How will history – and their families – judge them? Paris, 1940. With the city occupied by the Nazis, three young seamstresses go about their normal lives as best they can. But all three are hiding secrets. War-scarred Mireille is fighting with the Resistance; Claire has been seduced by a German officer; and Vivienne’s involvement is something she can’t reveal to either of them.Two generations later, Claire’s English granddaughter Harriet arrives in Paris, rootless and adrift, desperate to find a connection with her past. Living and working in the same building on the Rue Cardinale, she learns the truth about her grandmother – and herself – and unravels a family history that is darker and more painful than she ever imagined.In wartime, the three seamstresses face impossible choices when their secret activities put them in grave danger. Brought together by loyalty, threatened by betrayal, can they survive history’s darkest era without being torn apart?

    it is reading group fiction perfect for those who loved the quirky pathos of Gail Honeyman's ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE and the warmth and humour of Rachel Joyce's THE PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY.At 117 years old, Billy Binns is the oldest man in Europe and he knows his time is almost up. But Billy has a final wish: he wants to remember what love feels like one last time. As he looks back at the relationships that have shaped his life - and the events that shaped the century - he recalls a life full of hope, heartbreak and, above all, love.

    Now Jordan has come to Clayton County, North Carolina, where the latest in a string of kidnapping victims has turned up dead. Complicating the situation is the presence - and predictions - of someone who’s even more of an outsider than Jordan himself: carnival psychic Samantha Burke, a woman out of his own haunted past.Chill of Fear:FBI agent Quentin Hayes always knew he had an unusual talent, even before he was recruited by Noah Bishop for the controversial Special Crimes Unit. But for twenty years he’s been haunted by a heartbreaking unsolved murder that took place at The Lodge, a secluded Victorian-era resort in Tennessee. Now he’s returned one final time, determined to put the mystery to rest.Sleeping with Fear:A federal agent assigned to the Special Crimes Unit, Riley was a chameleon - a clairvoyant who could blend in with her surroundings. She’d been sent to the beachfront cottage on Opal Island by her enigmatic chief, Noah Bishop, to investigate reports of dangerous occult activity. But that was three weeks ago. Now she’s awoken to discover that she’s got a sexy new man in her life and an unreliable memory, and that the clairvoyant abilities she’s always depended on to protect her are MIA.

    If she’s not careful, Maggie’s old junk may wreck her new life. "Hutchins’ Maggie is an irresistible train wreck—you can’t help but turn the page to see what trouble she’ll get herself into next." Robert Dugoni, #1 Amazon Best-selling Author of My Sister's Grave Live Wire (Maggie #1): Washed-up alt-country-rocker-turned-junker Maggie Killian is pulled to Wyoming by an irresistible force . . . former bull rider Hank Sibley, the man who broke her heart fifteen years before. When she unexpectedly meets his Sunday school-teaching girlfriend at a saloon, Maggie seeks liquor-fueled oblivion between the sheets of a younger man’s bed. But after her beloved vintage truck breaks down and leaves her stranded in the Cowboy State, she learns her hook-up died minutes after leaving their rendezvous. Suddenly surrounded by men with questionable motives, Maggie searches for the murderer while fighting the electricity between herself and her old beau and her new penchant for local whiskey.Sick Puppy (Maggie #2): Junker and former alt-country-rocker Maggie Killian tucks tail back to Texas with Louise, the mutt her bull-riding ex foisted on her in Wyoming after he gave another woman his heart. Maggie runs straight to Gary Fuller—her long time best friend-with-benefits and the biggest Texas country music star since George Strait—but arrives too late to save him from dying in a fire. She just wants to lick her wounds in her own bed with nothing save a bottle for comfort, but Maggie’s short term renter refuses to budge from her home. Soon her small town sanctuary is overrun with Nashville bigwigs, Gary’s trailer park family, and grief-crazed fans feeding the fires of media speculation about the bodies in her wake.Dead Pile (Maggie #3): After Maggie Killian’s junker business goes into the shitter in Texas, the former alt-country-rocker packs up her vintage truck and rescue mutt for Wyoming and a sexy reunion with her ex, Hank Sibley. When she discovers Hank’s foreman unceremoniously dumped on the ranch’s dead pile—the repository for deceased livestock—deputies look no further than the ranch for suspects, especially the young Amish hand, Andy, who received a battlefield promotion of sorts. Because the two have bonded over his guitar lessons, Maggie worries about Andy, even as she is struggling to resolve her suddenly resurrecting musical past, the demolished business in her present, and the complexity of a future with a lover who has suffered from traumatic brain injury since his bull riding days, his disapproving sister, and his Alzheimer’s-stricken mother. ˃˃˃ See why Pamela wins contests and makes best seller lists. USA Today Best Seller #1 Amazon Best Seller Top 50 Amazon Romantic Suspense and Mystery Author Silver Falchion for Best Adult Mystery USA Best Book Awards Cross-Genre Fiction Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Romance, Quarter-finalist ˃˃˃ Once Upon A Romance calls Hutchins an "up-and-coming powerhouse writer." If you like Sandra Brown or Janet Evanovich, you're going to love Pamela Fagan Hutchins. A former attorney and native Texan, Pamela splits her time between Nowheresville, Texas and the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. ˃˃˃ The Maggie reviews are in, and they're good. Very, very good.

