To Maddie’s horror, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and when he finds it he will restore his father’s name and return to his father’s good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war. Each day the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. And Maddie, now alone in a foreign country, must begin to figure out who she is and what she wants. The novel tells of Maddie’s social awakening: to the harsh realities of life, to the beauties of nature, to a connection with forces larger than herself, to female friendship, and finally, to love.

    It is early in the 1930s and Dr Alexander Mackay is on his way to take up his post running a maternity hospital in the colony. During the voyage he meets two beautiful sisters and the seeds of a scandal are sown.Seventy years later Edward Mackay wakes after a major brain trauma. In the hazy shadowlands of illness, he conjures the figure of his dead father, a man he knew so little about. This near-death experience provokes a move to the wilds of Orkney, where Edward joins a project to harness the tides around the island as a renewable source of energy. But in the tight-knit island community passions also run high.

    "A highly ambitious, engaging, and evocative novel and a hauntingly captivating read." -The Sunday IndependentWhat happens when a woman is haunted by the sins of her foremothers–and the men who betrayed them?Facing the birth of her child, and single motherhood, Jo Devereux has spent the last six months in Mucknamore, the Irish village she fled twenty years ago.A trunk of letters and diaries left by her grandmother and great-aunt has revealed a heartbreaking legacy of bitter secrets that have haunted the women of her family for four generations.Now she must find out the ultimate truth: What other secrets and lies lie under her mother’s and grandmother’s unshakeable silence? How does it connect with her failed life as a gender-bending agony aunt in San Franciso? And what of Rory… her lost love, son of her family’s sworn enemies?Will Jo’s mission to uncover the past unlock a possible future together? Or are they about to lose everything all over again?As she pieces together the poisonous fragments of the past, Jo must now face into the guilt and shame that were her legacy and see how she might best redeem them in her own life.

    J. Robinson comes a family saga amidst the backdrop of the Civil War and a deadly hurricane, rising floodwaters in the Big Easy, or Crescent City, as a plantation on River Road in Vacherie, Louisiana, is threatened. Will Hurricane Katrina destroy what the Civil War spared? Margaret Jane Turnrow first laid eyes on River Oaks Plantation amid lush foliage and oak trees dripping with Spanish moss when she returned from her honeymoon as a petite hazel-eyed fifteen-year-old bride to the antebellum mansion. She immediately fell in love with the house and grounds and beautifying the garden with plants. Her first task involved lining the oak drive with azaleas. Determined to have the best plantation gardens, she soon recreated formal ones designed from precious memories of France, Italy, and England she'd toured on her honeymoon. Before the Civil War, she imported plants, and gardening became her passion. During the war, it was her only one. The fertile Louisiana soil loved and nursed her plants as much as she did, and they grew like the cotton and sugarcane. Pale as a magnolia blossom, she sparkled like the sun reflecting off Lake Pontchartrain when she flashed pearly white teeth with her camellia red smile, but small white hands tucked demurely into the folds of her gown as she sat quietly during elegant dinners, concealed her true vivacious spirit. The war would change the shy woman-child as it ravaged through her life and took its toll on the home and family life she came to know and love with all of her heart. Before the Civil War, dashing Danny Paul Turnrow stood six-foot-two-inches, as tall and elegant as the white-columned plantation home he'd purchased on the banks of the Mississippi River. He led a charmed life as a charismatic cotton baron known as one of the richest men on River Road. River Oaks boasted over thirty-five-hundred acres of fertile Louisiana soil, mostly planted in cotton with the exception of some sugarcane along the Mississippi River banks and his wife's gardens. He returned from the war a different man, as broken as the pillared splendor of the South. Surrounded by cypress swamps and sugarcane fields on the river's end and white blankets of cotton edging the dirt roads, River Oaks Plantation still stood, but the grand life he'd led turned to one of backbreaking toil. He no longer stood so tall and proud with an aching back hunched over Louisiana cotton fields. With the future uncertain, fear lurks in his heart and soul and clouds his mind. What will sustain his marriage through the loss? Can they defend what's most precious to them and maintain River Oaks as a working plantation? The manor home is the only legacy he has left and the only life he has ever known. Will he lose it? Years later, Amaryllis Camilla O'Brien is stranded alone with two dogs on the top floor of an antebellum plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana, as a deadly hurricane rips and roars through the city and raging floodwaters threaten to devour the old home. She discovers a yellowed diary. Will family secrets drown in the flood with her? Will the diary matter? She's determined to save it and the dogs, or die trying. Has her grandmother left her a sinking ship? Noah Gautreaux, the plantation manager, took vehicles to higher ground and is supposed to return, but will he make it in time to save Amaryllis and his pet girls? The old house withstood the floods of 1973, 1983, and 1993. He doesn't think he has to worry about it floating off down the Mississippi River, but as excessive rain and wind continue to batter the area and the water continues to rise when the levee breaches, he realizes there's a first time for everything and this could be it for the white-columned beauty of ages past.

