She was his second wife, his first wife having died in a car crash when their twin daughters were very small. Fiona decided, when the girls left for university, that she wanted to give them a permanent reminder of their mother, and started to explore their family history. It had started so innocently, but each piece of information discovered raised questions in her mind, and started to cast longer and longer shadows across Michael’s past. Deceit, lies, adultery and worse, it became an investigation that would change all their lives forever.

    His housekeeper guarded his secrets with her life. Now Enid Gilchrist must draw on her experience as a genealogist to replicate that search and protect those secrets while she unravels the clues that have crossed the years to spawn a new criminal and threaten those she loves. She also must draw on her strength of will to prevent her feelings for Chief of Police Patrick Mulhaney from hindering their mutual efforts to solve the mystery, bring peace to the dead, and protect the living.

    1948: an unknown woman at the wedding of a miner’s daughter to a decorated war hero. 1943: a pale US airman, behind him Mary Mine, a drab-painted warplane destined to crash in flames. 1936: a handsome teenager, arm thrust in fascist salute as his black-uniformed idol struts through the East End of London. What is the link between these people? And what are their legacies? Introducing Jane Madden, an ex-police detective trying to build a new life after illness and divorce. She is commissioned not to solve an ancestral mystery, but to find one. Together with a reclusive but brilliant friend, she discovers murder, treachery and corruption as she unearths family ties that have been deliberately broken and buried. Torn between truth and justice, and haunted by an image from her own childhood, she tries to make good the lies of yesterday. A story of abandonment, obsession, one-sided love and the nature of inheritance.

    Not wanting to surrender the package to the Post Office Kate opens it with the good intention of finding its owner. Through her search she elicits the help of a young British visitor and together they embark on a search for a missing heir and a family fortune. Kate’s personal loss of her fiancé Evan and feelings of guilt for having survived prevents her from forming any attachment to the young man helping her. Through the letters in the package Kate and her co-conspirator discover the life of a Boer War Lieutenant and a WWII Captain. Together the lives of these two men lead Kate to their descendant, heir and fortune.

    What seems to be a straightforward case of local heir hunting turns into and international scandal. As well as finding new happiness Anna is exposed to horrors she could not have imagined and as the book gathers momentum readers find themselves in the grip of the challenges that she must overcome or lose everything. This is a story filled with unexpected twists and turns but also with heart and humour. By the end we are reluctant to leave Anna's world - the mismatched chairs round the kitchen table, the eccentric father and provocative children, despite the struggles she must endure and survive. This is the first of a planned trilogy.

    What he discovers is shocking and tragic. He starts to feel a connection for their paths had crossed – literally – albeit with a gap of about 150 years but crossed they had. Combining his interest in genealogy and metal-detecting, Peter forms a theory about a link between a scandal in the antiquities world of Victorian London and what may have occurred on the farm. Follow the story as modern-day events play their part.

    In fact, it is two inter-related stories in one novel set in different timeframes, namely the past and the present. An Irish genealogist called Jed is commissioned by Tim, an American client, who needs to understand more about his mysterious maternal ancestry. Fate had dictated that Tim never got the chance to meet his grandparents, and he didn't even know the name of his mother's father. She refused to tell Tim, even on her death bed. Why? That was a question which troubled Tim as he witnessed his mother's melancholy throughout his adult life, and after her death he resolved to find some answers - and some peace of mind.It was also a question which intrigued Jed after he learned that Tim's grandfather simply "disappeared". No death record, no burial - nothing. Jed identifies the "missing" grandfather to be Merrill Harrison. Within weeks, Jed becomes obsessed with Merrill's life, as he embarks on a personal crusade to find Merrill's resting place on Tim's behalf. More fundamentally, Jed needs to fully understand the complex twists and turns linked to Merrill's existence and eventual disappearance which take the Irish researcher on a fascinating trail stretching back to the pioneering immigrants of Midwest America all the way to the White House during WWII.A web of worrying deceit woven by Tim's ancestors is gradually unraveled. Once hidden family secrets are exposed. Jed turns from genealogist into cold case detective as he comes to the conclusion that multiple criminal misdeeds have been covered up ... but where is Merrill?

    That is, until Maggie starts looking into her family tree. In doing so, she uncovers a dark mystery that endangers her children. She has to solve a mystery in the past, if she is to save her family in the present.Together with fellow genealogist, Zelah, Maggie unearths more and more details about the drowning of a small girl, and the unsolved disappearance of Maggie's ancestor. Strange forces are at work, and they seem to be leaking into the present.This supernatural mystery is set in and around Newport, South Wales, and draws on real historical details.This is book one in the Maze Investigations Series - look out for a new genealogy detective story coming in 2016.

    She combines the trip with a girls' weekend away with her best friend, Nina. The day they arrive, the news spreads through town of a young woman who was murdered in a little-used cemetery. With no apparent motive for the murder, Sarah Vines, the newly promoted local detective, enlists Perri's help to uncover the identity of the killer. A killer who proves that one murder may not be enough to keep the secret hidden.

