Her reporter's intuition insisted that a remarkable story was on the verge of the front page. Newspaper reporter Hope Jensen uncovers the remarkable secret behind the "Christmas Jars", glass jars filled with coins and bills anonymously left for people in need. But along the way, Hope discovers much more than the origin of the jars. When some unexpected news sets off a chain reaction of kindness, Hope's greatest Christmas Eve wish comes true.

    Many years ago she was sent one with just a single charm attached. The charms have been appearing ever since, often at challenging times, as if her mysterious benefactor knows exactly when she needs a little magic in her life. As a result, Holly's bracelet is her most prized possession. So when she finds someone else's charm bracelet, she feels she has to try to reunite it with its owner. Even if the only way she can is to use each charm to help discover more about them. In a search that will take her all over New York City at Christmas, Holly becomes ever more determined to piece together the details of this other charmed life. But what she doesn't know is that her quest may also lead her somewhere she never, ever expected...

    But this year, the table won’t be as full.Eve Beaumont is a twin heir to Red Hart Ranch. The heart of the family, she loves the land, loves the people, and will do anything for them. Christmas sees most of the ranch hands return to their own homes to celebrate. Only a few long term cowboys remain with the family.When Eve and her brother Trav go into town to collect supplies, they each bring home a drifter for Christmas. Rhys Archer and Simon Heldon are as different as two cowpokes can be. One a handsome, rough edged carver who can work the land and animals with a firm hand; the other a smooth-talking horseman with a devilish charm. Eve finds herself attracted to both men, but when tragedy hits the ranch, romance is the last thing on her mind.Accidents happen around the ranch, and Eve isn’t sure who she can trust. She knows neither man is who he pretends to be — but when no one listens to her, she needs to prove her suspicions on her own.Snow on the Range is a white Christmas story set in a small town along the Montana border into Canada. It is book one of Red Hart Ranch.

    When Dawn brings her new boyfriend home from college for a visit, her parents and sister try to hide their doubts because they're glad that Dawn - always an awkward child - appears to have grown into a confident, mature young woman in her relationship with Rud. But when Hanna and her husband, Joe, are beaten savagely in their bed, Rud becomes the chief suspect and stands trial for Joe's murder. Claiming her boyfriend's innocence, Dawn estranges herself from her mother, who survived the attack with serious injuries and impaired memory. When Rud wins an appeal and Dawn returns to the family home saying she wants to support her mother, Hanna decides to try to remember details of that traumatic night so she can testify to keep her husband's murderer in jail, never guessing that the process might cause her to question everything she thought she knew about her daughter.

    He’s always hungered for the love of the girl’s self-obsessed mother; after she throws him out, their troubles turn deadly.Lulu’s mother warned her to never let him in, but when he shows up, he’s impossible to ignore. He bullies his way past ten-year-old Lulu, who obeys her father’s instructions to open the door, then listens in horror as her parents struggle. She runs for help and discovers upon her return that he’s murdered her mother, stabbed her sister, and tried to kill himself. For thirty years, the sisters try to make sense of what happened. Their imprisoned father is a specter in both their lives, shadowing every choice they make. Though one spends her life pretending he’s dead, while the other feels compelled to help him, both fear that someday their imprisoned father’s attempts to win parole may meet success.http://us.macmillan.com/themurderersd...

    But a teenage girl is missing, a kidnapper is on the loose, and all of this is reminding Sunshine why she left Del Sol in the first place. Add to that the trouble at her daughter's new school, plus and a kidnapped prized rooster named Puff Daddy, and, well, the forecast looks anything but sunny.But even clouds have their silver linings. This one's got Levi, Sunshine's sexy, almost-old-flame, and a fiery-hot US Marshall. With temperatures rising everywhere she turns, Del Sol's normally cool-minded sheriff is finding herself knee-deep in drama and danger. Can Sunshine face the call of duty - and find the kidnapper who's terrorizing her beloved hometown - without falling head over high heels in love . . . or worse?

    Tutored by her friend and boss, Dr. Sandeep Mahesh, she gains understanding not only for her job but also for how to mask her own troubled past. While analyzing the corpse of a 100 year old woman, Rebekah discovers some disturbing elements: not only was the deceased woman a healthy centenarain, but she was also embalmed before anyone discovered she'd passed away. When two identical cases surface, Rebekah enlists the help of her boyfriend, special investigations officer, Josh Logan. Together they uncover shocking truths about the bizarre deaths, which eventually lead them to the nightmarish revelation they weren't prepared for. Yet, unknowingly, the more they reveal, the closer they come to being the killer's next guinea pigs.

    She intends to renovate the ruinous house into a hotel, but the shocking discovery of human remains brings her ambitious restoration plans to an abrupt halt before they even begin. Few physical clues are left to identify the body, but one thing is certain: this person did not die a natural death.Hungry for answers, Hetty discovers that Muirlan was once the refuge of her distant relative Theo Blake, the acclaimed painter and naturalist who brought his new bride, Beatrice, there in 1910. Yet ancient gossip and a handful of leads reveal that their marriage was far from perfect; Beatrice eventually vanished from the island, never to return, and Theo withdrew from society, his paintings becoming increasingly dark and disturbing.What happened between them has remained a mystery, but as Hetty listens to the locals and studies the masterful paintings produced by Theo during his short-lived marriage, she uncovers secrets that still reverberate through the small island community—and will lead her to the identity of the long-hidden body.

