How dare this Ammon refuse to marry the beautiful eldest daughter of King Lamoni! There could only be one explanation for this unforgivable dishonor: Ammon must be a spy.Isabel closely watches her enemy, expecting to find evidence of treachery, but instead she finds evidence of loyalty, bravery, and kindness. Afraid to admit her growing affection for Ammon, Isabel hides her true feelings behind a headstrong façade. Yet when the vile Lamanite prince Mahlon threatens to take her as a bride and wrest the kingdom from Lamoni, Isabel must choose between her pride and her life. Meanwhile, the risks of love test Ammon's faith and courage as never before.Will Ammon thwart the marriage of Isabel and Mahlon before it's too late? And could a Lamanite princess and a Nephite prince really live happily ever after?

    When the doctor finally got through the nine-foot drifts of snow, mother and daughter were in a pretty bad way, but both the new-born Annie and her exhausted mother - a spinner in the cotton mill - were fighters, tough and determined not to let the world knock them down.They needed to be tough, for when Annie's father was killed in the war, Nancy married again. And Eddie Higson - once he'd courted and won Nancy Byrne - turned into a nightmare of a man, terrorizing the young girl with one secret evil after another.She had two friends who helped her through these bad years. Martin Cullen, rough, uneducated, loyal, who knew he wasn't good enough for her, and David Pritchard, the doctor who had supported her through the worst times and who had bad problems of his own.Together they watched her grow into a beautiful young woman, desperately fighting the legacy of her childhood.

    Her unabashed faith shines through as she shares details of her life as an adviser to her best friend, Beatrice, and as a voice of reason to her women's Sunday school class, the Willing Workers. The pettiness of the women at the Apostolic Bible Church gets under Esmeralda's skin, but when she rallies them to the side of an impoverished mother with AIDS, the very best of human love and compassion is portrayed.Told in delightfully eccentric first-person narration, this story will inspire, uplift, amuse, and move readers to tears. Despite Esmeralda's lack of education and sophistication-or perhaps because of it-she is used mightily by God and meets everyday challenges with gumption, humor, and grace. Her struggle to maintain her faith in the midst of pain and suffering is a timeless and universal theme with which many will identify, and the love and mercy the story unfolds will delight both young and old.

    This beautifully written book will keep you up all night. There are plenty of clues and there are a lot of hints, but even when you put them all together, it will be close to impossible to puzzle your way to the ending. If you are looking for a book, you can't put down, then Governor's Road is just right for you. Excitement, frisky loving, a mystery of epic proportions and traditional southern pathos make this book a fun and rewarding read. The terrorized children of Governor’s Road grew up without resolution or closure to the most devastating event of their young lives. Their friend, a child their age, disappeared one afternoon and somehow, they never seem to learn what happened. Saddened parents decide to protect their children and the obvious fear recedes in the face of the calm that settles back over the neighborhood. But, fear never really disappears until it's confronted. As adults, JoBeth and Billy set out to discover what happened to little Petey Shiner. The answer brings them to conclusion that there is no perfect childhood, even in a perfect town in a perfect decade. Every town hides its secrets and puts on a good face, even at the expense of its residents. Along the way, JoBeth and Billy discover love and romance. Their kindling of love takes you to places you can only want to return to…and their future makes you happy. It’s their past that is so hard to reconcile. As well as a lot of fun, a dark mystery and hot southern romance, JoBeth and her friends also encounter the harsh reality of Alzheimer’s and aging. Sometimes, a loved one can be lost more than once. The malevolent specter of mental illness surfaces when the reader meets Lucius Sifer and begins to understand the unusual existence the boy leads. The ending is grim but satisfies that need everyone has for justice. The most humble people can achieve heroism without fanfare or acknowledgment. As always, enjoy your adventure into the south...and remember, thoughtful book reviews are welcomed with open arms. Please see Observations of a Transplanted Southern Belle for more of Laurie Byrne Smith's work.

    And while the literary landscape of the rural South is peppered with great storytellers, few are as endearing as James Aloysius "Buster" Holcombe, Jr., the observant narrator of Sams's new novel.From Reconstruction, the first World War, the Depression, and World War II , to racial integration, land speculation, and economic boom, Buster Holcombe recounts the events that have shaped our country since the mid-nineteenth century through the eyes of the wide-ranging denizens of "our town." Down Town offers a panoptic history of the American South, carefully observed and skillfully presented by a native son.

    Lord and Lady Berrybender have abandoned their home in England to broaden the horizons for themselves and their three children. With irascible determination—and a great deal of outright chaos—the party experiences both the awesome majesty and brutal savagery of the unexplored land, from buffalo stampedes and natural disasters to Indian raids and encounters with frontiersmen and trappers, explorers, pioneers, and one part-time preacher known as "the Sin Killer." Sin Killer, the strong, silent Westerner, captures the heart of the strong-willed, beautiful Berrybender daughter, Tasmin. But their fast developing relationship can only bring more trouble for the Berrybender's. Packed with breathtaking adventure, charming romance, and a sense of humor stretching clear over the horizon, Sin Killer is a truly unique view of the West that could only come from the boundless skill and imagination of Larry McMurtry.