    The only child of the beekeeper, she knows her place and her future - until her father dies unexpectedly and leaves her bereft and alone. Alone, that is, except for the man she loves, whom she knows she can never have.Massachusetts, 1973: Grace's beautiful, impetuous daughter Trixie Valentine is in love. Jasper is wild and romantic, a singer in a band on the brink of stardom. Then tragedy strikes and he must return to his home in England, promising to come back to Trixie one day, if only she will wait for him…Weighed down by memories, unaware of the secrets that bind them, both mother and daughter are searching for lost love. To find what they are longing for they must confront the past, and unravel the lies told long ago…

    But soon Elenor discovers that Hitler's firestorm is not the only thing she must fear when she learns a devastating secret about Rose...With Rose's life in imminent danger, Elenor turns to the only person she can trust to keep the deadly secret, heroic Canadian pilot, Jackson St John. And amidst the destruction of war, an unlikely romance blossoms as they find a way to protect the child they have both grown to love...and each other.

    And then it descends upon them - the infamous Children's Blizzard of 1888. Who will survive?With characters from Rosette: A Novel of Pioneer Michigan , "Blizzard: A Story of Dakota Territory" captures in one sod shanty the dramatic effects of a storm on the bodies and spirits of people who have internal storms of their own.Cover painting and design by Betsy Marsch, illustrator and cover designer for Rosette: A Novel of Pioneer Michigan.

    He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.Fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this riveting saga of history, suspense, and love.

    But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France.   An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement. In a tense atmosphere of watchful eyes and suspecting neighbors, one false move can have dire consequences.   For the ambitious young German doctor, Herta Oberheuser, an ad for a government medical position seems her ticket out of a desolate life. Once hired, though, she finds herself trapped in a male-dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power.   The lives of these three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens and Kasia is sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Their stories cross continents—from New York to Paris, Germany, and Poland—as Caroline and Kasia strive to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten.

    The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government's new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians, and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give to those who have nothing, a bookly respite, a fleeting retreat to faraway lands.

    Increasingly enamoured with his work on the booming railway, Florence yearns to know more, but finds herself brushed away, encouraged only to perform the more ladylike hobbies of singing and entertaining guests. So when a dazzling young engineer walks into her life, she finds herself not only gripped by secret lessons in physics but swept entirely off her feet.Portsmouth, 1953: Fifteen years later, Florence finds herself pregnant and alone in post-war England – a far cry from her sun-drenched existence in India. Struggling to cope with the bleakness of everyday life in a male-dominated world, Florence is desperate to find the woman she used to be. But when someone from her past reaches out, Florence might just have a chance to start over.Soaring from the shimmering heights of the big top to the depths of heartbreak, can Florence find the happiness, independence, and passion she once had in order to start living again?

