Book picks similar to
The Oak Tree Letters by Lora Lindy
romance
historical-fiction
mystery
ghosts-witches-and-other-spooks
Dear Kate
Hannah Duggan - 2014
At a time when thousands are fleeing tyranny to find a home in the New World, seventeen-year-old Kate Elyot witnesses a tragic accident that orphans a little girl named Emily. Suddenly the sole guardian of a child she's never met, Kate's only guide to the girl's surviving family is a signet ring and a letter sewn into Emily's dress addressed "To Kate." Unsure of whether she has walked into a fateful calling or a fatal coincidence, Kate is determine to get Emily home but is unprepared for the journey awaiting her. Captain Anthony Scot will not rest until his enemy Simon Cephas is punished for a crime long forgotten. The signet ring that Emily carries is the evidence Scot needs to convict his rival. He is willing to obtain the ring at any cost in order to destroy Cephas. Can Kate fight to free Emily from those who would use her to destroy her Puritan family? Will her courage sustain her as she is brought face to face with her worst fears, deepest regrets, and a God she cannot bring herself to trust?
Providence
Lisa Colozza Cocca - 2014
When the family's barn burns down, her father lays the blame on Becky, and her own mother tells her to run for it. Run she does, hopping into an empty freight car. There, in a duffel bag, Becky finds an abandoned baby girl, only hours old. After years of tending to her siblings, sixteen-year-old Becky knows just what a baby needs. This baby needs a mother. With no mother around, Becky decides, at least temporarily, this baby needs her. When Becky hops off the train in a small Georgia town, it's with baby "Georgia" in her arms. When she meets Rosie, an eccentric thrift-shop owner, who comes to value and love Becky as no one ever has, Becky rashly claims the baby as her own. Not everyone in town is as welcoming as Rosie, though. Many suspect Becky and her baby are not what they seem. Among the doubters is a beautiful, reclusive woman with her own terrible loss and a long history with Rosie. As Becky's life becomes entangled with the lives of the people in town, including a handsome boy who suspects Becky is hiding something from her past, she finds her secrets more difficult to keep. Becky should grab the baby and run, but her newfound home and job with Rosie have given Becky the family she's never known. Despite her guilt over leaving her mother alone, she is happy for the first time. But it's a happiness not meant to last. When the truth comes out, Becky has the biggest decision of her life to make. Should she run away again? Should she stay--and fight? Or lie? What does the future hold for Becky and Georgia? With a greatness of heart and a stubborn insistence on hope found in few novels of any genre, Providence proves that home is where you find it, love is an active verb, and family is more than just a word."When 16-year-old Becky Miller rescues an abandoned newborn, a nontraditional family is born, attracting other warm-hearted women into its folds. Reading Providence is like cozying up with longtime friends in front of a homey fire." --Sherry Shahan, author of Skin and Bones (Albert Whitman & Co.)"A beautifully written tale about trying to make the right choice when there might not be one." --Wendy Mass, author of A Mango-Shaped Space (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)
The Daughter of Siena
Marina Fiorato - 2011
But the beauty and pageantry masks the deadly rivalry that exists among the city's districts. Each ward, represented by an animal symbol, puts forth a rider to claim the winner's banner, but the contest turns citizens into tribes and men into beasts—and beautiful, headstrong, young Pia Tolomei is in love with a rider of an opposing ward, an outsider who threatens the shaky balance of intrigue and influence that rules the land.
A Beautiful Poison
Lydia Kang - 2017
But with so many victims in her close circle, young socialite Allene questions if the flu is really to blame. All appear to have been poisoned—and every death was accompanied by a mysterious note.Desperate for answers and dreading her own engagement to a wealthy gentleman, Allene returns to her passion for scientific discovery and recruits her long-lost friends, Jasper and Birdie, for help. The investigation brings her closer to Jasper, an apprentice medical examiner at Bellevue Hospital who still holds her heart, and offers the delicate Birdie a last-ditch chance to find a safe haven before her fragile health fails.As more of their friends and family die, alliances shift, lives become entangled, and the three begin to suspect everyone—even each other. As they race to find the culprit, Allene, Birdie, and Jasper must once again trust each other, before one of them becomes the next victim.
