When the German war machine rolled over the Netherlands in May 1940, Titia Wetselaar Bozuwa was an eight-year-old girl living in the southern city of Breda. She wrote about her family’s endurance of that five-year Occupation in her memoir, In the Shadow of the Cathedral. In Defiance, her first work of fiction, she pays tribute to the many who defied the German Occupation. Challenging the expectations of Dutch society, Anna Smits enrolls as a medical student at Utrecht University. But in a country occupied by Nazi Germany, student life is not what Anna expected. Social clubs are closed; Jews are forbidden from attending schools; and in 1943, students are ordered to sign a declaration of loyalty to the occupying German government. Anna and her seven closest friends—the Group of Eight—refuse to sign. Inspired by a sermon about the Good Samaritan—a sermon that got the minister thrown into prison—the Group of Eight vows to help the victims of Hitler’s brutal regime. They hide Jews and provide them with fake IDs; they keep desperately needed medicines out of the hands of the Nazis; they raise funds for orphaned Jewish children. But as the war drags on and the Nazis’ hold tightens, the Group of Eight shrinks. The few that remain defiantly resist the ever-onerous Occupying force. But how can they fight the lawlessness with which the Germans shoot first and don’t bother with questions? How can they fight the devastating Hunger Winter of 1945? Anna clings to her beliefs and mission, aided by her remarkable grandmother, Baroness van Haersolte, as the country waits for liberation. But will they all survive that long?

    In the spring of 1665, England is recovering from a terrible winter, yet the country has other severe problems to face as the sun finally returns. The King, Charles II, had been welcomed back as a saviour on his restoration five years before, but is now resented by increasing numbers of his own people. And in March, the King declares war on the Dutch, England’s great seagoing trade rivals… Worse news comes to Restoration London, though, when there is an outbreak of the plague in April. This is terrible news in particular for the wealthy young physician and merchant Henry Raven, who believes that the outbreak is not natural but has been caused by an old enemy plotting his revenge against the city of London. Henry Raven, together with his friends from the Royal Society, Dr William Croone and Robert Hooke, organize the city’s fight against the spread of the disease. Raven’s delectable young mistress, Molly Titchen, is a precocious seventeen-year-old actress at the new King’s theatre in Drury Lane who is torn between her devotion to Henry Raven, and her love of strutting the stage in breeches parts. When Molly gives a bed for the night to one sick young actor, her kind action is misunderstood by Raven who believes that she has been unfaithful to him. Then Molly falls on hard times herself, and is aided not by her jealous lover, but by a strange Moorish apothecary, and a mysterious Frenchman, Philippe Desargues, Comte de Mésanger... Henry Raven has other problems to trouble his mind too, apart from his fight against the plague and his wish to save his relationship with Molly. Firstly, a close childhood friend, Esther Linney, has disappeared from her cottage on the estate of Raven’s family home in Dorset, Salwayash Manor, and gone to London. Raven’s sister Catherine asks her brother to find Esther in London, and discover why she left Dorset in such mysterious circumstances. Raven also has to deal with the fact that his sister has clearly fallen in love with their wealthy neighbour, the recently widowed Ralph Warboys, who is a handsome man yet one with a haunted past. And then strange events unfold in the quiet Dorset countryside when two young girls are found dead in suspicious circumstances... As the plague rages through London, Raven finds himself having to defend Esther Linney against a charge of witchcraft, while also trying to save Molly from an implacable enemy. But his greatest challenge is to discover the secrets of an old family curse, and to unmask a cruel murderer…

    There he begins to learn the duties and responsibilities, together with the hardships, of a life at sea in one of His Majesty's ships. He is quickly introduced to the fight against slavery and privateers...and also how to kill in the name of the King. Ultimately commissioned as a Lieutenant, Courtenay is involved in the reverses of Toulon and Corsica, and in 1794 takes part in the major sea-battle known as the Glorious First of June. Also, he meets the first member of the family with whom he will have a feud during his career as a sea officer.

    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’.

