened by the cruelties of the white man’s Indian school, battle-hardened by guerrilla warfare, and severely wounded in the 1906 Cuban Pacification Campaign. Chaco returns to Fort Sill’s Apache POW camp to find his adoptive mother dying and his sister trapped in a brothel. Long-held secrets are soon revealed: Chaco is the old warrior’s last son, and his father’s final wish was to be buried “in the country that knows my name.” To honor that request, Chaco must rescue his sister and liberate Geronimo’s bones from the Apache Cemetery. During the escape, two white men end up dead. Once an honored hero, now a hunted outlaw, Chaco races west with his sister in a stolen motorcar. As the last Apache warrior, he must pay the price with blood in one of the largest manhunts of the 20th century.

Artifice


Patrick Gooch - 2018
    But an unscrupulous trader in works of art knows their true worth; and exploits the situation, involving Cleverden in his shady activities. A major heist is planned by the trader, which first necessitates the theft of many of Turner`s paintings. These are held to ransom in exchange for priceless artifacts displayed in the British Museum. Once again, Alan Cleverden is unwittingly swept up in this unlawful venture. One word to the authorities, he would most certainly serve time. A pawn in a highly-charged affair, the odds are against him as he tries to free himself from the trader`s clutches; ensure the safety of the Turners; and return to their original owners the paintings acquired by his grandfather during the Second World War. A fast-paced thriller, Artifice is a must read for those who appreciate fine art, and are drawn to mysteries that hold you spellbound to the very last page. Patrick Gooch has enjoyed an interesting and varied career. He studied History of Art, and went on to lecture at the Central School of Art and Design in London. Patrick worked in marketing, travelling throughout Europe and Central and South America. It was while travelling that he began writing. Married with two sons, he lives close to the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. “Absorbing and convincing heist thriller” Kevin McManus, author of 'New Blood'.

The Secret Stealers


Jane Healey - 2021
    Everything changes when she’s recruited into the Office of Strategic Services by family friend and legendary WWI hero Major General William Donovan.Donovan has faith in her—and in all his “glorious amateurs” who are becoming Anna’s fast friends: Maggie, Anna’s down-to-earth mentor; Irene, who’s struggling to find support from her husband for her clandestine life; and Julia, a cheerful OSS liaison. But the more Anna learns about the organization’s secret missions, the more she longs to be stationed abroad. Then comes the opportunity: go undercover as a spy in the French Resistance to help steal critical intelligence that could ultimately turn the tide of the war.Dispatched behind enemy lines and in constant danger, Anna is filled with adrenaline, passion, and fear. She’s driven to make a difference—for her country and for herself. Whatever the risk, she’s willing to take it to help liberate France from the shadows of occupation and to free herself from the shadows of her former life.

The Sisterhood


Helen Bryan - 2012
    Rescued after a hurricane in South America, doomed to a life of poverty with a swallow medal as her only legacy, the orphaned toddler was adopted by an American family and taken to a new life. As a beautiful, intelligent woman of nineteen, she is in love, engaged, and excited about the future — until another traumatic event shatters her dreams. Menina flees to Spain to bury her misery in research for her college thesis about a sixteenth-century artist who signed his works with the image of a swallow — the same image as the one on Menina’s medal. But a mugging strands Menina in a musty, isolated Spanish convent. Exploring her surroundings, she discovers the epic sagas of five orphan girls who were hidden from the Spanish Inquisition and received help escaping to the New World. Is Menina’s medal a link to them, or to her own past? Did coincidence lead her to the convent, or fate? Both love story and historical thriller, The Sisterhood is an emotionally charged ride across continents and centuries.

A Kind of Woman


Helen Burko - 2017
    Barder does not return alone: with him is his new wife, Rachel, a beautiful blonde woman whom he met in Warsaw shortly after the war - a Jewish survivor who lost her entire family and remained alone in the world. Jacob fell in love with her and brought her to the states. Now he will defend her in the biggest battle of her life. A Jewish lawyer’s wife is accused of committing Nazi war crimes One evening, in a Broadway theater, Rachel is attacked by a woman who accuses her of being Matilda Krause - a German SS officer who served at the Nazi concentration camps. Rachel’s arrest and police investigation open the way to a sensational trial that will be written in the pages of history. With no one willing to protect a Nazi officer, Barder decides to defend his wife himself. Why would a Jewish survivor speak for a Nazi in the court of law? Barder is called to make an impossible case in the name of his beloved wife, and that of humanity altogether. The jury, the judge, and the readers will be astounded by what he has to say.

The Children's Dream


Roberta Kagan - 2022
    Naomi believes dreams are glimpses into the future. She, too, has had dreams of foreign soldiers with a strange flag invading her tiny village. She knows in her heart that evil is brewing.Real-life has already been a living hell for Noami. She must navigate the treacherous path of her unhappy arranged marriage with Hershel while keeping a scandalous love affair secret. And now something is coming. Her dreams - the dreams Hershel laughs at - tell her so. And the thing that is coming will make the hell she has been living seem ordinary and almost peaceful.The noose is tightening, and not even her nightmares can prepare Naomi, or her sleepy little village, from the sweeping scythe of the Nazi death machine.