    Nor did he expect to find a body in the cellar. Buried under the flagstones are the remains of Cora Crippen, former music-hall singer and wife of Dr. Hawley Crippen. No one would have thought the quiet, unassuming Dr. Crippen capable of murder, yet the doctor and his mistress have disappeared from London, and now a full-scale hunt for them has begun.Across the Channel in Antwerp, the S.S. Montrose has just set off on its two-week voyage to North America. Slipping in among the first-class passengers is a Mr. John Robinson, accompanied by his teenage son, Edmund. The pair may be hoping for a quiet, private voyage, but in the close confines of a luxury ocean liner, anonymity is rare. And with others aboard looking for romance, or violence, or escape from their past in Europe, it will take more than just luck for the Robinsons to survive the voyage unnoticed.An accomplished, intricately plotted novel, Crippen brilliantly reimagines the amazing escape attempt of one of history's most notorious killers and marks the outstanding American debut of one of Ireland's best young novelists.

    It's a weak truce at first, bound only by an arranged engagement between Anne MacGregor and Niall Campbell-the heirs of the feuding families.While Niall wrestles with his suspicions about a traitor in his clan, Anne's actions do not go unnoticed. And as accusations of witchcraft abound, the strong and sometimes callous Campbell heir must fight for Anne's safety among disconcerted clan members. Meanwhile his own safety in threatened with the ever-present threat of someone who wants him dead.Will Niall discover the traitor's identity in time? Can Anne find a way to fit into her new surroundings? Will the two learn to love each other despite the conflict? With a perfect mix of a burgeoning romance and thrilling suspense, this book is historical fiction at its best.

    The vicious murder of a young child provides rookie journalist Paddy Meehan with her first big break when the suspect turns out to be her fiance's 11-year old cousin. Launching her own investigation into the horrific crime, Paddy uncovers lines of deception deep in Glasgow's past, with more horrific crimes in the future if she fails to solve the mystery. Infused with Mina's unique blend of dark humor, personal insights and social injustice, the story grips the reader while challenging our perceptions of childhood innocence, crime and punishment, and right or wrong.

    She needed a hero, and quick. But what she had hoped was that at least one person would have answered her plea for help. As the months wore on she had all but given up on finding the husband she so desperately needed, and resigned herself to a lifetime imprisoned by her cruel stepfather. Rancher Wes Roberts couldn’t get the thought of Mary Beth out of his mind, and the desperate nature of the ad she had placed. He figured it wasn’t unusual that he hadn’t received a reply to his letters, given that she had probably already chosen her husband and moved on with her life, but something nagged at him. He would never forgive himself if he didn’t find out for sure that she was safe, even if it wasn’t with him. When Wes arrives, not only is Mary Beth still there, she is more in need than ever. After he rescues her from the desolate life she has been living he realizes that he needs her just as much as she needs him. Please enjoy this sweet, clean, historical western romance novella of 21,128 words (about 90 pages).

