Now, she must learn to survive.Forced to be both mother and father to her siblings after Ada’s mother turns to gin, and no longer able to scour the banks of the Thames as mudlarks, Ada turns to picking up cigarette butts from the filthy streets and repurposing the tobacco into a saleable item.Assisted by Elijah the son of a stonemason the Blair family manages to keep a roof over their heads, until their mother’s addiction spirals out of control and they find themselves out on the street.Desperate for safety, Ada takes a risk and is befriended by the well to do Mr Beauregard. But not all things are as they seem and soon Ada is torn from her family and thrown into a world of corruption she could not have imagined.When a chance meeting with Elijah reveals the truth, Ada’s life is at a crossroadsCan Ada leave behind the new life she now finds herself in? Will Elijah ever forgive her for what she has become? Or should Ada let the past remain behind and leave her family in peace.Nell Harte writes sweet and clean Historical Romance.

    An inconsequential inconvenience.After eight years of dreaming of an unknown mother rescuing her from the workhouse, Beth is unexpectedly liberated to become an apprentice in Mr Whitaker's tailor's shop. Against all the odds, Mrs Whitaker becomes a maternal figure to the young girl who shows all the signs of a gifted seamstress.But fate's cruel hand had not finished denying Beth the comforts of a family.Lady Caroline comes into Beth's life as a godsend. A wealthy patron in need of beautiful dresses to be made. But there is more to her appearing at the tailor's shop at first apparent. Two lives from different classes become intertwined in the worst of conditions.Is having a family worth such suffering? Should the women deny each other and be relieved of the tortures beset upon them in the name of greed and a family name? Was the madness real? Would the answers be found along the unforgiving corridors of the asylum?

     Concerned at the level of intimacy developing between Maren and the boy who helps her father with his farm work, the village priest takes it upon himself to remove her from school and bring her to one of the convent laundries, where he delivers her into the care of the nuns. Now, alongside many other "Magdalens" - named for Mary Magdalen - Maren must spend her days washing dirty linens, symbolically cleansing herself of her sins while repeating endless penance to a God that she soon comes to feel is no longer listening to her. Only the presence of Ceara, a young pregnant girl who befriends her inside the institution, gives Maren strength to continue through abuse, humiliation, beatings and near-starvation. Set in Ireland in 1961, The Magdalen Laundries is based on the true stories from one of the most shameful chapters in Ireland's history, and tells of the redemptive power of faith, friendship and forgiveness. NEW EDITION now includes pronunciation guide. Recent Reviews: If you began reading this book without seeing the cover or knowing what it was about, you would guess that you were reading a future dystopian fantasy about a horrific, oppressive torture prison. However, you are not reading fantasy, you are reading a novel based on a true story. It doesn’t take place in the future, instead the sad pitiful events took place in Ireland, and other English-speaking countries, including America, for over 100 years. “There is hope in Christ, not despair.” Author Odgaard’s story is set in 1961 at [a convent] near Dublin. Young and pretty, Maren grows up on her family farm, loved and cherished. Maren begins to awaken to feelings of love, when a hired farm hand catches her eye. Her innocent feelings lead her parish priest to commit her, without her family’s knowledge, to what were called the Magdalen Laundries. These laundries were ostensibly places for “fallen” girls and women to redeem themselves. But too many ended as victims of a system of torture and deprivation. At times slow-moving at the beginning, most of the book is compelling and engrossing. Maren and her best friend at the laundry are described with love and compassion by Author Odgaard. While not sugar-coating or endorsing the practices at the laundry, the author also extends this same understanding to the Catholic Church. The story features a heartfelt affirmation of the Gospel message. While, many elements of this book are difficult to read about, overall there is a message of hope. I am grateful to the Author for opening my eyes to the Laundries and the plights of the young girls. In the afterward of the book, the Author presents more information about the Laundries and encourages readers to research more on the internet. I did look up some information about the history. “She felt a joy in her heart and knew that her journey to find peace had ended here, In Glasvenin cemetery.” – Jena C. Henry, Readers Review Room

