Perfect Pawn
Andrew G. Nelson - 2013
For retired NYPD Detective, James Maguire, the pieces of his life were finally starting to fall into place. He was running his own lucrative private security firm catering to Fortune 500 companies and had just met Melody Anderson, a highly successful business woman from Long Island's posh enclave of Southampton. Everything, it seemed, was looking up. That was until the morning newscast reported that his former high school flame was missing from a one car accident on a rural country road in upstate New York. Arriving back in his old hometown Maguire must come to terms, not only with his past, but the fact that no one seems interested in pursuing the investigation into Patricia Browning's disappearance, including the missing woman’s husband, the local sheriff. As Maguire struggles to put the clues together in time, he is drawn deeper into a game where people are as expendable as pieces in a chess game and the only goal is to take down the king. A crown Maguire unwittingly wears.
The Changeling
Gail Gallant - 2019
A year later, she was reborn. Or so her mother said.The crash occurred on a July night in 1955. The truck hit the Gallant family's car head-on; a few weeks later, newborn baby Gail died from her injuries. Mad with grief, her mother prayed feverishly for Gail's return, convinced that God would bring her child back to her. And when she gave birth within a year to a baby girl who looked identical to her lost child, she believed her prayers had been answered.She named that newborn baby Gail.In this haunting memoir about having and losing faith, Gail Gallant recounts her awe-inspiring true story of life as a changeling--a child born to replace her deceased baby sister. A middle child in a large Catholic family, Gail embraced the belief that she was especially anointed, a status that was reinforced by her stern, devout mother and distant, hard-drinking father. Babies sometimes die, after all, but she was the one that God had chosen to bring back to life.Eventually, this special status--the feeling that she had been singled out by God, and just as importantly, by her mother--became a source of secret anxiety for Gail. Doubt began to cast its shadow. As she grew up, questions plagued her: Why did God save her? What did he want in return? And what if she couldn't live up to his--or her mother's--expectations? What if she wasn't so special after all? Or worse, what if she was a mere imposter, only pretending to be the first Gail, whose life she now lived?For this changeling child with a tortured soul, finding her own identity meant wrestling with sainthood and sin alike. As she rewrote her origin story, Gail battled blinding depression and loss of faith. Ultimately, she discovered her own sense of what is extraordinary in becoming simply herself.
The Kingmaker
Daniel Martin Elliott - 2018
there's intrigue... and a whole lot of action." –Readers' Favorite
When top political consultant Miles Davis takes on the campaign of Enrique Arenas in his run for President of Colombia, it appears to be just another lucrative job, another campaign to win. But is it?Ghosts from distant pasts lurk in the shadows. Forbidden loves create new scars and traumatic memories force old ones to ache. And an international conspiracy, stronger and more sinister than any of them can imagine, might finish off more than just Enrique’s campaign.
The Promise
Mia Ford - 2018
Lydia Burns...so damn gorgeous...My heart stops a beat whenever I see you,You are the girl of my dreams,And I've always loved you.So what, if you don't know it already!So what, if I have to break all the rules to make you mine!I am Jamie Vardi - son of the richest, best-known family in town,But my dreams are simple.And that's what my dad hates,Urgh...the Vardi family!Dad has his own rules...I can't fall for someone without a name and fame,And he's tied those to my inheritance.He feels Lydia is somewhat too posh to push!But how do I resist when Lydia starts working for him,A crush is now starting to convert to love.And I am prepared to break all the rules.After all, I have made Lydia the promise to make her mine forever!