    And when a filmmaker friend is brutally murdered in the manner of a death scene from one of his movies, she's convinced that a copycat killer is on the loose�and that she's the next target. The man who swoops in to save her is the mysterious new love interest Anatoly Darinsky. Of course, if this were fiction, Anatoly would be her prime suspect.… Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights When her brother-in-law turns up dead and her sister is accused of the crime, Sophie's priority is finding the real killer. With or without Anatoly's help. Her brother-in-law's secret life yields plenty of suspects, but the San Francisco police aren't taking any of them seriously. So Sophie does what comes naturally to her: she stirs up trouble (to lure the killer out, of course). Obsession, Deceit and Really Dark Chocolate Sophie's relationship with the irresistible and occasionally insufferable Anatoly is on the rocks when a friend recruits Sophie to decode her allegedly two-timing husband's strange behavior. Suddenly plunged into a crazy world of campaign mudslinging, dirt-digging and cover-ups, Sophie begins to uncover some pretty dirty secrets indeed. Way in over her head as usual, Sophie reluctantly�or not-so-reluctantly�enlists the help of her two-time sidekick and ex, Anatoly. Lust, Loathing and a Little Lip Gloss Sophie is head over heels in love�with a three-bedroom San Francisco Victorian. She's just got to have it, despite a few drawbacks. Her slimy ex is the realtor, and her first tour of the house reveals, well, a lifeless body clutching a cameo with a disturbing history of its own. There's no way Sophie is going to give up the ghost on her dreams of stained glass and original woodwork, though�especially since Sophie is 99 percent sure her problems are caused by someone six feet tall instead of six feet under….

     Months after killing one of her adversaries, gifted homicide detective Rachel Harroway finds herself being stalked by a spirit she can’t evade. Meanwhile, a new but unpredictable killer arrives in her small hometown. Torn between raising her daughter, catching a murderer, maintaining a double identity amidst her colleagues, and pursuing dangerous methods to banish the wayward spirit, Rachel battles to keep her head afloat as winter creeps into Highlands, North Carolina.

    Crestfallen, she believes her disastrous life cannot get worse—until she awakes to the blasts of cannon fire.Facing certain death, Anne trembles in her stateroom while swords clash and the chilling screams of battle rage on the deck above. When a rugged Highlander kicks in her door, she prays for a swift end. But Laird Calum MacLeod has a reason for plundering the ship—and it’s not a stunning English lass. With no other choice, he takes Anne to his crumbling keep on the isle of Raasay and sends a letter of ransom to her husband. In time, Anne grows to understand MacLeod’s plight and finds it increasingly difficult to resist Calum’s unsettling charm—until the baron sends a reply agreeing to terms. Ripped from passion that will be forever seared into their souls, will Anne and Calum risk everything for love?

    One night he witnesses something miraculous, and makes a terrible mistake. His action changes lives—not only his own, but those of his family and the entire tightly knit community in which they live. Can he ever atone for the wrong he has done, and can love grow when its foundation is violence? Based on the legend of the selkies—seals who can transform into people—evokes the harsh beauty of the landscape, the resilience of its people, both human and animal, and the triumph of hope over fear and prejudice. With exquisite grace, Su Bristow transports us to a different world, subtly and beautifully exploring what it means to be an outsider, and our innate capacity for forgiveness and acceptance. Rich with myth and magic, Sealskin is, nonetheless, a very human story, as relevant to our world as to the timeless place in which it is set.

    Two wishes. Who's will come true? The love of her life doesn’t know she exists. Still, ever the optimist, Mariote Dundotter-McCullum makes a wish on a falling star: to marry the man before her next birthday. Little does she know that someone else is wishing on the same star. When it looks as though her wish to marry will never come true, Mariote decides to settle for someone who has been professing his love for her through beautiful letters. It doesn't matter that he is the son of her father's enemy, or that she can’t remember ever meeting him. Mariote believes ‘tis better to be loved by someone than never at all. So, she steals away in the middle of the night to make her own joy. There’s another who has loved her since the first time he saw her. After learning Mariote has run off to marry someone else, he goes after her. But will he have the courage to give her his heart and to make his secret wish come true?

    When a plane crash strands brilliant scientist Grace Sutter on an icy mountaintop in Maine, she finds herself alone in the wilderness with the only other surviving passenger -- Greylen MacKeage, a sexy, medieval warrior who's been tossed through time to find the woman he's destined to love. Forced together to survive the harsh, wintry landscape, neither expects the fierce passion that flares between them. But Grace is not used to letting her heart take control, and Greylen will settle for nothing less than her heart's surrender....

    He buys a run down house in rural Cavan, right in the heart of Ireland, and embarks on a huge renovation project. While he is there, the house seems to speak to him - there are voices coming from an untraceable source.