    At a time like this, the last thing she can handle is family drama. But when she learns how far her brother and sister-in-law’s lives have spiraled out of control, the only thought in her mind is the safety of her young niece and nephew. After Shannon is granted custody, she and the children are eager to run long and far from their problems. The end of the road is Sugar City, a place as delightful as its name implies. In the tiny town, Shannon gets much more of a change than she bargained for. Welcomed with open arms by the townspeople, including the handsome local veterinarian, Shannon and the children slowly begin to heal. But when their idyllic existence is threatened by the return of the children’s mother, Shannon has no choice but to return to the courtroom she left behind. She has one last legal battle to fight, and the outcome may mean losing everything she loves . . .

    She has a wonderful son and a business she loves. Though challenged to make ends meet, she’s come a long way from the tough times she endured as a teenage mom. With the busy Christmas season ahead, things are looking up, until Scrooge himself arrives intent on putting a huge resort next to her inn—a resort destined to put her out of business. Wealthy business developer Rob McKenna is coming back home to the tiny town of Pinetop, Colorado to tie up loose ends. After the death of his mother, he’s inherited her Victorian home, her dog, and hundreds of acres of land he plans to develop into a resort and sell. It all seems so simple until he runs into Celia Roberts. In high school, she was the “it” girl, and he was nobody. She dated the bully, and he was the target. Now he’s back, and she’s single, and as beautiful as ever. However, she’s the only thing standing between him and his plan to get in, get rich, and get out of town. He wants to move the small town into the future. She wants to preserve the past. Can the magic of Christmas leave them both with full hearts and bright futures or will one of them end up with nothing under the tree?

    She doesn’t take the road to abortion. She decides to give her child a fighting chance in life, without the angst and drama that’s shaped her own bittersweet life.With a poignant lack of emotion, the young mother shares her life story. As the child of Asian parents who moved to America early in her life, the mother shares how her life disintegrated after her parents’ divorce. From upper middle class suburban to sharing her mean aunt’s house to a one bedroom apartment in a shabby neighborhood, this mother endures the indignity that comes with the change of status. From her father’s absence to her mother becoming a married man’s mistress, her story reads like a tragic Victorian novel set in the 21st century, but that’s where the similarity ends—she is definitely not a shy country miss and she certainly did not take the easy way out. This amazing story chronicles the life of a woman who fought for everything she got, faced her demons and made the hard choices. Her fortitude and candor are disarming, her avant-garde views strangely endearing. You’ve never read a book like this and probably never will again. Get your copy today and take the literary journey of a lifetime. Through this glimpse into the life of a woman of integrity, sacrifice and love, you’ll feel her pain, live her failures and cheer for the meager joys that come her way. But the one thing you’ll never do… is forget her. Or her story.

    Raphael, Amazon Vine Reviewer. "Souza takes his considerable talents to the next level in Unpaved Surfaces, delivering an emotionally charged, exquisitely tuned suspense story."--Steve Konkoly, bestselling author of The Perseid Collapse Series. Enter into the life of an ideal family--Auggie is a happy nine-year-old boy whose father, Keith, loves him more than anything. Keith's life seems ideal--until one day Auggie vanishes. A year has passed since Keith's son disappeared, and he's haunted by glimpses of his son appearing in his small Maine town. With the investigation at a dead end and his family paralyzed with grief, Keith worries that he's losing his mind. In a thrilling twist, the case turns in a new direction--a direction that could either heal his family or tear them, and the rest of the town, apart.

    It’s a rare kid-free night, and they’re giddy with it. They drink too much, and the conversation turns personal.By Monday morning, one of them is gone.Everyone knows something about everyone else in the quirky small Ohio town of Yellow Springs, but no one can make sense of the disappearance. Kristin was a sociable twin mom, college administrator, and doctor’s wife who didn’t seem all that bothered by her impending divorce—and the investigation turns up more questions than answers, with her husband, Paul, at the center. For her closest neighbor, Clara, the incident triggers memories she thought she’d put behind her—and when she’s unable to extract herself from the widening circle of scrutiny, her own suspicions quickly grow. But the neighborhood’s newest addition, Izzy, is determined not to jump to any conclusions—especially since she’s dealing with a crisis of her own.As the police investigation goes from a media circus to a cold case, the neighbors are forced to reexamine what’s going on behind their own closed doors—and to ask how well anyone really knows anyone else.

    But when she returns, Viola is gone. A breaking point in an already fractured marriage, Viola’s abduction causes Ellis to disappear as well—into grief, guilt, and addiction. Convinced she can only do more harm to her family, Ellis leaves her husband and young sons, burying her desperate ache for her children deeper with every step into the mountain wildernesses she treks alone.In a remote area of Washington, a young girl named Raven keeps secrets inside, too. She must never speak to outsiders about how her mother makes miracles spring from the earth, or about her father, whose mysterious presence sometimes frightens her. Raven spends her days learning how to use her rare gifts—and more important, how to hide them. With each lesson comes a warning of what dangers lie in the world beyond her isolated haven. But despite her mother’s cautions, Raven finds herself longing for something more.As Ellis and Raven each confront their powerful longings, their journeys will converge in unexpected and hopeful ways, pulled together by the forces of nature, love, and family.

    But wanting to be with him, she endured the trip, only to fall desperately ill years later with a disease that leaves her husband with more questions than answers. When the anthropologist discovers a deception that shatters his grief and guilt, he begins to reevaluate his love for his wife as well as his friendship with one of the nomads he studied. He returns to Africa to make sense of what happened, traveling into the far reaches of the Chalbi Desert, where he must sift through the layers of his memories and reconcile them with what he now knows. Set in a windswept wilderness menaced by hyenas and lions, The Names of Things weaves together the stories of an anthropologist's journey into the desert, his firsthand accounts of the nomads' death rituals, and his struggle to find the names of things for which no words exist. Anthropologist John Colman Wood's debut novel is an exquisite, haunting exploration of the meaning of love and the rituals of grief.