There he falls in love with his Queen Alexandra Corps nurse, Louise, and she with him.The story moves back and forth from their time at the field hospital to the west highlands of Scotland where Donald grew up. As they talk in the quiet hours he tells her the stories of the coast and glens, how his family lived and the fascinating life of a century ago: bagpiping, sheep shearing, celidhs, illegal distilling, his mother saving the life of the people of St Kilda, the navvies building the west highland railway and the relationship between the lairds and the people. Louise in turn tells her own story of growing up in the Welsh valley: coal mining, a harsh and unforgiving upbringing.They get cut off from the allied troops and with another nurse are forced to make their escape through Turkey to Greece, getting rescued by a Coptic priest and ending up in Malta. By this time their love is out in the open, but there is still another tragic twist to their story waiting on the way back to Donald’s beloved highland home . . .

    It is expected that she will conclude the season with a brilliant titled marriage---but it is not to be so. Both idolized and dominated by her flamboyant father, Maud finds her search for love and happiness thwarted at every turn.How this vibrant, headstrong beauty is liberated and comes to learn what love is all about make Melbury Square an unforgettable reading experience.

    Little does she know Rose has been stolen and given to a wealthy woman who, tricked into believing she's an orphan, adopts her and renames her Rosina. Worse still, it was all arranged by Daisy’s ruthlessly ambitious agent, Jack Fidler. Years later, when tragedy strikes, Rosina runs away to join a theatrical troupe and her natural talent for singing wins the hearts of the crowds. But this brings her into direct competition with one of the northern music halls’ established stars, Daisy Belle – and back into the path of Jack, who is determined to destroy her...

    Settler wagons in their hundreds left the safety of the Cape Colony; generations on, their descendents are still fighting to keep a land they love...... "For that smallest of moments the two men stared at each other. Between them flew a hundred years, a thousand reasons. Ancient prophecies, the creak of wagons over rough ground and a woman's yearning for infinite horizons, the strengthening of one man's belief and the imminent death of another."From Rhodesia's final years, the clock turns back to the windswept, dusty streets of Kimberley’s infamous diamond fields. For Catherine Goddard and her son, Mathew, their decision to cross the Limpopo as part of a settler wagon train is one borne of desperation and a boy's need to be reunited with his father. For three months their ox-drawn trek wagon stands as their only defence against the African wilderness and the bloodlust of Lobengula Khumalo’s warring impis.Throughout the passage of a hundred years, three racially divided families are fatefully drawn together. Dynasties are shaped and smashed by kings, warrior chiefs and the indomitable lust for power and wealth by men like Cecil Rhodes and the perpetrators of Zimbabwe’s chaotic new order.From the latter part of the nineteenth century, Sons of Africa runs inexorably to the demise of Rhodesia’s white minority rule and the emergence of the new Zimbabwe.

    Burdened by her husband's ongoing negotiations with his angry ex-wife, the strains of looking after two stepchildren, and the lingering ghost of her own past betrayals, she finds that the life of a “second marryer” leaves much to be desired. As their friendship develops, so grows the shadow cast over her marriage, and when they make a late, illicit bay crossing on a ferryboat, the story gathers momentum under California's Mount Tamalpais. There, in the fabled Golden State, Sylvia Brownrigg shows how even a layman's Zen can lead to some important revelations about the need to look forward, not back. Bristling with honesty and wit, Morality Tale explores the triangular complications that can befall a modern marriage and the tragicomic forces that surround them.

    This is Ireland in 1919, and their friendship will be torn apart in the War of Independence and in the Civil War that follows. The entwined fates of the Burkes and the Sullivans are played out over three generations, in Kerry, Spain, Northumberland, Mount Athos and finally back in Kerry, where the two families meet again. Subtle, gripping, beautifully written, Ashes In The Wind is rooted in the history of Christopher Bland's own Anglo-Irish family, and brings to vivid life the people and places of 20th-century Ireland in a story of love, violence and redemption.

    In the small town of Ruby Prairie, Texas, even the most blessed of plans can go amazingly awry. A Town Called Ruby Prairie tells the story of newly widowed Charlotte Carter, who moves to town with plans to open a foster home for troubled girls. Fiercely independent and determined to succeed on her own, Charlotte soon learns that caring for six teens is much more challenging than she expected. One crisis follows another until the quirky, good-hearted people of Ruby Prairie rally their support to keep the home open. This humorous and inspirational story celebrates the joys found in the simple things of life--faith, friends, family, and community.

