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My Last Name by Eric M. Schumacher


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The Girl with the Silver Star


Rachel Zolotov
    When Raisa, Abraham, and their daughters, Luba and Sofia, emerge from the bomb shelter, they find an unfamiliar city before them; chaos and terror burn in every direction. Fearing for their lives, they must leave at once to find the rest of their family. But before they are able to escape, Abraham is conscripted into the Russian Army and the family is forced to part ways. Raisa’s love and strength are put to the ultimate test as she finds herself on her own with her two young daughters in tow. How will she manage alone without her soulmate by her side?Relying on hope, resourcefulness and courage, they walk, hitch hike and take trains heading for Uzbekistan, over 2,500 miles from home. Along the way they run from bombs, endure starvation, and face death.Raisa finds solace in the women around her. Her mother, sisters, old friends and new help carry her through the difficult war years, but Raisa’s longing to reunite with Abraham still rages inside her heart. Will they ever see each other again? Will Raisa and her family find their way back to their homeland?The Girl with the Silver Star is a captivating journey through war-torn Soviet Union as it illuminates a unique part of WWII history, the female heroes. Raisa’s journey is a tribute to the nameless women, their determination, bravery, grief and unwavering love during impossible times. Their stories shouldn’t be forgotten.

The Lie: When DNA Reveals the Family Secret


Heather Dawn Gray - 2019
    Jahana continues to struggle with her grief a year after her mother's death. She wishes she knew her maternal relatives, but her mother refused to talk about them. To help her move on, Jahana's husband buys her a DNA kit. When the results come in, she discovers more than she bargained for. Her DNA reveals a family secret she would like to ignore, but can't. The Lie is too big.

Loss of a Parent: Adult Grief When Parents Die (Grieving for Our Parents)


Burchett Jackson - 2014
    Learn what emotions and thoughts might come next, and how long you might expect to wait until things return to normal. The important thing to understand is that the death of a parent affects everybody differently, but there are some commonalities shared by people with similar experiences or circumstances. Whether your relationship was beautiful, fraught with conflict, or distant- this book has been written to help you, like countless people before you, understand the inevitable loss of a parent at some point during your lifetime. Here Is A Preview of What You’ll Learn… How the end of a lifelong relationship may affect you Understanding the complex emotions of grief Unexpected thoughts and buried feelings Family dynamics and how these may change Regrets and difficult relationships How young adults may not be equipped to come to terms with the loss of a parent Strategies to heal yourself Strategies to heal your family Much more… Download your copy today

The Sign for Home


Blair Fell
    He also happens to be DeafBlind, a Jehovah’s Witness, and under the strict guardianship of his controlling uncle. His chances of finding someone to love seem slim to none. And yet, it happened once before: many years ago, at a boarding school for the Deaf, Arlo met the love of his life—a mysterious girl with onyx eyes and beautifully expressive hands which told him the most amazing stories. But tragedy struck, and their love was lost forever. Or so Arlo thought. After years trying to heal his broken heart, Arlo is assigned a college writing assignment which unlocks buried memories of his past. Soon he wonders if the hearing people he was supposed to trust have been lying to him all along, and if his lost love might be found again. No longer willing to accept what others tell him, Arlo convinces a small band of misfit friends to set off on a journey to learn the truth. After all, who better to bring on this quest than his gay interpreter and wildly inappropriate Belgian best friend? Despite the many forces working against him, Arlo will stop at nothing to find the girl who got away and experience all of life’s joyful possibilities.

Catch Handle


Alison O'Mara - 2021
    They are beautiful, intelligent, and remarkable animals. As a newly minted veterinarian, Vivian Anderson knows and loves horses better than most. With an important horse show on the line and the search for a full-time vet job fast-approaching, Vivian is fully occupied at her Aunt’s Arabian horse ranch and her equine medical externship. Vivian’s world is abruptly shaken by a shocking murder that casts suspicion on the people she thought she knew best. Stolen medications, fatal “accidents,” unsavory horse handling, and a handsome newcomer have Vivian reeling. She cannot shake the feeling that the seemingly random events are all part of the same puzzle, but who can she trust? Vivian is about to learn just how dangerous her world of horses can be.

