She is relieved to find a man willing to take on a pregnant wife, and resolves to make the union work. Even is the man is a bit loud, spends too much time at the pub, and speaks to her as if she had no mind of her own. Robert Killiam works as a bricklayer in the city, and living a solitary life has not does much for his manners. He’s used to folks who speak their mind, and mild-mannered Alice seems happy to go along with whatever he suggests. She’s lovely and kind, but—he thinks—also a bit dull. But the Christmas holiday bring back sad memories for Alice, and she finally puts her foot down. Robert sees something new in this timid woman, and he’s more determined than ever to make her happy. And when the baby suddenly arrives early, he realizes how much this budding family has already changed his life.

    Control over law and order has long since passed from the hands of the administration to caste-based gangs and organized crime syndicates enjoying political patronage. Kidnapping has become one of the flourishing businesses of the state, while every other industry has dwindled down and the development plank has gone on a pause mode, on account of Rangdari, which is yet another booming business apart from contract killing, smuggling, illegal tree cutting, and vehicle snatching. Migration to other states is at peak: not only of big businessmen, but also of lowly laborers. And those who can’t leave the state are either sucked into the crime world or are forced to live under fear. Albeit the local newspapers everyday sketch the sordid saga of the state, the execrable condition is not likely to improve by any means in the near future. Digambar Babu, a middle-aged man of a small town Motihari (the place of Mahatma Gandhi's Champaran Satyagrah), is dejected and dismayed for his family falling apart, and so sets himself on a mission to make amends for the mistakes he has done in the past. Shakuntala Devi, his wife, infuriated at herself for having devoted her whole life selflessly and arduously for her ungrateful family, wants to make up for the injustice she has done to herself, by living the rest of her life selfishly. Sarvesh, their asthmatic son, whose first marriage perished about a decade ago, is still struggling with both his career and his married life, and Nisha, their daughter, is married to someone whom she thinks she will never be able to love. The biggest threat to the already troubled family is Nisha’s ex-lover Kanhaiya Tiwari, who is the youngest corporator of the town, and has sworn to ruin the family. Shyam, Nisha’s husband, who is ‘the absorber of the emotions’, in keeping with his fluidity, writhes in pain but transforms time and again, in order to win his wife’s heart, while Savita, Sarvesh’s current wife, colludes with Kanhaiya Tiwari in his evil intent, in order to have all the strings of the family in her hands. Benighted in Sodom, they weave their web of Karma, and fabricate their fates, but the biggest sufferer in the ruthless game of dominance and survival are the innocent children of the family.The story tries to draw parallels between Digambar Babu’s disarrayed family and the disordered town. The novel is inspired from the real events happened in the town during 90’s era of jungle-raaj.

    Winter was coming quickly and in Minnesota, winters could be severe. What was the big rush? She wrote a letter to the governor of the state exposing the abuse at the orphan home but more importantly, the administrator was feeding poison to the infants. When she confronted the administrator with a copy of the letter, stabbing it to the top of his desk, and telling him she exchanged the nursery milk with his own, she had to leave immediately. She walked south for a hundred miles over several months when she became desperate to find a place to stay for the winter. She was told to avoid the Rex Morgan farm unless she wanted to be run off his land. As she left the town, it began to snow. An early winter storm turned into a blizzard. She was lost, cold, and hungry when she found a barn that had a bunkroom. Little did she know it was the very farm she was warned about.

    She's lost her home in a bomb attack, and with her husband in the army, her daughters evacuated to Wales, and her mother killed and father injured in the attack, Ruth is left to face the devastation alone. But she finds comfort in the camaraderie of the Civil Defence office where she works and in her friendship with Lucy, a clippie on the buses. Lucy's husband is at sea, and the two women dream of the day when they'll be reunited with their loved ones. But as victory approaches, Ruth finds that the legacy of war is more powerful than even she had imagined...

    

    

    Conflict threatens to dissolve the country in bitter strife if North and South cannot peacefully settle their differences. The calm serenity of life at Oaklayne Plantation near Richmond, VA is suddenly replaced with passionate friction between family members, as each person struggles through perilous situations encountered by each of them during a very difficult time in our nation’s history. Colonel Adam Layne is devastated but remains strong in his loyalty to the Union, despite being banished from the plantation by his father and deserted by his fiancée. The balance of his family stands strong with their father's Southern allegiance. "Oaklayne, a Civil War Saga" is a historically accurate portrayal of a man struggling to serve both his family and his nation in a time when those things are in conflict. The sequel to this book entitled "Oaklayne, The Reconstruction", is now available for purchase in print or e-book version!