    Military science-fiction adventure at its best!---GABRIEL'S REDEMPTION, Book OneNorth American Federation Navy Commander Evan Gabriel was dishonorably discharged after losing his covert team on a far off world called Eden. Now, he’s being offered an opportunity to command a new team, on a new world, with a new mission, but the true motives behind the mission are unclear.From the decaying Caribbean to politically-charged South America, from the slums of Mars to a tiny colony on a planet six hundred light years from Earth, Gabriel's Redemption is a near-future military science fiction story of a personal journey seen from the perspective of a soldier who has lost everything; one who desperately needs to redeem himself not only in his government’s eyes, but also his own. Interstellar action and political intrigue mix with one-on-one battles on the surface of a frozen planet in this exciting tale of salvation.Approximately 66,000 words.GABRIEL’S RETURN, Book TwoOn the far-off icebound planet of Poliahu, North American Federation Navy Commander Evan Gabriel suffered the loss of several team members in order to free a native species and save his brother. Now he is being called away on a new mission by a friend in trouble, and by a name from his distant past. He and his surviving team must again travel across the galaxy to the planet where he lost his naval command, and his original team, so many years ago: Eden.Evan Gabriel must face three distinct threats on Eden: the well-armed terrorist group that has been raiding Eden City, the dangerous planet itself, and his own haunting memories of his past.Gabriel's Return continues the epic science fiction/adventure trilogy with characters new and old, devious political intrigue on the moon and Mars, and deadly jungle combat on Eden.Approximately 87,000 wordsGABRIEL’S REVENGE, Book ThreeA missile has no conscience. It is an inanimate steel object: cold, emotionless. But once ignited, it burns white hot inside, and cannot be shut off. Fired in combat, it has but one objective: the total destruction of its intended target. And it will only stop when its objective has been achieved, or it runs out of fuel.Not all missiles are made of steel.North American Federation Navy Commander Evan Gabriel thought it was over. Returning from a mission on the far-off world of Eden, he finds that Mars is in a state of political upheaval. Two major dome cities are now under the control of ambitious and ruthless men backed by the scheming South American Republic. Friends are in trouble, Renay Gesselli is missing, and the future of a world is in flux while rival governments bicker behind closed doors. From the ice-bound planet of Poliahu, to the dangerous jungle world of Eden, and back to his adopted home of Mars, Evan Gabriel has witnessed death follow him. Now, he's turning the tables, and no force would stand in his way.Approximately 80,000 wordsREVIEWS:“The action in this series rocks, complete with super-cool weapons and technology. Umstead takes a complex cast and gives them each a distinct personality that makes the team dynamic just great.” - L. Petersen“I am a huge fan of well-written science fiction, and the Evan Gabriel series hasn't disappointed... layered with dimension and feeling unlike quite a few other sci-fi titles out there.” - N. Holderby“Umstead has created what I can only describe as a Tom Clancy-esque world a few hundred years into the future.” - W.E. Linde

    On the dawn of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, two snipers find themselves fighting a battle all their own. One is a backwoods hunter from the Appalachian Mountains in the American South, while the other is the dreaded German “Ghost Sniper” who earned his nickname on the Eastern Front. Locked in a deadly duel across the hedgerow country of France, the hunter matches wits and tactics against the marksman, both of them one bullet away from victory—or defeat—as Allied forces struggle to gain a foothold in Europe.

    

    He has raised it to an art through the high craft of the Connable Method. Through it, he has managed to transform the ugliness of death into a thing of dignity and beauty. Victims brutalized by war, street fights, tavern brawls, ambushes, fires, every hazard in a raw West---these, in his hands, become presentable. Everywhere on the frontier, which erupts with life and death, he offers his skill: to the rich of San Francisco, the bawds and ruffians of the Barbary Coast, to Kansas cowboys, outlaws, soldiers, and sheriffs. He is devoted to dignifying the dead.She is devoted to making her marriage whole, in spite of the tragedy that surrounds it and, most especially, in spite of the tragedy that in one terrible afternoon strikes at its center.Today the undertaker is called to disguise the suicide of a famous financier. It is high drama, for only his art can save America's financial markets. Her task on this day is secret, an act of understanding and dedication.In the end, it is the undertaker's wife who, through love, is able to transcend death.