    The cows are milked, the pigs fed, and her dad won't answer any questions.The four children survive as best they can in a cloud of their father's lies and clear misery, dealing with their mother's absence in their own ways. But it's always been JJ's job to cause trouble, and her sleuthing wreaks havoc in their tight-knit community.Fourteen years on, JJ has a new life, a loving partner and a good job, but she finds herself being pulled back in to the unsolved mystery of her childhood. While pretending to have made peace with her father's dishonesty, she organises a final farewell for her mother so they can all put the past behind them. Will the tragic truth finally set them all free?The Serpent's Skin is a gripping, literary crime novel about male power and the secrets that can haunt a family. Most of all, it's about the many ways we prove our love.This novel ushers in Erina Reddan as a brilliant new voice in Australian fiction.

    Among them, third-grade teacher Sadie Randolph, who has taught every child in town and believes we are all eight years old in our hearts; Stanley Stone, once Fulton's most prominent lawyer, now feigning dementia to escape life with his son; Marge Walker, the town's self-appointed conveyor of social status who keeps a scrapbook of every local murder and heinous crime; and Rachel Silverman, recently widowed, whose decision to leave her Massachusetts home and settle in Fulton is a mystery to everyone but her. C. J., the pierced and tattooed young mother who runs the beauty shop, and Joanna, the hospice volunteer who discovers that her path to a good life lies with helping folks achieve good deaths, are two of the staff on whom the residents depend.McCorkle puts her finger on the pulse of every character's strengths, weaknesses, and secrets. And, as she connects their lives through their present circumstances, their pasts, and, in some cases, through their deaths, she celebrates the blessings and wisdom of later life and infuses this remarkable novel with hope and laughter.

    At least, they didn’t until we created them.Maiyamon was once merely a game. Now it's a global reality. After dozens of hit monster collecting games raked in billions of credits per year, it was inevitable someone would create real ones. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so obvious how many people would dump them in the wild…Sam Wentworth grew up with nothing. She’s worked tirelessly just to get through college and earn her first monster. Bankrupt and exhausted, she sets her sights on fame and fortune in Maiyamon arenas. Instead, Sam’s caught between battling the rampaging elemental creatures abandoned by their owners and standing up to a toxic group intent on ending the game forever.With her flame fox cub, Finn, at her side, Sam sets out to build a team capable of protecting both innocent people’s lives and the creatures she loves. That’s the easy part.Monsters may fill the world, but it’s humans she fears the most…

    In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky. Medgar is beset by a massive mountaintop removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin's grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the "company" and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. When Buzzy witnesses a brutal hate crime, a sequence is set in play that tests Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.

    A fisher survives his first year in the wilderness through the help of a kind Ojibway.

    Lucas, an only child whose father died several years earlier in a coa-mine blast, lives with the legacy of loss. Despite his heavy inheritance, Lucas is still just a thirteen-year-old boy puzzling out the world around him. He shuttles between the homes of his family elders whose old-world ways he can't quite understand. When Zoli, his mother's embittered admirer, takes it upon himself to find his lost love, violence and retribution escalate until no one, especially Lucas, is safe. As he struggles to find his place in this unsettling landscape, Lucas's extended family and close-knit ethnic community circle around him. Set against the collapse of the industry that has sustained the family and the town for generations, When We Get There is a startling tale of one family's long winter—and the spring that eventually comes hard on winter's heels.

    Michener brings Hawaii’s epic history vividly to life in a classic saga that has captivated readers since its initial publication in 1959. As the volcanic Hawaiian Islands sprout from the ocean floor, the land remains untouched for centuries—until, little more than a thousand years ago, Polynesian seafarers make the perilous journey across the Pacific, flourishing in this tropical paradise according to their ancient traditions. Then, in the early nineteenth century, American missionaries arrive, bringing with them a new creed and a new way of life. Based on exhaustive research and told in Michener’s immersive prose, Hawaii is the story of disparate peoples struggling to keep their identity, live in harmony, and, ultimately, join together.

    Bound in genuine leather w/gilt edges. Illustrations by C.E. and H.M. Brock. From the book "This book is printed on archival quality paper especially milled for this edition. It is acid-neutral and conforms to all guidelines established for permanence and durability by the Council of Library Resources and the American National Standards Institute." The copyright is 1996 by The Easton Press (MBI, Inc.).