    The action of this exciting historical mystery romance takes place in the lively and pulsating world of Restoration London, with its bear-baiting and dog-fighting pits, with its taverns and bawdy houses, its libertines and Puritans, its fops and its society beauties. In the cold winter of 1664, the Thames has frozen over, and a great comet has appeared in the skies above the city of London. The comet seems a portent of disaster because England is in a deeply troubled and divided state. The King, Charles II, had been welcomed back as a saviour four years before, but is now resented by increasing numbers of his own people. And war too is looming with the Dutch, England’s great seagoing trade rivals… Molly Titchen is a precocious 16-year-old orange seller at the new King’s Theatre in Drury Lane who dreams of becoming an actress, and strutting the stage in breeches parts. Yet being an actress in the King’s company seems to be a dangerous choice of profession at present as a succession of young actresses die in mysterious circumstances. The leader of the company, Sir Thomas Killigrew, asks a wealthy young physician and merchant, Henry Raven, to investigate the deaths of the actresses. Raven and his lawyer friends Anthony Mawdsley and Adam Strange are regular theatregoers and the three soon become drawn into the mysterious affairs at the King’s theatre. Yet Mawdsley is also chief secretary to the Lord Chancellor, the 1st Earl of Clarendon, and the King’s chief minister, and therefore has his hands full with affairs of state. When a mysterious masked man threatens the life of the King, Mawdsley is forced to turn to his friend Henry Raven for help. Raven in turn needs the help of the aspiring actress Molly, which brings them together in their search for a wicked murderer and a scarred madman with an evil plan for London on his mind...

    Gripping, emotional and uplifting, the Trilogy is inspired by Catherine Cookson, her mother and grandmother.The Jarrow Lass: Brought up on her parents' smallholding in Jarrow in the harsh years of the 1870s, selling vegetables to poverty-struck Irish labourers such as the unruly McMullens, Rose dreams of the world beyond the grime of the town, a world she glimpsed at a fairytale wedding on the Ravensworth Estate as a child. Capturing the heart of handsome and respectable steelworker William Fawcett, it seems her wish for a better life is finally within reach. But tragedy strikes, and to save her young family from destitution, Rose must turn to wild John McMullen. The Jarrow Lass is the first novel in the Jarrow Trilogy and is inspired by Catherine Cookson's grandmother.A Child of Jarrow: To escape her possessive and drunken step-father, Kate is sent away from teaming Jarrow to work on the Ravensworth Estate. She is soon attracting the attention of charming, headstrong Alexander and dares to dream of a future with him. But when Kate discovers herself pregnant and alone she must return to face the wrath of her step-father. Yet she refuses to give up hope that one day Alexander might return to claim her and their love child. Poignant and compelling, A Child Of Jarrow is the second in the Jarrow Trilogy.Return to Jarrow: Rebellious Catherine (Kitty) McMullen, resentful of her mother’s new husband and yearning to escape impoverished Jarrow, determines to educate herself. Soon streetwise Kitty is a ghost of the past and the well-spoken, well-read Catherine leaves the north-east to follow her dreams. But this plucky and romantic heroine encounters hardship and heartbreak on the road to self-discovery. Return To Jarrow concludes the bestselling trilogy.

    Winter was coming quickly and in Minnesota, winters could be severe. What was the big rush? She wrote a letter to the governor of the state exposing the abuse at the orphan home but more importantly, the administrator was feeding poison to the infants. When she confronted the administrator with a copy of the letter, stabbing it to the top of his desk, and telling him she exchanged the nursery milk with his own, she had to leave immediately. She walked south for a hundred miles over several months when she became desperate to find a place to stay for the winter. She was told to avoid the Rex Morgan farm unless she wanted to be run off his land. As she left the town, it began to snow. An early winter storm turned into a blizzard. She was lost, cold, and hungry when she found a barn that had a bunkroom. Little did she know it was the very farm she was warned about.

    Army Fort Davis in the west Texas wilderness, has received shocking news – his father is dead. He must return home to Virginia and claim his inheritance before a maniacal neighbor can murder his widowed mother and seize the family plantation. But he’s torn by a terrible dilemma – to stay in the army and turn his back on his fortune, his mother and his beloved childhood home, or become the thing he despises; a slave master! Is there no other choice? Meanwhile, a woman desperate to redeem her family’s fortunes schemes to marry her beautiful but troubled daughter to the handsome young heir. But will Evelyn’s own plans break his heart instead? An epic journey across a young nation seething with debauchery, brutality, corruption, and political intrigue, unwittingly on the brink of an unimaginable disaster; the American Civil War. Nathan Chambers has left the violent army life behind in Texas, never imaging he’s on the very ‘Road to The Breaking’.