Trading Secrets


Rachael Eckles - 2020
    She sets out alone on a whirlwind journey to entrap him, determined to put an end to Omar’s destruction.Soon Celeste is thrust in the middle of the largest financial scandal in decades. This time, however, powerful government officials are in bed with some of the world’s most dangerous men.When she discovers that those she thought she knew best are involved in a secret society warring with Omar and his coconspirators, she must decide how far she will go to avenge Theodore’s death and whether she is willing to risk her own life to save everyone she loves.

A Day Like This


Kelley McNeil - 2021
    It’s a day like any other when she takes Hannah to the pediatrician…until she wakes hours later from a car accident. When she asks for her daughter, confused doctors tell Annie that Hannah never existed. In fact, nothing after waking from the crash is the same as Annie remembers. Five happy years of her life apparently never happened.Annie’s marriage is coming to an end. Now a successful artist living in Manhattan, she’s no longer home in their beloved upstate farmhouse. Her long-estranged sister is more like a best friend, and her recently deceased dog is alive and well. With each passing day, Annie’s remembered past and unfamiliar present begin to blur. Haunted by visions of Hannah, and with knowledge of things she can’t explain, Annie wonders…is everyone lying to her?The search for answers leads Annie down an illuminating path far from home, to reconcile the memories with reality and to discover the truth about the life she’s living.

The Road She Left Behind


Christine Nolfi - 2019
    Now an unexpected phone call threatens to upend what little serenity she’s found. Her nephew, Emerson, who was just a baby when his mother died, has gone missing. Darcy must return home and face her past in order to save him.Once back in Ohio, Darcy realizes there’s more to Emerson’s disappearance—and to the sudden retirement of her mother, Rosalind—than meets the eye. As she works to make inroads with Rosalind, Darcy begins to unravel a decades-old secret that devastated her family and forced a wedge between her and Michael Varano, the man she left heartbroken when she vanished after the funeral. After carrying the scars of that fateful night for almost a decade, Darcy is determined to find closure, healing, and maybe even love where she lost them all in the first place—right back home where she belongs.

The Girl Who Sees Angels


Jeffrey McClain Jones - 2020
    Even her mother doubted her as a child. Psychiatrists doubted her too. Psychics tried to recruit her to enrich and empower themselves. Now she’s thirty-two, living on her own, and sharing her secret only with her mother and a few friends.A threatening specter begins to visit her at night, and more than her sleep is at stake. She follows a friend’s recommendation to visit Detta Washington, a church lady who believes that Sophie does see angels and demons. Even if Sophie is skeptical about the labels Detta uses for what she sees, she comes to respect Detta and finds ways to use her gift to help others.When she helps free Detta from an incurable disease and releases two of her friends from creepy creatures shadowing them, Sophie starts to embrace her identity. But she still needs help with the ghoul that hovers above her bed at night. And that’s not the last enemy who threatens her in the dark.Anthony, Detta’s handsome son, helps Sophie understand his mother’s religious language, and he becomes convinced that Sophie is for real. After years of doubt and frequent commitments to mental hospitals, Sophie’s mother comes to trust her daughter’s visions as well.Recovering from a life of being condemned as a crazy person, Sophie finds new confidence. She is gifted. She is the girl who sees angels.

Hard Landing


Edie James - 2020
    When a stalker turns to murder, pilot Kelli Spencer needs protection. What she doesn’t need is her old love Jack Reese returning to stir things up, but the former Navy SEAL and his team of protection specialists are the best of the best. Trust him with her life? If she has to. Her heart? No way. The last time Jack left, he made it clear married life held no appeal. Ten years later, he wastes no time letting her know he hasn’t changed. Not that she’d be fool enough to hope.As the commander of Knight Tactical, Jack jumps at the chance to protect Kelli and take down a killer, but as soon as she’s safe, he plans to shake the dust of the small mountain town off his feet again…until he realizes he never should have left the first time. Can he convince Kelli to give him another chance, or will a devious killer destroy his plans for a happily ever after?Welcome to Hope Landing, a small town full of big secrets…and deadly lies. Join the action as the former SEALs of Knight Tactical Protection battle danger and tests of faith on the road to lasting love. A series of clean, inspirational action adventure romances, each guaranteed to lift your heart.

