When she proves to be an exceptional student of his laws of influence, he urges her to help him complete his mission: Hitler has an atom bomb, and his scientists must be persuaded to undermine their own creation.A Novel Inspired by Two True Stories Peter D. Johnston, bestselling author and international negotiator, has crafted a thought-provoking thriller that immerses us in one of history’s most pivotal moments. In this novel inspired by two true stories from the Second World War, a young British nurse and a seasoned American negotiator, both plagued by remorse, try to change the course of history—and their own lives.Weapons of Peace races from an ancient English castle and a bizarre killing in Washington, D.C., to a scorched atomic test site in Germany and hidden passages forged under Berlin by resisters plotting to murder Hitler. Johnston’s expert hand blends real-world historical material with heart-pounding action, unforgettable characters, and precious insights into influence and how the Nazis negotiated their way to power and kept it.

    Hundreds of miles away, in London, Queen Victoria is preparing for her wedding. She will wear the most exquisite wedding dress in history, bearing the famous Honiton lace. When Lily is asked to be one of the select few to work on this top-secret commission it is the answer to her prayers.Lily quickly makes an impression, both as an expert seamstress and a natural leader of the women working day and night to ensure their families' survival. But there are others who want to see Lily fail, including Squire Clinsden who issues her with a terrible ultimatum - work for him, and be subject to his unwanted advances, or lose the family home.Torn between her duty and her dreams of a better life, Lily must remember where she came from or risk losing those most important to her.

    From the dramatic redbrick facade to the sweeping staircase dripping with art, the Chelsea Hotel has long been New York City's creative oasis for the many artists, writers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, and poets who have called it home—a scene playwright Hazel Riley and actress Maxine Mead are determined to use to their advantage. Yet they soon discover that the greatest obstacle to putting up a show on Broadway has nothing to do with their art, and everything to do with politics. A Red scare is sweeping across America, and Senator Joseph McCarthy has started a witch hunt for Communists, with those in the entertainment industry in the crosshairs. As the pressure builds to name names, it is more than Hazel and Maxine's Broadway dreams that may suffer as they grapple with the terrible consequences, but also their livelihood, their friendship, and even their freedom. Spanning from the 1940s to the 1960s, The Chelsea Girls deftly pulls back the curtain on the desperate political pressures of McCarthyism, the complicated bonds of female friendship, and the siren call of the uninhibited Chelsea Hotel.

    At just the hour when most prairie schools were letting out for the day, a terrifying, fast-moving blizzard struck without warning. Schoolteachers as young as sixteen were suddenly faced with life and death decisions: keep the children inside, to risk freezing to death when fuel ran out, or send them home, praying they wouldn't get lost in the storm?Based on actual oral histories of survivors, the novel follows the stories of Raina and Gerda Olsen, two sisters, both schoolteachers--one who becomes a hero of the storm, and one who finds herself ostracized in the aftermath. It's also the story of Anette Pedersen, a servant girl whose miraculous survival serves as a turning point in her life and touches the heart of Gavin Woodson, a newspaperman seeking redemption. It is Woodson and others like him who wrote the embellished news stories that lured immigrants across the sea to settle a pitiless land. Boosters needed immigrants to settle territories into states, and they didn't care what lies they told them to get them there--or whose land it originally was.At its heart, this is a story of courage, of children forced to grow up too soon, tied to the land because of their parents' choices. It is a story of love taking root in the hard prairie ground, and of families being torn asunder by a ferocious storm that is little remembered today--because so many of its victims were immigrants to this country.

    A profoundly moving story of love during a time of great social change, with an ending that will leave you cheering. May Callaghan is seventeen years old and on her own. At least that’s how it feels.Her devoutly religious mother and her gentle but damaged father are fighting, and May's boyfriend, Sam, has left their rural hometown for Melbourne without so much as a backward glance.When May lies to her parents and takes the train to visit Sam at his shared house in Carlton, her world opens wide in glorious complexity. She is introduced to his housemates, Clancy, an indigenous university student, and Ruby, a wild bohemian. With their liberal thinking and opposition to the war in Vietnam, they are everything that May's strict Catholic upbringing should warn her against.May knows too well the toll that war has taken on her father, and the peace movement in the city has a profound effect on her. For a while, May’s future burns bright. But then it begins to unravel, and something happens to her that will change her life forever.

    Thrown together under the leadership of the ambitious Cezar, they are pronounced expendable.

    She lives isolated in the Pennsylvania countryside with her affluent and secretive family. When her father dies suddenly, Mary becomes pained with grief and increasingly suspicious of those around her. A humble servant girl has the chance of a lifetime to become a lady's companion. Costly dresses, exquisite rooms, and fine dinners are pleasant distractions from what is really happening in the house.

    Still unfit for active duty after nine months in hospital, he is recruited by an unorthodox colonel named Valentine Burdette to work in the Provost Marshal General’s office in Washington. The beleaguered Capital, now swollen to seven times its pre-war population, is filled with saloons, brothels, spies, thieves and murderers. It is also rife with official corruption and political intrigue. While investigating what appears to be a routine case of military procurement fraud, Kit becomes embroiled in the murder of a beautiful young woman who has had the misfortune to attend the birthday party of Union General Joseph Hooker, the notorious and charming libertine.The investigation leads Kit through a series of harrowing adventures—both on the battlefield and in the Capital’s darkest dens of depravity—until he and Val Burdette must confront a vast criminal conspiracy that threatens both their own lives as well as the fate of the Republic. This riveting thriller by the award-winning author of the critically-acclaimed Stonewall’s Gold hauntingly brings to life one of the most dramatic periods of the Civil War.