    

    Being that it’s been a particularly stressful year for them, they decide to take a much-needed vacation. The Gallagher family heads to their summer cottage in Wisconsin, hoping to relax and unwind. Little do they know, a stranger has followed them back to their cottage. A stranger, with a forbidden hunger.

    She’s Black. He’s white. They’re sister and brother… but they’re not. Will they ever be?Eliza Coldbrook, proud and privileged graduate of all-Black Atlanta University, hasn’t seen her white half-brother since the end of Reconstruction. When Matt returns to Atlanta, she refuses a reunion. She now lives in a progressive and prosperous new South. She doesn’t want to be reminded of the past that she and Matt share.Her half-brother Matthew Kaltenbach hasn’t lived in Georgia since he was seven years old. But he has vivid memories of the past, and he has unfinished business with it. He wants to rebuild a relationship with the man who is his father as well as Eliza’s. And he wants to reconcile with the half-sister he loved when they were children, but who has become a stranger since.Amanda Gardiner, born a slave in Georgia, now lives in an Atlanta reborn after the Civil War. But she doesn’t share in the bounty that is the New South. As a washerwoman, she’s underpaid and badly treated by her white employers. Until she decides to say no, and all the washerwomen of Atlanta join her in a strike…When the Black washerwomen of Atlanta go on strike, Eliza and Matt, Black half-sister and white half-brother, are both swept into their cause. Will the strike let them heal the wounds of the past—and forgive each other?

    

    But the young man is reminded of his father’s counsel that “Whenever a task falls to you, don’t question the why of it, just get busy with the doin’ of it!” Now he must set aside his new job as Shotgun for the Overland Stage and gear up for the pursuit of a band of warrior renegades. A tall task for an unproven young man, but when none of the pilgrims believe in the cause, and the settlers of nearby LaPorte refuse to leave their homes unguarded, Talon realizes he must face this challenge alone. His commitment and determination lead to the making of a man and a bloody chase through the foothills of Colorado and the plains of the new territory. Along the way, he makes a bitter enemy of the Cheyenne war leader, Two Bears, who is determined to seek vengeance on this unknown white man and prove to his people that he is the chosen leader of the notorious Dog soldiers. But Talon is undaunted and even eager to show the renegade that this white man is more than his match. Follow the trail that takes a young man from the Cache La Poudre through intimidating country and back to the Overland Trail as he proves his worth as he rises to the challenge and the making of a man.

    However the advancing Japanese army soon leads to a mass evacuation of the island but, as Sylvie's family begins to board their ship, there is no sign of Sylvie. Somehow, in the confusion, Sylvie finds refuge with her governess, Virginia Chen. But neither Virginia nor her family believe they will escape the Japanese internment camps, where Virginia may have to pay the ultimate price for Sylvie's survival.For ten-year-old Sylvie Sambuck, Singapore seems a long way from the fighting of the Second World War. However the advancing Japanese army soon leads to a mass evacuation of the island but, as Sylvie's family begins to board their ship, there is no sign of Sylvie. Somehow, in the confusion, Sylvie finds refuge with her governess, Virginia Chen. But neither Virginia nor her family believe they will escape the Japanese internment camps, where Virginia may have to pay the ultimate price for Sylvie's survival.

    Conor Rafferty joins the Confederate army as a young infantry officer against the wishes of his father who, in his Irish anger, is adamantly opposed to a war with the North. Conor soon finds himself in many of the war’s most consequential battles, leading from the front and risking all inside that deadly space. He serves with distinction in General Robert E. Lee’s celebrated Army of Northern Virginia as it seeks the crowning victory that will end the war and stop the carnage. Along the way, Conor becomes a protégé of fellow Georgian John B. Gordon who eventually rises to command a Confederate army corps. At the conclusion of each chapter, the narrative transitions to the now aged Conor who answers the probing questions of his grandson Aaron, himself a captain in the U.S. Army and scheduled for duty in Europe during World War I. The grandfather and grandson thus spend a week together—a week of sharing, learning, and bonding. That Deadly Space is a compelling tale that portrays the drama, heroism, romance, and tragedy of the Civil War.

    Following an emotional and traumatic escape from the advancing German forces they arrive in England. As a result of their experiences, and the manner that they combated the Nazi regime, the three sisters, all civilians, are seconded, along with the survivors of their group, into the intelligence section of General De Gaulle’s newly formed Free French Force. After extensive training in England they return to occupied France living in fear of betrayal and capture.