Over the years it was visited by a diverse hodge-podge of notables, including Davey Crockett and Charles Dickens, all who left aghast at the horrible living conditions, the poverty and the decadence of the people they found there. At their zenith, these vulgar, diseased and murderous streets housed 30,000 homeless children of all ages--the street urchins--who played, scavenged for food, fought the elements and each other, and tried to avoid the perpetual violence that routinely threatened their survival. Death was their constant competitor, and death often won. They were the discarded refuse of the great 19th century immigrant migrations to America, and they were an undesirable nuisance to the good citizens of New York. This is the story of two such children, Anna Murphy and Ben McDonald, abandoned to the streets and thrown together in a desperate attempt to achieve the impossible: to escape from Hell’s Kitchen in search of new beginnings in far and distant lands.

    The Brewer children have all grown up and started families of their own and Dovie Pearce is content. She’s married to a wonderful man, Gabe, and her adoptive daughter, Ellie, is a wonderful companion. But one cold March night, the peace is broken with a midnight knock at the door that ends with the cries of an abandoned baby by sunrise. Joy Smith has fallen into her own quiet life. At sixteen, she has little to worry about, until she finds the marriage certificate of her parents that doesn’t make sense. She questions her family members, trying to figure out the mysterious document, but once she discovers the truth, her life is shattered.Jaded by her parent’s lack of trust, Joy finds a kinship with baby Jeffery. When she finds out who the abandoned baby belongs to, she vows to make things right for him. Will her actions give Jeffery the life he deserves or is she putting him in the hands of the very person who will destroy him?

    They say, every wish can be fulfilled. Kito is a little orphan, living in a village, who got to know about a magical tree, that can make his innermost desire true. But at the same time all the other villagers want their desires to be fulfilled as well...

    

    "The Lion and the Leopard" takes place during the Great 1914-18 War when German forces invaded Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Portuguese East Africa. Martin Russell ("The Settler") and his step-daughter, Clare, travel to the war front, while the Spaight family (Alan, from "Lake of Slaves", and his son Drew, and daughters Mandy and Kirsty) are also drawn into the conflict. A young British officer falls in love with Mandy, but she finds her true love elsewhere. Kirsty's friend, a Britsh naval reservist, joins the gunboat flotilla on Lake Tanganyika. The Chilembwe Uprising in Nyasaland provides an unwelcome distraction early in the war. The loves and tragedies in the families unfold during the long and bitter campaign.

    The eldest Standish boy, Tommy, was something of a changeling: he desired a different life and ruthlessly went in pursuit of his dream of the grandeur and riches of the landowners' class.His ambitions realised, Tommy, is intent on higher profits even though it risks the lives of the quarrymen. Joe, his father, fights for a union to secure fairer conditions for the men. The quarrymen are close to becoming victims as the war between father and son escalates.

    Instead they live out of doors, only minimally protected from the elements, and must travel long and difficult distances each year to protect themselves against the vagaries of weather. As a consequence of the long treks each year these people fail to accumulate tools and treasurers to make their lives easier. Two young friends wish to change the migratory pattern of their people's lives by living through the winter which they call The Dark Times, instead of making the annual, long and hazardous journey southward.

    Faced with fear and few choices for what she can do, Rienne must act to evade capture by the Gestapo. When she decides to act, she discovers a strength within herself that helps her face tough trials and experiences. But will it be enough to get her through the war?

    

     Pilot Officer Harry Rose, fresh from training and eager to prove himself, is posted to Excalibur Squadron, a Hawker Hurricane fighter unit based in southern England. In the coming weeks and months of that fateful summer, as the outnumbered RAF battle grimly with the Luftwaffe in the skies above Britain, Rose will come to know what it is to love, and will experience both the glorious euphoria of success and the desperate bitterness of loss. As his friends dwindle in number, Rose knows that it can be only a matter of time before it is his turn...

     Ari Thorgilsson builds a cargo ship, the Uxi, in a desperate attempt to save the family from poverty and ruin. Ari sails it out of his home in the fjords of Norway to the Orkney Islands and then into the Irish Sea, where a chance encounter makes an enemy of Ivar the Younger, a son of the Danish Viking Ivar the Boneless. While pursued by Ivar the Younger, a storm drives the ship onto the rocky coast of a hostile land, where the ship is wrecked he and the crew are captured by native Britons. Execution or enslavement seem to be their fate. But there is yet hope, for Artgal, king of the British kingdom of Alt Clut, is in need of warriors. He promises Ari a new ship if he and his companions garrison a fortress on the border with the Picts to the north, while he takes an army to fight the Angles in the east. Ari and his friends accept the offer, and plunge into a year of intrigue and battle in the depths of the land that one day will be known as Scotland, testing their mettle and their commitment to their honor. A Pictish invasion seems to spell the end of Ari’s dream of a new ship. And then a fleet of Danish Vikings sails into the River Clut to lay siege to Artgal’s fortress, thrusting that dream well beyond his grasp. Or does it?

     All of Sloane Westin's training has drummed the risks of mountain terrain into her head, but she's promised God she'll take the risk if she can prevent a combat veteran from suicide. Since her husband took his own life three years earlier, it has been just Sloane and her search dog Orex. Now Incident Command has teamed her with Conor McCollum, an annoying, overbearing man who wants to run the show. Conor McCollum owes his old Army commander Bill Frasier his life. Payback is due. Conor may hold the key to bringing Bill back out of the storm of hallucinations filling his mind, if he can get close enough. Why Incident Command has teamed him with pretty girlie-girl, Sloane Westin, is beyond him. He doesn't need a human anchor slowing him down. A dangerous ice storm is bearing down on the Adirondacks. Can Sloane and Conor work together to rescue Bill out of the storm? Or will Mother Nature claim three more lives in the vast wilderness of the Adirondack Mountains?

    

    His first big purchase is a simple beach house in a place called Bluepoint, a town on the far edge of the flexed arm of Cape Cod.It's in Bluepoint, during the summer of 1952, that Arthur's teenage son, Hilly, makes friends with Lem Dawson, a black man whose job it is to take care of the house but whose responsibilities quickly grow. When Hilly finds himself falling for Lem's niece, Savannah, his affection for her collides with his father's dark secrets. The results shatter his family, and hers.Years later, haunted by his memories of that summer, Hilly sets out to find Savannah, in an attempt to right the wrongs he helped set in motion. But can his guilt, and his good intentions, overcome the forces of history, family, and identity?A beautifully told multigenerational story about love and regret, Wise Men confirms that Stuart Nadler is one of the most exciting young writers at work today

    At its heart is a cast of characters who draw us into their lives from the defeat of Dunkirk to final victory:Tony, a young man barely in his twenties who experiences the horror of Britain’s first defeat and offers his unique talents to the war effort, only to find that his secret work threatens his relationships with those he loves. David, Tony’s elder brother, fighter pilot and hero of the Battle of Britain. Sarah, whose work with the VAD’s brings her into contact with so many, forcing her to choose between a man with loyalty and honour or another with all the characteristics of a coward. Bobby, a young American GI for whom a posting to England brings love and hope. And at the centre of it all, Heronfield, the manor house set amongst the gentle rolling downs of southern England, one time home for Tony and his family and now a war-time hospital.Heronfield, witness to six long years of loyalty and love, anger and hatred, loss and betrayal.