Road to Deer Run
Elaine Marie Cooper - 2010
Her brother, Asa is dead — killed by the King’s army, so when she stumbles across a wounded British soldier, her sense of right and wrong is challenged. Should she help a soldier of the enemy who took her brother’s life, or let him die, cold and alone?The war has also broken British soldier Daniel Lowe’s spirit. A severely wounded prisoner of war, he escaped his rebel captors while on a death march to Boston. As the pain in his injured leg worsens, he wonders if the young woman looking down at him is an angel or the enemy.Need and compassion bring these two young lives together, but will the bitterness of war keep them apart? Or can they find their way to love and forgiveness on the Road to Deer Run?
Apple Trees and HoneyBees
Charity McColl - 2017
Ruth Conroy is the pride of her father and brothers and the despair of her mother, who fears that her daughter’s unconventional ways will prevent her from marrying. Goaded by her mother’s nagging, Ruth declares that she will only marry a man who can beat her in a horse race. As she is an expert horsewoman, her challenge seems unlikely to be met. But family friend Robert Holloway has always loved Ruth, and if it takes a horse race to win her, then an equestrian he will be, even though he is a poor rider. Out of friendship, Ruth agrees to teach him how to ride with skill, never realizing that his goal is to win the race and win her hand in marriage. When she is challenged, she must decide what she will win or lose in this race for her heart.
Hired Gun
Christopher Kenworthy - 2013
But when Jemina resists, he brings in some muscle to finish the job. But Luke Horn isn't just a gun for hire. He doesn't like what he hears about Fetterman. So he sides with Jemima and her foreman, Fed Sauermann, to get the rustlers off her land and bring Fetterman’s plans tumbling down. When the three are driven off the ranch, they find a hideout in the hills to hatch a plan to reclaim the ranch. It’s not long before Luke Horn find himself fighting for his life - and the land of the woman he loves. Hired Gun is a thrilling saga of gunplay and romance, perfect for fans of classic Western adventure. Praise for Christopher Kenworthy 'A thrilling read.' - Robert Foster, acclaimed author of The Lunar Code. ‘Kenworthy is a craftsman and entertainer.’ - Richard Foreman, bestselling author of The Sword of Rome series Christopher Kenworthy was a journalist and novelist. His other Westerns include Apache Country and Badlands, and he has also written two naval fiction series - the John Paul Jones adventures and the In the Dark of the Moon saga. Pioneering Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK’s leading independent digital publisher. We publish new and classic westerns by authors from the US and the UK.
The Writing Desk
Rachel Hauck - 2017
Now that her second book is due, she’s locked in fear. Can she repeat her earlier success or is she a fraud who has run out of inspiration?With pressure mounting from her publisher, Tenley is weighted with writer’s block. But when her estranged mother calls asking Tenley to help her through chemotherapy, she packs up for Florida where she meets handsome furniture designer Jonas Sullivan and discovers the story her heart’s been missing.A century earlier, another woman wrote at the same desk with hopes and fears of her own. Born during the Gilded Age, Birdie Shehorn is the daughter of the old money Knickerbockers. Under the strict control of her mother, her every move is decided ahead of time, even whom she’ll marry. But Birdie has dreams she doesn’t know how to realize. She wants to tell stories, write novels, make an impact on the world. When she discovers her mother has taken extreme measures to manipulate her future, she must choose between submission and security or forging a brand new way all on her own.Tenley and Birdie are from two very different worlds, but fate has bound them together in a way time cannot erase.
The House Girl
Tara Conklin - 2013
Seventeen-year-old Josephine Bell decides to run from the failing tobacco farm where she is a slave and nurse to her ailing mistress, the aspiring artist Lu Anne Bell. New York City, 2004. Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in an elite law firm, is given a difficult, highly sensitive assignment that could make her career: she must find the "perfect plaintiff" to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves. It is through her father, the renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers Josephine Bell and a controversy roiling the art world: are the iconic paintings long ascribed to Lu Anne Bell really the work of her house slave, Josephine? A descendant of Josephine's would be the perfect face for the reparations lawsuit - if Lina can find one. While following the runaway girl's faint trail through old letters and plantation records, Lina finds herself questioning her own family history and the secrets that her father has never revealed: How did Lina's mother die? And why will he never speak about her? Moving between antebellum Virginia and modern-day New York, this searing, suspenseful and heartbreaking tale of art and history, love and secrets, explores what it means to repair a wrong and asks whether truth is sometimes more important than justice.