    But instead of finding answers she starts finding more questions. Who is trying to stop her from finding answers? What has become of the lost family fortune that she didn't know existed until she got here? And are they willing to kill to prevent her from finding her answers? My mother, Janet, was a wonderful storyteller. As children, we spend days in the car driving to vacation destinations listening to her tell us stories of her own making. For years she contemplated trying to publish her writing but never followed through. Later in life, she wrote this and shopped it to an agent that took her on for a short period. They did some editing and formatting, but never got the book ready to publish. And so it ended up just sitting there. I told her over and over that if she didn't get it published that I would do it after she died. She passed away in 2011. So the time has come. I've done a bunch of editing, formatting, and some fixing of word choices and smoothing out a scene or two. But the story is hers.

    She hoped to work on her novel, play Rook with the old lady next door and spend some lazy time with her husband and daughters. But when a new neighbor winds up dead, Tessa and her Rook partner find themselves jumping to suspicious conclusions. Add a young hippie named Rusty to the mix, and these three seem like an unlikely trio to solve an alleged crime. When you’re not laughing at the humorous rhetoric in Suspicion on Sugar Creek, you’ll be on the edge of your seat wondering how it will all play out.

    American genealogist Jefferson Tayte is hired to find out what happened, but it soon becomes apparent that a calculated killer is out to stop him.In the Blood combines a centuries-old mystery with a present-day thriller that brings two people from opposite sides of the Atlantic together to uncover a series of carefully hidden crimes. Tayte's research centres around the tragic life of a young Cornish girl, a writing box, and the discovery of a dark secret that he believes will lead him to the family he is looking for. Trouble is, someone else is looking for the same answers and will stop at nothing to find them.In the Blood is the first in the Jefferson Tayte mystery series.

    He has just one thing with which to begin his investigation: the three women’s DNA, one of whom is his half-aunt. With just six days of research time available to him, his investigation uncovers some shocking revelations and troubling links to his own grandfather; and Morton finds that, for the first time in his career, he is advising his clients not to read his concluding report.

    

     Twenty-eight year old Lucas Landry, a Sacramento, California native, is a counseling psychologist specializing in drug abuse treatment, yet couldn’t save his own opioid-addicted father. His feelings about his father and his death get complicated when he discovers his father hid many secrets about their ancestry from Lucas and his brother. Lucas embarks on a journey to find answers: What secrets had his father hidden, who are the Landrys, and where did they come from? Are Lucas and his estranged brother destined to repeat their ancestors’ mistakes? A hidden attic in Lucas’s father’s old Victorian house is a goldmine of memorabilia and clues from the past, clues which seem to lead to Nazi Germany and the former Sudetenland, breadcrumbs to other lives. Ten year old Christa Nagel is an ethnic German living in the Sudetenland near the Polish border in 1943 with her parents and five younger siblings. When her father is conscripted into the Wehrmacht, leaving Christa and family alone to fend for themselves, she is horrified and worried for him. After a while, though, she’s not sure which is worse, fighting in the war or trying to keep their family together and safe. When the war ends, she and her family, as well as millions of other ethnic Germans face expulsion from their home, marched away into the unknown. Fifteen year old Ilse Seidel, a German girl living in a small Bavarian city, knows more about danger than anyone her age should know. She’s survived bombings, lost loved ones, and witnessed Jewish friends being carted away from their homes. She wants nothing to do with the war or with soldiers. Her life takes a dramatic turn when she finds a wounded soldier in need of help. Lucas is determined to assemble these breadcrumbs, find out how their stories intertwine, and reveal his ancestry. Will what he learns make him feel better about himself and his family, or worse? Breadcrumbs and Bombs is about war, secrets, lies, prejudice, betrayal, guilt, love, genealogy, and what it means to be a family. Praise for Breadcrumbs and Bombs: Another great book from Susan Finlay. It was particularly interesting to hear some of the untold perspectives from such an important and controversial time in history. Really interesting to hear how normal civilians in different parts of Europe were affected. The book also touches on some really hot topics like race, tolerance, identity, and the effect of stress on the human psyche. 5 Star Review Breadcrumbs and Bombs is a compelling story about a subject lesser known to many Americans. It is well done by Susan as she takes a family from California to the Sudetenland and finally to Germany. Tracing family roots opens ones eyes to the possibilities of their own family. This is one of thousands of stories following WWII that could have happened as written. Especially pertinent for history buffs and for those curious about the unsettling situation in Europe at war's end. Complex and interesting throughout with side stories highlighting racial, ethnic, and religious problems that still exist today, Highly recommended. 5 Star Review I love family history and this is excellently written. The story fascinating as I had little knowledge of this part of the war. I felt I knew the characters and suffered their pain with them. What a lovely end to the story.