Wife After Wife


Olivia Hayfield - 2020
    But in 2018, his perfect world is about to come crashing to the ground. His business is in the spotlight--and not in a good way--and his love life is under scrutiny. Because behind a glittering curtain of lavish parties, gorgeous homes, and a media empire is a tale worthy of any tabloid. And Harry has a lot to account for.

The Mermaid Girl: A Story


Erika Swyler - 2016
    She traveled everywhere with two boxes: the first with red sequins for the dress she wore as a magician’s assistant, the second with green sequins for her mermaid tail. She'd grown up on wild stories told by wild circus people. Books, she hadn’t had books until she’d found Daniel Watson and stopped moving.The first time Daniel saw her, Paulina was floating in a glass tank, suspended in water that sparkled like it was made from night sky. She has settled down now, living in a house on a cliff on Long Island Sound with Daniel and their young family: six-year-old Simon and his baby sister, Enola. But if you steal the magician’s assistant from a carnival, how can you know if she’ll disappear?

All We Had


Annie Weatherwax - 2014
    Jobs are hard to find, men come and go. But when a set of unexpected circumstances strands them in Fat River, a small rural town in upstate New York, life takes a turn. Fat River becomes the first place they call home. The modest economic security they gain gives them peace and space for friends. The people of Fat River—Hank and Dotty Hanson, the elderly owners of the local hardware store being driven out of business by the new Walmart; Mel, the flawed, but kindhearted owner of the town diner where Rita finds work; and the cross-dressing Peter Pam, the novel’s voice of warmth and reason—become family. Into this quirky utopia comes Vick Ward, a smooth-talking broker who entices Rita with a subprime mortgage and urges her to buy the ramshackle house she and her daughter have been renting. Tough and quick-witted, thirteen-year-old Ruthie—whose sardonic voice and plain-spoken observations infuse All We Had with disarming honesty and humor—never minded her hardscrabble existence as long as her mother was by her side. Through it all, the two have always been the center of one another’s lives. But when financial crisis hits, their luck takes a different turn. All We Had offers an unflinching look at the devastating choices a mother must make to survive and is an achingly funny, heart wrenching tale about love and loss, told with humor and razor sharp vision

What Remains True


Janis Thomas - 2017
    . . or bind them together tighter than ever before.From the outside, the Davenports look like any other family living a completely ordinary life—until that devastating day when five-year-old Jonah is killed, and the family is torn apart. As the fury of guilt engulfs them, the Davenports slowly start to unravel, one by one.Losing her son forces Rachel to withdraw into a frayed, fuzzy reality. Her husband, Sam, tries to remain stoic, but he’s consumed by regret with the choices he’s made. Eden mourns her brother, while desperately fighting to regain a sense of normalcy. And Aunt Ruth, Rachel’s sister, works too hard to care for the family, even as her own personal issues haunt her.Told from multiple points of view—including Jonah’s—the family struggles to cope with an unthinkable loss. But as they face their own dark secrets about that terrible day, they have a choice: to be swallowed up in sadness forever, or begin the raw, arduous ascent back to living.

Rooked


Caitlin Sara - 2018
    . . Despite her desire for control, Ara Hopkins has always felt like a pawn—constantly being maneuvered by those surrounding her. Carrying a riddled past of abandonment by her mother, a jealous step-sister and exploitation by men she was supposed to be able to trust, Ara craves a social media certified life. So, when she meets her husband, a New York congressman’s son, she believes she’s finally won her game. Secure in a life her mother would approve of—and having firmly shut the door on her chaotic and miscalculated past—Ara feels she’s thriving. Until the night her husband is murdered. Thrust into a game of deceit and lies, Ara realizes that nothing is as it seems and that the past can quickly return to the present. The facade crumbles as relationships are tested and family boundaries crossed. Faced with losing it all, she discovers what a person is really capable of. Because in this game of life, it's either rook or be rooked. An intricately braided plot with unforeseeable twists and a sucker-punch ending, Rooked is a captivating thriller that shatters all perceptions.