Timeless Treasure
MaryLu Tyndall - 2020
Determined to remove the curse of poverty and crime from her family’s past, Lexie sets off to Charleston, S.C. to find the mythical treasure of Stede Bonnet.Professor Barret Johnson represents everything Lexie hates. Born to wealth and privilege, Barret’s family are pillars of the community, successful, educated, Christians who never suffered a day in their lives. Yet she has no choice but to allow him to help her decipher the letters.As the couple read each letter, we are transported into the past where we follow the adventures of Stede Bonnet from his start in Barbados, through each success and failure, and his eventual connection with Blackbeard himself.Lexie discovers a kindred spirit in her ancestor, Bonnet, and lessons learned from the past soon drift into the present. But someone is after the letters, and soon Barret and Lexie find themselves in grave danger. They must figure out the puzzle Bonnet left them and retrieve the treasure before whoever is after them gets desperate enough to end their lives.
New Beginnings in Greece
Ian Wilfred - 2021
She knew she had important decisions to make and a holiday on the beautiful Greek island of Holkamos with her Nan would give her time to think things through.Kostas and Eleni’s traditional Greek restaurant didn’t draw in the holidaymakers. Financially struggling, tired and looking forward to the end of the summer, how would they continue to make ends meet? How would Yannis, their adult, yet socially shy, son cope with changes to his lifestyle?Demetrious had arrived from Athens to help decorate a friends gift shop.Carmela, a reputable French artist who lived on Holkamos each summer had recently died leaving secrets, upsets and an important legacy.How do all their lives entwine?Set amongst the backdrop of the picturesque Holkamos harbour, NEW BEGINNINGS IN GREECE is an endearing tale of how long-lasting friendships, romances and business partnerships are created from chance encounters.
Forging the Shilling Girl (The Hudson Sagas Book 1)
Emma Hardwick - 2020
Young, widowed Clare Byrne, is escaping the famine in Ireland. On the coffin ship from Dublin, in the final hours of the journey to England, Clare goes into labour. Weakened and alone, the young, beleaguered mother gives birth near the quayside. Unable to look after the newborn, the child is bought for a single shilling by a curious gentleman, the industrialist Samuel Hudson. What will happen to the young girl? What plans does Mr Hudson have for her? Will the child thrive, or merely survive? Also by Emma Hardwick ----------------------------------- The Urchin of Walton Hall
Haunts Haven
Joan Sowards - 2009
But Callie doesn’t believe in ghosts, and she plans to turn the inn into a bed and breakfast. Then things start to happen—strange, spooky things— and she begins to wonder if there is some truth to the ghost stories. If that weren’t bad enough, Callie discovers a mysterious grave in the cellar. As she confronts the inn’s tragic secrets, she also faces her lonely past and learns to embrace her heritage. But it takes a handsome cowboy and a harming rancher to prove that Callie’s long-guarded heart can love again.
A Lady Defying All for Love
Bridget Barton - 2020
Her life has always been simple and peaceful until, one day, a new family moves to town and her world is about to get upside down. After she realizes she has started falling for the new family's eldest son, things will inevitably get more complicated than ever. When she finds out that the newcomers are hiding something, will she find the courage to get to the bottom of the mystery, and the compassion to handle what she finds lying there?Benedict Flynn is the eldest son of a highly respected family. When his father, a particularly outspoken member of the House of Lords, gets accused of having widely misused his wealth, Benedict's family doesn't really have a choice...Disappearing from London's social scene seems to be the only way to protect themselves from the malicious rumours. However, when a past acquaintance finds out about them, Benedict needs to take immediate action to preserve his family's reputation. Will he be brave enough to share his secret with the charming lady he meets in town, and ask for her help? And will he dare to admit his feelings for her?Eliza and Benedict soon find themselves in the middle of a web of scandal and confusion; a situation they could have never imagined. Will the chemistry between them be strong enough to help them fight anything that comes into their way? Will Eliza find the strength to defy everything in the name of love?
The Sheriff's Mail Order Rescue
Amelia Rose
And with her grandmother’s health declining, Clara is living with the weight of the world on her shoulders – but her grandmother isn’t having any of it.Feisty and tenacious, Eugenia isn’t about to let her granddaughter throw her life away – and so she advertises on Clara’s behalf as a mail-order bride.Clara is furious when she discovers her grandmother’s plot, but as Matt’s response catches her eye, Clara warms to the idea of marrying a sheriff and starting over in a new town.Together, Clara and her grandmother set out for Iron Creek. But the journey is long and hard going – and things only get worse as their wagon train crosses paths with a gang of bandits.Clara can only hope that Matt will come for them before it is too late – but with such a rocky start, what hope will be left for their future together?The Sheriff’s Mail-Order Rescue is a thrilling romance that will charm its way into your heart. Will Matt and Clara find a way to be together? Or is their relationship about to end before it has even begun?