    But then Evie stumbles upon sinister goings-on in the accounts department and, to her surprise and confusion, she realises her spiteful sister Florrie could be involved...Despite her career success, romance has always eluded Evie, and it is not until she meets Edward Bradshaw that she falls deeply in love. But why are their families so opposed to the union? And what is Evie's mother trying to conceal about the past?

    

    She is Marea Hoffman, who, after wandering the world for seven years, has returned to New York at age thirty with the intention of starting her real life.But Marea approaches everything in her own idiosyncratic style, and she is soon seeing four different therapists simultaneously and telling her story to each in a different way. The story she reveals is about her childhood in 1950s Princeton during the age of “duck and cover” drills and McCarthyism, when fear of communism obsessed America. Marea’s father, a Holocaust survivor, worked on the Manhattan Project and later on the development of the hydrogen bomb; her mother was a confirmed pacifist.Frightened by her early exposure to the threat of nuclear annihilation, young Marea finds comfort in the company of her father’s colleague and friend, the grandfatherly Albert Einstein. Einstein charms Marea even as he provokes the wrenching moral debate that will drive her parents apart. When Einstein disappears from Marea’s life as suddenly as he entered it and her father is killed in a mysterious car accident, she is left alone with a mother she no longer trusts and with questions that won’t go away.Nearly two decades later, during the August hiatus from her four therapists, Marea takes a reluctant trip home to Princeton. There her eyes are newly opened to the past when she uncovers her father’s secret Cold War diary.Weaving back and forth between 1970s New York and 1950s Princeton, Wenner’s exploration of the impact that history can have on a young life is powerful and moving—a deeply intelligent look at the challenge of finding hope in the modern age.

    35 pages of summaries and analysis on Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. This study guide includes the following sections: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.

     The widowed Lady Elfrida has achieved the impossible. She’s ensured her twelve-year-old son has become king, despite the gruesome murder of his predecessor and half-brother. While many blame the king’s mother, she looks to two rival noblemen as the real perpetrators. Even with the reappearance of an unwelcome enemy on England’s shores, Viking warriors, who attack and threaten the safety and security of England, and specifically, the young king, the two noblemen are far from resigned to Lady Elfrida’s power. As her son takes the final steps to become king in actions as well as name, she’s increasingly isolated by the deaths of allies and the scheming ways of others, including the king. Resentful of her continuing influence, Lady Elfrida faces banishment from Court with both fierce determination and acquiescence. The King's Mother is the first part in a new trilogy. Suggested reading order: The Mercian Brexit (short story and prequel) The First Queen of England The First Queen of England Part 2 The First Queen of England Part 3 The King's Mother

    Comes complete with a color photo section of scenes from the movie and a bio of the renowned film score composer John Barry.

    Lucius Marius Nola, a retired veteran of the Roman Army, inherits a farm in the Alban Hills on the outskirts of Rome. Nola is looking forward to a new life in the countryside, living off the land, and more importantly, escaping his violent and disturbingly troubled past. However, no sooner has Nola begun to enjoy life once again when, against his will, a strange turn of events draws him into a web of murder and intrigue. 'Twelve Miles From Rome' is the first of a thrilling series of ancient world mysteries featuring Lucius Marius Nola.

    A life altering event led Catrina Davies to hide from her family and society. Alone in The Highlands she exists in a lonely world cared for only by her savior, a kind old gentleman. When she receives a surprise visitor, Travis Millard, the man she used to love, her head and heart are thrown into turmoil. Travis is determined to save her from this poor life and return her to her family where she belongs. No one is more surprised than he when she agrees to marry him. When Catrina arrives back at her family estate, Davmoor Court in Yorkshire, she is stunned to see the changes. While her father clings to life, Davmoor is nearly ruined by her brother's gambling obsession, and there is something strange about his new wife. As Catrina adjusts to her regained position in society and being with Travis, her marriage comes under attack from Travis's grandmother, who has her own secrets and reason for loathing the Davies family. When one of her brother's adversaries comes to stake his claim on the estate, the resulting chaos threatens not only Catrina's home, but the very lives of those she loves the most. Can she find the strength to fight once more for the right to be happy?​