    

    The ground is littered with the dead, but he finds one survivor, a woman named Bridget Decker. Jack gets her to a doctor in Cheyenne. He discovers the Wyoming Raiders, a band of outlaws, are the ones who attacked the wagon, and they want to make sure there are no witnesses. And now the Raiders know about Jack, too.Who will survive the deadly showdown?This is the third novelette in the Tombstone Jack series. It's 15,300 words of traditional western action designed to be read in one sitting. Enjoy! Don't miss the other Tombstone Jack adventures: Tombstone Jack Tombstone Jack and the Redwing Saloon

    From Dakota’s Black Hills to the gold and diamond fields of Southern Africa, Jim O’Rourke and his daughter, Kathleen step from the sailing ship Eudora and take their covered wagon deep inside a vast and ancient wilderness. The land is raw-boned and unforgiving – the men and women who search its heart for wealth, love and adventure, even more so. Smoke from a thousand fires clung to a broken landscape and towering above it, churned from a vast and open wound in the earth’s crust, were those billowing clouds of powdered Kimberlite; as yellow, ochrous fingers they reached upwards for over a thousand feet, deep inside the heart of that darksome Colesberg sky.

    "Take some water," one of them said. Catherine shoved the cup aside, afraid she'd be sick. The floor rocked. The air smelled of the sea. She clambered to her feet, staggering, and fought the panic threatening to overwhelm her. He'd put her aboard a ship. Unlike the other women aboard ship, Catherine de Villeroy had assumed Fate intended her to live an aristocratic life of ease and luxury. Instead she is transported to a fetid jungle to be tied to a secretive stranger who reeks of pigs. Catherine's shipmate Marie Claude has had few expectations in life, and even they have been disappointed. When her only options become prostitution or starvation, Fate decrees she will become the wife of a stranger in a strange land. Even if her new husband is a cruel man, how can life not be better in this rough paradise of alligators and wild orchids? Agnes expected a life spent in her father's bookstore, perhaps married to a gentle, scholarly man. Betrayed and ruined, Agnes retreats into herself and hardly notices when she is transported to Louisiana. Married to a stranger who desires only an amenable bed partner, Agnes strives to stay present in her new life and to explore what more Fate allows a ruined woman.

    

    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?

     He rides into Bowie County to take over the ranch, hoping to leave his grim past behind him and find some sort of future for himself. But Jory soon discovers that taking over his uncle's path is no easy assignment. Land grabbing greed has overwhelmed the local ranchers, and Bowie County is rife with trouble. Jory's arrival brings things to a head and in no time at all, he finds himself up against Ben Sharkey – an expansionist rancher who is used to getting what he wants. But while the townsfolk lay the blame for recent troubles on Sharkey’s doorstep, Jory has suspicions about deeper undercurrents to the range war that threatens to erupt. Jory must get to the bottom of the mess amidst a quickly growing body count and in the face of mounting mortal perils. If Jory proves quick on the draw, he stands to find himself a sizeable homestead and a beautiful wife. But who amongst his friends can he depend upon? Will he end up losing everything that he holds dear? Bullets at Sunset is a classic western thriller – a captivating tale of gunslingers and cattle rustlers, of taciturn heroes and ruthless outlaws. Praise for Alan David ‘A classic of the genre’ - Tom Casey, bestselling author of Trade Off Alan David is a prolific writer of over 500 novels in a wide range of genres, from classic westerns, to historical thrillers. His other western novels include Fight or Die, Gun Hell, Gun Wages and Draw or Die.

     Sabine always minded her own business, closing her eyes to the sinister events engulfing Germany. War is always ugly, and it's best to simply stay out of harm’s way. That changes the moment the Gestapo needs information from her. With her husband held captive, his very life depends on her willingness to cooperate in this evil enterprise. Soon, she’s thrust into the midst of the resistance, smuggling people out of Nazi Germany. Her task? Find the leader and hand him over to torture and certain death. If she does as she is asked, she betrays her own people. If she does not, her husband will be executed by Hitler's forces. Can she silence her conscience and save her husband? Read Reluctant Informer now - a WWII tale of love, courage, and impossible choices. Previously published as part of the USA Today Bestselling Anthology, The Darkest Hour – Tales of Resistance, this standalone novella will keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering what Sabine will do next.

    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.

    

    She soon discovered her mama had been hiding secrets from her since she was a small child. These secrets start to unfold when she opens a box hidden in the back of a closet. Opening this box will create an entirely different world that Karlee never dreamed was waiting for her. Will Karlee have the strength and courage to face the secrets, or will she close the box keeping everyone from knowing the truth? If you like funny, heartwarming Southern stories with a touch of mystery, you will fall in love with the characters in The Problem with Pearls.