    Here together are the complete Clifton Chronicles, including all seven novels:Only Time Will TellThe Sins of the FatherBest Kept SecretBe Careful What You Wish ForMightier Than the SwordCometh the HourThis Was a Man

     Struggling to make ends meet, Mary Anne Randall is offered no help by her drunk and abusive husband. A pawnbroking business run from the wash house at the back of her home is the only way she can hope to keep her three kids fed and clothed. But, as storm clouds gather over Europe, can Mary Anne break free from her loveless marriage for what might be a last chance at love...? Previously published as LOVING ENEMIES

    The author of the classics River of Earth (1940) and The Wolfpen Poems (1986), Still is known for his careful prose construction and for the poetry of his meticulous, rhythmic style. Upon his death, however, one manuscript remained unpublished. Still's friends, family, and fellow writer Silas House will now deliver this story to readers, having assembled and refined the manuscript to prepare it for publication. Chinaberry, named for the ranch that serves as the centerpiece of the story, is Still's last and perhaps greatest contribution to American literature.Chinaberry follows the adventures of a young boy as he travels to Texas from Alabama in search of work on a cotton farm. Upon arriving, he discovers the ranch of Anson and Lurie Winters, a young couple whose lives are defined by hard work, family, and a tragedy that haunts their past. Still's entrancing narrative centers on the boy's experience at the ranch under Anson's watchful eye and Lurie's doting care, highlighting the importance of home, whether it is defined by people or a place.In this celebration of the art of storytelling, Still captures a time and place that are gone forever and introduces the reader to an unforgettable cast of characters, illustrating the impact that one person can have on another. A combination of memoir and imagination, truth and fiction, Chinaberry is a work of art that leaves the reader in awe of Still's mastery of language and thankful for the lifetime of wisdom that manifests itself in his work.

    But I kept hearing the splash." So begins The Well and the Mine, a magnificent debut novel set in 1930s Alabama. The place is Carbon Hill, a small coal-mining community, in the midst of the Depression. The Moore family, a loving brood of five, is better off than most, generous to their less fortunate neighbors. But darkness arrives at their doorstep when a mysterious woman throws a baby down the Moores' well, and the story slowly unfolds, through the alternating voices of nine-year-old Tess (who witnessed the crime); her older sister, Virgie; her brother, Jack; and her parents, Albert and Leta.The mystery of the baby and why the Moores' well was the chosen location for its disposal is the catalyst of this intimate novel -- the splash whose ripples widen to reveal a community divided by race and class. The revelation of this shadowy side of life in Carbon Hill is leavened by the awakening conscience of a family that survives adversity with pluck and determination. In her first novel, Phillips has found beauty, depth, and the promise of salvation in one strong Southern clan.

    THE GLITTER AND THE GOLD is a dazzling, robust saga of the Collingwoods of California, heirs to wealth, ambition, and lust. And against the vivid backdrop of time and change - earthquake, fire, riot, and the clash of cultures - he brings to rousing life five generations of this remarkable family whose passions were as boundless as California in the making...

    Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It's a big one. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive her from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear explanation why. Tomorrow. Dorrie, fleeing problems of her own and curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle's guarded past, scarcely hesitates before agreeing, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives. Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son's irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her. Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family's housekeeper - in a town where blacks weren't allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle's first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.

    Glen David Gold, author of the best seller Carter Beats the Devil, now gives us a grand entertainment with the brilliantly realized figure of Charlie Chaplin at its center: a novel at once cinematic and intimate, heartrending and darkly comic, that captures the moment when American capitalism, a world at war, and the emerging mecca of Hollywood intersect to spawn an enduring culture of celebrity.Sunnyside opens on a winter day in 1916 during which Charlie Chaplin is spotted in more than eight hundred places simultaneously, an extraordinary delusion that forever binds the overlapping fortunes of three men: Leland Wheeler, son of the world’s last (and worst) Wild West star, as he finds unexpected love on the battlefields of France; Hugo Black, drafted to fight under the towering General Edmund Ironside in America’s doomed expedition against the Bolsheviks; and Chaplin himself, as he faces a tightening vise of complications—studio moguls, questions about his patriotism, his unchecked heart, and, most menacing of all, his mother.The narrative is as rich and expansive as the ground it covers, and it is cast with a dazzling roster of both real and fictional characters: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Adolph Zukor, Chaplin’s (first) child bride, a thieving Girl Scout, the secretary of the treasury, a lovesick film theorist, three Russian princesses (gracious, nervous, and nihilist), a crew of fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants moviemakers, legions of starstruck fans, and Rin Tin Tin.By turns lighthearted and profound, Sunnyside is an altogether spellbinding novel about dreams, ambition, and the dawn of the modern age.

    This study guide includes a detailed Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Character Descriptions, Objects/Places, Themes, Styles, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion on The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer.

    Stevenson to oblige her many fans who read Gerald and Elizabeth and asked for “more about Gerald.”Gerald Burleigh-Brown spends a vacation in a primitive old house miles from the nearest village, but it isn’t long before he makes friends with the local inhabitants: the young MacAslans, Gerald’s host and hostess; the innkeeper who knows all that goes on in the district; Malcolm MacGregor, the stalker, who has lived in the area all his life; and his old mother who dreams of a black horse and is thereby convinced that a dreadful accident is going to happen. Gerald joins in hunting in the deer-forest and becomes involved in some hair-raising adventures.D.E. Stevenson’s men readers will enjoy all the excitement of hunting and stalking the deer, and as always her women readers will delight to read of Gerald’s realization that he is more than casually interested in one of his new friends.As always, D.E. Stevenson has drawn her characters so skillfully that they become real people to her readers. And those readers of Katherine Wentworth and The Marriage of Katherine will happily recognize the high mountains of the Highlands and the thousands of acres of hills and glens where the red deer abound.