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    When she leaves for Moscow to audition for drama school, she defies her mother and grandparents and abandons her first love, Andrei.Before she leaves, Sasha discovers the hidden war journal of her uncle Kolya, an artist still missing in action years after the war has ended. His pages expose the official lies and the forbidden truth of Stalin’s brutality. Kolya’s revelations and his tragic love story guide Sasha through drama school and cement her determination to live a thousand lives onstage. After graduation, she begins acting in Leningrad, where Andrei, now a Communist Party apparatchik, becomes a censor of her work. As a past secret comes to light, Sasha’s ambitions converge with Andrei’s duties, and Sasha must decide if her dreams are truly worth the necessary sacrifice and if, as her grandmother likes to say, all will indeed be well.

    Fast forward three years to the present, Rachel has transformed "Rugmo and the Other Side of the Fence," to "A Wolf Pup's Tale;" a beautifully illustrated, enchanting children's book. It is a story about a young wolf pup, whose curiosity leads him to discovery, danger, and friendship.

    She has just lost her mother Tess and brother Mikey, her marriage to Joe is coming apart at the seams and her thirty-year friendship with Karen is on the rocks.While clearing out her childhood home, Carmel discovers that her mother gave birth to a baby in an Irish Mother and Baby home when she was sixteen, a place notorious for its mass burial of babies and illegal adoptions.Carmel goes on a quest for the truth about her troubled mother’s past. Her roller-coaster journey takes her from her comfortable Manchester home to the west of Ireland and to London's theatre land. It’s a journey that leads her to ask: Can we ever escape our own family history or is our destiny in our DNA?

    With her sights set on the flamboyant Sebastian and his sophisticated group, Marie is sure that things are about to change for the better. But when a chance encounter brings some unlikely characters into her life, things start to veer off course. Marie would never normally be seen with this bunch of misfits but to her annoyance they just keep turning up. As lives quickly become entwined and unusual friendships form, Marie realises that we don't always get to choose our friends; sometimes they choose us. Buoyed by her newfound friendships, Marie might even take another chance at love.

    With the help of her fiancé’s caring best friend, it’s sure to draw much-needed tourist revenue to Cape Hudson, a town rich in southern history.However, it’s Spring House, the caretaker’s cottage on the grounds, that holds the most intriguing history for Megan. In a cache of old letters, she’s drawn into the captivating life of a young woman who embarked on her own dream adventure a century ago. With each one, Megan is swept away into her enthralling world—and all its secrets. But Megan has secrets too.Now, as one woman’s past unfolds in each revealing letter, Megan will discover more about herself and about the emotional tides of family that can be weathered with those you love and trust the most.

    What happened all those years ago, and what is it she so desperately needs him to find? The old villa in Sonoma holds the answers, but it is now owned by a young woman who neither knows nor cares about his mission. But Rese Barret is a force to contend with, and her own impending storm could sweep him up as their sparring creates a fierce and uncomfortable attraction. From bestselling author Kristen Heitzmann.

    Dorothy Rose Nolte Hughes, however, hides a second diary under the polka-dot towels and causes quite a stir in the family. Her use of metaphor, alliteration, and analogies keep readers learning some new turns-of-phrase and laughing while uncovering some family truths that lay hidden from the world. Dottie’s daughter isn’t interested in the language and turn-of-phrase, however, only the secrets revealed to the one who finds the diary. Dottie’s favorite granddaughter, her husband, and their six dachshunds take care of Granny but her diary leaves them not only befuddled and confused but also excited and elevated in spirit. Moving back and forth between the granddaughter’s story-telling and the grandmother’s diary entries, readers are compelled to keep reading to the very end and learn about fairytales as part of the truth. Does the truth hide in fairytales and come forth when least expected or do fairytales hide in truth and just sort of spontaneously spew forth?Show more Show less

    Why not try some microfiction short stories instead? These bite-sized, slice-of-life short stories are crafted with only one hundred words, so they go by in a flash. Perfect for time-challenged fiction lovers, these humorous yet thought-provoking stories can be read when you’re waiting in line, riding the bus, or whenever you need a short mental break. Go on. Try some flash fiction. Grab your copy of 100 Tiny Tales today! 100 Tiny Tales: Short Stories Told in Exactly One Hundred Words is written by K. Kris Loomis, a native South Carolinian and the author of the novels, The Sinking of Bethany Ann Crane and The Murder of Leopold Beckenbauer, as well as the short story collection, The Monster In the Closet and Other Stories. Kris is also a nonfiction author who writes books about yoga, meditation, and the time she spent living in South America, including After Namaste: Off-the-Mat Musings of a Modern Yogini and Thirty Days in Quito: Two Gringos and a Three-Legged Cat Move to Ecuador. When Kris isn’t at her standing desk writing, she can be found playing chess, folding an origami crane, or practicing a Beethoven sonata on the piano. She lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina with her husband and two cats. You can connect with Kris at her website, www.kkrisloomis.com or her Amazon Author page, or find her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @kkrisloomis.

