Book picks similar to
The Soldier and the Rose by Linda Barrett


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The Vow


Rebecca Winters - 2007
    If I get out of this alive, I vow never to let a day or night go by without telling you that.When his plane goes down in a Montana blizzard, pilot Nick Marsden is stranded with little more than notepaper, a pen and his memories. As he struggles to stay alive, he recalls the past in barely legible letters to his wife, Stefanie. It all comes back: their tumultuous high school courtship, the disapproval of family and friends, a separation that almost undid them and a loss for which Nick has blamed himself.Nick's always believed that actions speak louder than words. But now words are all he has. He must fight the odds again to return to Stefanie. And there are three words he has to say to her when he does....

The True Love Wedding Dress


Catherine Anderson - 2005
    Though tempted to stop the marriage using her secret magical skills, she instead ensured the groom's happiness by enchanting the dress so that whoever possessed it would be blessed with true love.But the spell went delightfully awry, working its magic for the servant girl instead of her mistress—and then the dress mysteriously vanished. Who knows where or when it may turn up next, for some blushing bride to claim as her very own?

Sentimental Journey


Barbara Bretton - 1990
    . . The first book in Barbara Bretton's beloved Home Front Series It's June 1943. From New York to California, families gather to send their sons and husbands, friends and lovers off to war. The attack on Pearl Harbor seems a long time ago as America begins to understand that their boys won't be home any time soon. In Forest Hills, New York City, twenty-year-old Catherine Wilson knows all about waiting. She's been in love with boy-next-door Doug Weaver since childhood, and if the war hadn't started when it did, she would be married and maybe starting a family, not sitting at the window of her girlhood bedroom, waiting for her life to begin. But then a telegram from the War Department arrives, shattering her dreams of a life like the one her mother treasures. Weeks drift into months as she struggles to find her way. An exchange of letters with Johnny Danza, a young soldier in her father's platoon, starts off as a patriotic gesture, but soon becomes a long-distance friendship that grows more important to her with every day that passes. The last thing Catherine expects is to open her front door on Christmas Eve to find Johnny lying unconscious on the Wilsons' welcome mat with a heart filled with new dreams that are hers for the taking. "This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny." --Franklin Delano Roosevelt ˃˃˃ A Desert Island Keeper - All About Romance Harlequin Award of Excellence4.5 stars - RT Top Pick! ˃˃˃ And the story continues with Stranger in Paradise (Home Front - Book 2) Buy your copy now!

The World That We Knew


Alice Hoffman - 2019
    In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. She finds her way to a renowned rabbi, but it’s his daughter, Ettie, who offers hope of salvation when she creates a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she and Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked.Lea and Ava travel from Paris, where Lea meets her soulmate, to a convent in western France known for its silver roses; from a school in a mountaintop village where three thousand Jews were saved. Meanwhile, Ettie is in hiding, waiting to become the fighter she’s destined to be.What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacrifice for love? In a world where evil can be found at every turn, we meet remarkable characters that take us on a stunning journey of loss and resistance, the fantastical and the mortal, in a place where all roads lead past the Angel of Death and love is never ending.

Same Time Next Summer


Holly Jacobs - 2009
    They grew up together, they were best friends until that magical summer when they were more than friends. That was years ago. When Carolyn's daughter lies in a hospital bed fighting for her life its Stephan who races to Carolyn’s side. And maybe this time, he’ll stay. Fans of Jacobs’ Just One Thing and Words of the Heart series will find this rerelease of her classic award-winning romance touches their heart. Jojo Moyes fans will love this story about the many faces of friendship.

The Orphan's Tale


Pam Jenoff - 2017
    She lives above a small rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep. When Noa discovers a boxcar containing dozens of Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp, she is reminded of the child that was taken from her. And in a moment that will change the course of her life, she snatches one of the babies and flees into the snowy night.Noa finds refuge with a German circus, but she must learn the flying trapeze act so she can blend in undetected, spurning the resentment of the lead aerialist, Astrid. At first rivals, Noa and Astrid soon forge a powerful bond. But as the facade that protects them proves increasingly tenuous, Noa and Astrid must decide whether their friendship is enough to save one another - or if the secrets that burn between them will destroy everything.

Crossing the Borders of Time: A True Story of War, Exile, and Love Reclaimed


Leslie Maitland - 2011
    In 1942 they made it onto the last boat to escape France before the Germans sealed its harbors. Then, barred from entering the United States, they lived in Cuba for almost two years before emigrating to New York. This sweeping account of one family’s escape from the turmoil of war-torn Europe hangs upon the intimate and deeply personal story of Maitland’s mother’s passionate romance with a Catholic Frenchman. Separated by war and her family’s disapproval, the young lovers—Janine and Roland—lose each other for fifty years. It is a testimony to both Maitland’s investigative skills and her devotion to her mother that she successfully traced the lost Roland and was able to reunite him with Janine. Unlike so many stories of love during wartime, theirs has a happy ending.