Yesterday's News


Sam Cheever - 2017
    A discovery. A deadly outcome.How do you survive when a hidden crime from the past carries a murderer to your doorstep?Anna Yesterday owns Yesterday's Antiques in small town USA. When she finds an old newspaper clipping lining the drawer of an antique dresser, she realizes she's never heard the heart wrenching story of abuse and suicide detailed on the yellowed newsprint. So she starts to dig, and her sleuthing exposes an ugly cover-up that casts the residents of Crocker, Indiana into danger and intrigue, and leaves them with a corpse.

Tomb of the Lost


Julian Noyce - 2011
    In four parts.Tomb of the Lost is an action/adventure novel that spans 2300 years.Babylon, Persia 323bc.On a bed a man lays dying. Alexander the great, King, the Lion of Macedon has a mysterious fever. He became king at twenty, dying at thirty three, having conquered the known world. Following his death his General and friend Ptolemy takes the body and inters it into a magnificent tomb in Alexandria, Egypt. The very city Alexander founded.Two thousand three hundred years later and the leader of Germany Adolf Hitler who is a great collector of antiquities orders the sarcophagus, lost two thousand years before by Julius Caesar's legionaries, to be found and brought to Berlin.Hitler assigns a team of his Wehrmacht commanded by a General and his Colonel and a team of SS led by a fanatical Major to locate it.With their mission a success the Germans descend on the port town of Gabes, Tunisia just as the town is about to be over run by the British and as the battle for North Africa reaches its brutal climax the sarcophagus is lost once again leaving only one man alive to tell the tale.That man is Alfred Dennis.Nearly seventy years later and marine archaeologist Natalie Feltham and her team with the help of Peter Dennis, a journalist and grandson of Alfred Dennis, make the greatest discovery in modern archaeology.Now it's a race against time for Natalie and her team as dark powers from Germany's Nazi past try to take what is rightfully hers.

Whispers from the Cove


Jeanne Hardt - 2017
     Her beautiful home in Cades Cove, Tennessee, lies deep in the Smoky Mountains. For decades, her family has farmed and lived peacefully, until the soldiers came and made every day a struggle to survive. Whether they wear gray or blue, the men in uniform arrive unexpectedly and take whatever they want. Not only do they steal food and livestock, but some believe they can help themselves to anything they desire. Lily now has something to fear. Caleb Henry is running from his own battles, bleeding and broken. He seeks refuge in the cove and literally runs into Lily. Because he’s injured, she shows compassion and sneaks him into her cabin, trusting her folks to tend him. But there’s more to Caleb than they see on the surface. His arrival changes their lives, and what happens going forward can never be undone.

Truman's Spy: A Cold War Spy Thriller


Noel Hynd - 1990
    In Washington, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI is fighting a turf war with the newly founded Central Intelligence Agency. Harry Truman is in the White House, trying to keep a lid on domestic and foreign politics, but the crises never stop. It should be a time of peace and prosperity in America, but it is anything but.FBI agent Thomas Buchanan is assigned to investigate the father of a former fiancée, Ann Garrett, who dumped Buchanan while he was away to World War Two. And suddenly Buchanan finds himself on a worldwide search for both an active Soviet spy and the only woman he ever loved. In the process, he crosses paths with Hoover, Truman, Soviet moles and assassins, an opium kingpin from China, and a brigade of lowlife from the American film community. Truman’s Spy is a classic cold war story of espionage and betrayal, love and regret, patriots and traitors. This is the revised and updated 2013 edition of Noel Hynd’s follow-up to Flowers From Berlin. The story is big, a sprawling intricate tale of espionage, from post-war Rome and Moscow to New York, Philadelphia and Hollywood, filled with the characters, mores and attitudes of the day. And at its heart: the most crucial military secret of the decade."Noel Hynd knows the ins and outs of Washington's agencies, public and private." -Publishers Weekly"A notch above the Ludums and Clancys of the world....." - Booklist"The novels of Noel Hynd stand out!" - Martin Levin, NY Times

The Blue


Nancy Bilyeau - 2018
    Kings do battle with knights and knaves for possession of the finest pieces and the secrets of their manufacture.For Genevieve Planché, an English-born descendant of Huguenot refugees, porcelain holds far less allure; she wants to be an artist, a painter of international repute, but nobody takes the idea of a female artist seriously in London. If only she could reach Venice. When Genevieve meets the charming Sir Gabriel Courtenay, he offers her an opportunity she can’t refuse; if she learns the secrets of porcelain, he will send her to Venice. But in particular, she must learn the secrets of the colour blue… The ensuing events take Genevieve deep into England’s emerging industrial heartlands, where not only does she learn about porcelain, but also about the art of industrial espionage. With the heart and spirit of her Huguenot ancestors, Genevieve faces her challenges head on, but how much is she willing to suffer in pursuit and protection of the colour blue?