    Enduring the mess of her parent’s divorce, she finds escape in dance—the rigorous hours of practice, the exquisite beauty, the precision of movement, the obsessive perfectionism. Ballet offers her control, power, and the promise of glory. It also introduces her to forty-seven-year-old Maurice DuPont, a reclusive, charismatic balletomane who becomes her mentor.Over the course of three years, Mira is accepted into the prestigious School of American Ballet run by the legendary George Balanchine, and eventually becomes one of “Mr. B’s girls”—a dancer of rare talent chosen for greatness. As she ascends higher in the ballet world, her relationship with Maurice intensifies, touching dark places within herself and sparking unexpected desires that will upend both their lives.In the present day, Kate, a professor of dance at a Midwestern college, embarks on a risky affair with a student that threatens to obliterate her career and capsizes the new life she has painstakingly created for her reinvented self. When she receives a letter from a man she’s long thought dead, Kate is hurled back into the dramas of a past she thought she had left behind.Told in interweaving narratives that move between past and present, Girl Through Glass illuminates the costs of ambition, secrets, and the desire for beauty, and reveals how the sacrifices we make for an ideal can destroy—or save—us.

    Once in America she awakens to the stark difference between her dreams and the disillusioning reality of an immigrant’s life. It is her new friends, flamboyant cousin and her new found love that make life in the big city an unforgettable adventure. In America she encounters her wildly flamboyant cousin Isabelle who just happens to be the “IT” actress of the moment and the girlfriend of a notorious dangerous gangster. Isabelle introduces her to the enticing, glamorous but ultimately empty and deceptive world of fame and fortune. Annie falls deeply in love with Jack an extremely successful stockbroker haunted by the ghost of his past which threatens their future. In the end it is the knot that ties family and friends together that helps her through great adversity and devastating loss.

    

    Watkins was banished from his small Appalachian community after being unjustly accused of igniting a mining accident. With a little help from fellow riders of the rails, R.J. learned how to survive on his own, but eventually his train came to rest with the Benton and Walters Best Show in America, where R.J. cultivated his unusual talents.At seventeen, R.J. answered another whistle call of destiny, and he met the powerful McClennan family. Like a dazzling display of fireworks to their fourth of July picnic, R.J. provided the perfect blend of flavor for their family that had long since grew stale. But when he had hard time adjusting to the lavish extremes of the East Coast high society, R.J. learned to navigate their foreign world by completely transforming himself. A metamorphosis so complete that within a few short years he was the talk of the town, a man he barely recognized. Still all the talk was for naught because with the closing bell on a single autumn day in 1929, the McClennan fortune, which took generations to amass, was gone. To stop the head-on collision with destitution, McClennan’s eldest son, Cosmo, made a deal with a devil, but it fell upon R.J. to pay the dues. No longer able to afford the luxury of other’s opinions, R.J. shed his finer sensibilities and used every trick he learned along the way to save his new family. Will his efforts be enough or ultimately destroy them? From majestic corners hidden deep within the mountains to New York City’s finest ballrooms, Catching the Westbound chronicles the triumphs and tragedies of R.J. Watkins, a boy who came from nothing but with unparalleled determination, will, and resilience became the last great pioneer of industry. After a lifetime of traveling paths of decadence and despair, by grace alone, he discovered the road that would lead him home.

    While it might be okay for Sashy, it's certainly not what she envisioned for herself when she was sixteen. So when her boyfriend proposes to her during the reception, Flora makes a wish to go back and do it all over again. The next morning she wakes up to find that she has been given the ultimate second chance--she's sixteen again. As Flora navigates school, first loves--new and old--and discovers what it really means to make adult choices, will she stay in her new body or try and find her way home?--in Jenny Colgan's The Boy I Loved Before.

    Didn't want it to end. Great and different story line. - Christine This is a fantastic book that had me examining my own personal spiritual journey. Kudos to the author for writing such a heartfelt, inspiring work. - Verified Amazon Reader I absolutely loved the characters and the story. Their faith in God helped them through the trials they faced. The story is engrossing and very believable. Hope this book is a winner for the author. - Verified Purchaser "The story is emotionally gripping and pulls the reader along to see what will happen next. The best stories grab our emotions and don’t let go." -Judge's Commentary from 24th Annual Writer’s Digest Book Awards The Whispering of the Willows is an inspiring story full of twists and turns, freedom and redemption, the expected and unexpected. This book brings to light the struggles of young woman past and present. God’s goodness and provision flow from each page. --Linda Bottoms, Rocky Mountain Ministry Network Women’s Ministries Director A 1920s' saga of Emerald Ashby coming of age. Set against the superstitions and old time religion in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, author Tonya Jewel Blessing tells a difficult, yet redemptive story of a blossoming young woman who is accompanied by her friends and her foes on a journey towards hope and healing. Love weaves through gut-wrenching circumstances and dismal poverty where Emerald Ashby grows strong despite grievous wrongs committed against her. In this desperate historical setting, mysterious disappearances lead to traps set for the innocent. Now, when key individuals begin carving out a rescue plan, Emerald Ashby sets a few of her own traps. It's a page turner. In this ailing town. What will be their measure of success? Cleverly suspenseful and sweetly spoken, the storyteller's unassuming voice transforms an Appalachian trail of tears into holy terror against an evil that stalks the innocent. In The Whispering of the Willows, an Appalachian marriage practice might be compared to the modern sex trade which exploits young females. Not since Catherine Marshall's strong heroine named Christy, has an Appalachian drama come to life like The Whispering of the Willows. Includes: Bibliography and Book Club Questions. A novel for women examining the Old Time Religion. Coming of age in the Southern Appalachians. Necessary lies by Diane Chamberlain, though historical of the 1960s, is similar, as is the romance and drama of one summer by David Baldacci.