Harvest Moon Homecoming


Jessie Gussman - 2017
    Unless he enlists the help of Ellie Bright, the most annoying, disorganized and kissable woman he knows.Standing in Principal Fink’s office, again, for driving her daughter to school late, again, Ellie is given two odious choices. Either her straight A daughter receives detention for another tardy that’s not her fault, or Ellie uses her artistic skills and helps the uptight, stringent principal build a new float.As they scramble to construct the float in time, Ellie’s chaotic life collides with Fink’s methodical plans. A tangle of arguments and decorations leads to a stolen kiss. Underneath their long established animosity is an unexpected passion that threatens to ruin more than just a school float.Books in the Sweet Haven Farm series:1. Harvest Moon Homecoming2. Better Together3. Just Right4. Anything For You

Duty and Desire


Kristina WrightMercy Loomis - 2012
    When the mission is done, the unit is recalled or the ship pulls into port, they set their sights on a new target—the pursuit of passion and love. In and out of uniform, stateside and abroad, these military warriors meet passion and danger head on. All’s fair in love and war—in and out of uniform. Edited and with stories by Kristina Wright, wife of a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, Duty and Desire includes stories of U.S. soldiers, sailors, aviators, Marines and Special Forces (Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and many more. Uniforms have never been sexier!

The Secret of the Grand Hôtel du Lac


Kathryn Gauci - 2020
    He was sure he heard a noise outside. It sounded like a twig snapping. Under normal circumstances it would have meant nothing, but in the silence of the forest every sound was magnified. There it was again. This time it was closer and his instinct told him it wasn’t the wolves. He reached for his gun and quietly looked out through the window. The moon was on the wane, wrapped in the soft gauze of snowfall and it wasn’t easy to see. Maybe it was a fox, or even a deer. Then he heard it again, right outside the door. He cocked his gun, pressed his body flat against the wall next to the door, and waited. The room was in total darkness and his senses were heightened. After a few minutes, he heard the soft click of the door latch.” February 1944. Preparations for the D-Day invasion are well advanced. When contact with Belvedere, one of the Resistance networks in the Jura region of Eastern France, is lost, Elizabeth Maxwell, is sent back to the region to find the head of the network, her husband Guy Maxwell.It soon becomes clear that the network has been betrayed. An RAF airdrop of supplies was ambushed by the Gestapo, and many members of the Resistance have been killed.Surrounded on all sides by the brutal Gestapo and the French Milice, and under constant danger of betrayal, Elizabeth must unmask the traitor in their midst, find her husband, and help him to rebuild Belvedere in time for SOE operations in support of D-Day.

Not Our Kind


Kitty Zeldis - 2018
    Their encounter seems fated: Eleanor, a teacher and recent Vassar graduate, needs a job. Patricia’s difficult thirteen-year-old daughter Margaux, recovering from polio, needs a private tutor.Though she feels out of place in the Bellamys’ rarefied and elegant Park Avenue milieu, Eleanor forms an instant bond with Margaux. Soon the idealistic young woman is filling the bright young girl’s mind with Shakespeare and Latin. Though her mother, a hat maker with a little shop on Second Avenue, disapproves, Eleanor takes pride in her work, even if she must use the name “Moss” to enter the Bellamys’ restricted doorman building each morning, and feels that Patricia’s husband, Wynn, may have a problem with her being Jewish.Invited to keep Margaux company at the Bellamys’ country home in a small town in Connecticut, Eleanor meets Patricia’s unreliable, bohemian brother, Tom, recently returned from Europe. The spark between Eleanor and Tom is instant and intense. Flushed with new romance and increasingly attached to her young pupil, Eleanor begins to feel more comfortable with Patricia and much of the world she inhabits. As the summer wears on, the two women’s friendship grows—until one hot summer evening, a line is crossed, and both Eleanor and Patricia will have to make important decisions—choices that will reverberate through their lives.Gripping and vividly told, Not Our Kind illuminates the lives of two women on the cusp of change—and asks how much our pasts can and should define our futures.

Daughters of the South Wind


Aola Vandergriff - 1983
    But their story was no fairytale; for their father died on the trail and they were stranded, without money or means to go on. So, Tamsen McCleod became "Poppy Franklin," one of the girls at the cantina, to get the money to take her and her sisters to San Francisco. Soon, Em found a place in society--and in the heart of a prominent man; Arab danced her way into a life that promised love and a castle in Spain. But Tamsen's "other life" that had made it all possible now threatened to tumble all their dreams.

The Paris Seamstress


Natasha Lester - 2018
    Parisian seamstress Estella Bissette is forced to flee France as the Germans advance. She is bound for Manhattan with a few francs, one suitcase, her sewing machine, and a dream: to have her own atelier.2015. Australian curator Fabienne Bissette journeys to the annual Met Gala for an exhibition of her beloved grandmother's work - one of the world's leading designers of ready-to-wear. But as Fabienne learns more about her grandmother's past, she uncovers a story of tragedy, heartbreak and secrets - and the sacrifices made for love.Crossing generations, society's boundaries and international turmoil, The Paris Seamstress is the beguiling, transporting story of the special relationship between a grandmother and her granddaughter as they attempt to heal the heartache of the past.

The Golden Touch


Robin James - 1982
    Reprint.

A Perfect Family


Penny Jordan - 1997
    but one fateful weekend destroys it all.Three generations of Crightons have gathered at the family estate for a fiftieth birthday party. But the expected celebration turns into an ugly battle for power, with the family inheritance as the prize.Brothers become rivals and allies become adversaries as family scandals become the weapon of choice. Past love affairs, embezzlement scams--nothing is sacred and all secrets can be betrayed for a price.The Crightons' carefully polished facade is crumbling. Will they learn to accept their not-so-perfect family in time to save it?